Shinedown Ditches Date with ‘Rock the Country’ – Cancel Appearance

Shinedown has never been a seriously political band and often don’t have any bias as to who is listening to their music.  They’ve been massively popular for 20 years now and don’t necessarily need to up their profile any further.  The band has cancelled their ‘Rock the Country’ date due to feeling that particular concert may be too overtly political and not aligning with their vision of the band. 

Several artists have cancelled their appearance at ‘Rock the Country’ due to what they feel is an exclusive nature to the show, being mostly pitched to Republicans.  Shinedown issued a statement hoping those who love them will understand.

“Shinedown is everyone’s band, we feel that we have been given a platform to bring all people together through the power of music and song.

We have one BOSS, and it is everyone in the audience. Our band’s purpose is to unite, not divide. With that in mind, we have made the decision that we will not be playing the ‘Rock the Country’ Festival.  We know this decision will create differences of opinion. But we do not want to participate in something we believe will creature further division. And to our fans, thank you for supporting and believing in us.”

The message of unity was similar to the Grammy message from rock band Turnstile earlier in the week who addressed the U.S. issues with unity lately.  No skin off Shinedown’s back, they will continue to thrive in the future without ‘Rock the Country’. 

The festival is primarily country artists with a couple of rock acts involved as well.  Creed is the most successful of the rock acts scheduled to play ‘Rock the Country’ but it’s unclear whether they will stay on the bill due to the nature of the recent cancellations from others.