"There is no date in AZ I was given the wrong info for our release and it was a mistake," says the band's publicist, Carleen Donovan of Press Here Publicity.
Asked whether there will be a later announcement of Arizona shows Donovan, part of a firm representing more than its fair share of boycotters, said simply, "There will not be."
However you slice it, this is a major victory for Sound Strike, a group formed after Arizona's extremist state legislature passed a law mandating racial profiling of suspected undocumented migrants last year. The law was blocked by courts before it could take effect -- much like an "eerily similar" California law, Prop 187 -- but the boycott continues, much to the apparent surprise of acts like My Chemical Romance and Steve Earle who also announced Arizona shows by "mistake" then backed out of them.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I never thought something like this would happen.
Whatever you think of their methods (I oppose both the boycott and the law that prompted it) the Sound Strike coalition deserves credit for maintaining their momentum long after the main catalyst for their movement was made moot by courts.
I
never thought a show this large sponsored by one of the nation's promotion titans would be axed, and have previously argued that mostly small shows have been affected. That was obviously an underestimation, and I have been proved wrong. Clearly, at least one very large show has now fallen to the boycott.
Congrats to the Sound Strike on this one...