Serbian Music Festival Now More Depressing Than You Could Possibly Imagine

No matter how tricky your Coachella experience was this weekend–and we all know how hard it can be to find that rental Corolla when it’s 1 a.m. and the entire parking lot is covered with dust and other rental Corollas–just be glad you don’t live in Serbia. A few months ago, organizers announced that a giant three-day summer festival would take place this in the famously troubled country, with such acts as Metallica and Foo Fighters near the top of the bill; but as Pollstar reports, someone forgot to do the paperwork–a lot of paperwork:

The event, which was originally slotted for June 28-30, began as Road Fest To Peace Through Music and then morphed into Pure Fest To Peace Through Music.

It’s been dogged by controversy since Vujin announced a lineup including Iggy & The Stooges, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Daft Punk, The Prodigy, Jamiroquai, Deep Purple, Underworld, Motörhead, Tricky, Joe Cocker, and The Cult at a February 12 press conference at Belgrade Sava Centre.

It turned out some of the acts hadn’t been contacted, let alone contracted, and a Web site detailing the bill was quickly removed from the Web when [organizer Dragon Vujin] was asked to explain…

It turned out that he’d made offers to some of the London agents repping the artists on his bill, but all had proved reluctant to give a final confirmation or allow the act’s name to be used in ads until some binder or deposit payment had been received.

Perhaps Vujin should have listened to the advice of the late Bill Graham, who said you should never announce your terribly named festival without at least securing a few acts. According to the story, there are some big-name DJ acts that still might play the festival, and the Cult might participate after all, proving that as long as there’s a promise of a paycheck, Ian Astbury is down for whatever.

Serbian Festival Controversy [Pollstar.com]