WAVVES Cancel Rest of UK Tour Dates

Nathan Williams's pitiful, beer-soaked non-performance at Barcelona's Primavera Sound Festival was more of a mess than Psychedelic Horseshit's anti-Wavves rant, if you can believe it. Pitchfork recounts the final minutes of the crappy late night set and directionless, off-key musicianship:

Finally, fed up with Nathan's petulant behavior, Ryan ran out from behind his drumkit and poured a full cup of beer over Nathan's head. The act would be met with their most enthusiastic applause of the evening.

At 3:00 a.m. sharp, having dodged their share of bottles and even a shoe (neither Nathan nor Ryan was hit, although Nathan likely made impact with some unlucky attendee upon forcefully returning the latter object back to the crowd), the show mercifully came to a screeching halt: Ryan ran offstage, throwing his drumsticks at Nathan. Infuriated, Nathan screamed into the mic, "Come back here, motherfucker, we're not done yet!" Immediately, stage crew appeared, breaking down Ryan's kit. "Fuck!" Nathan shouted, "Stop doing that!" They didn't, so Nathan decided the show must go on. Helplessly, he strummed his guitar again, clearly intent on playing another song. But as he stepped back to the mic, he realized it had been cut. As the crowd booed, the house lights came up, and a defeated Nathan Williams threw his hands up and left, along with the few remaining attendees.

It was the band's second date on a European tour.

UPDATE: Nathan explains his behavior on the band's blog:

I think in the back of my head I knew I wasn't exactly mentally healthy enough to continue to tour the way I have been since February. Honest truth is this has all happened so fast and I feel like the weight of it has been building for months now with what seems like a never ending touring and press schedule which includes absolutely zero time to myself. I'm sorry to everyone who has put effort into this and to everyone who supported me. Mixing ecstasy valium and xanax before having to play in front of thousands of people was one of the more poor decisions I've made(duh) and I realize my drinking has been a problem now for a good period of time. Nothing else I can do but apologize to everyone that has been affected by my poor decision making. I made a mistake. Not the first mistake I've made and it for sure wont be the last. I'm human. Don't know why I chose the biggest platform I could imagine to lose my shit, but that's life. You live and you learn.



via Stereogum; Pitchfork