Controversial Jamaican reggae artist
Buju Banton's U.S. tour includes 14 cities.
Last week, concert promoters LiveNation
and AEG Live announced that they had canceled all of the scheduled
concerts by Banton at company-owned House
of Blues locations amid a furry of protest by gay rights
groups.
Banton is known for his violent
anti-gay lyrics. His 1992 hit Boom Bye Bye proposes pouring
acid on gay men and shooting them in the head with a submachine gun.
Four
House of Blues venues have been dropped from the tour.
Appearances in San Francisco, at the Regency Ballroom, and Los
Angeles, at Club Nokia, have also been scrapped.
The six canceled venues, however,
represent only a fraction of the cities Banton will tour this fall.
Banton will first appear at the
Trocadero in Philadelphia next Saturday. The show's promotion was
taken over by Jamaican Dave Productions after AEG Live dropped its
support, gay weekly Philadelphia
Gay News reported.
“We canceled the show, but the venue
and the co-promoter came to an agreement to go ahead with it,”
Michael Roth, spokesman for AEG Live, told the paper.
Banton is scheduled to appear at three
reggae festivals this fall, including the Annual Reggae Fest at the
Crossroads Nightclub in Bladensburg, Maryland on Sunday, September
13, the New Jersey Music Festival at the Riverfront Stadium in
Newark, New Jersey on Sunday, September 20, and the Jam Rock Music
Festival at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York
on Sunday, September 27.
In his native Jamaica, where being gay
is punishable by 10 years in prison, anti-gay violence is rife and
typically tolerated by the authorities. In 2004, Banton was tried
and acquitted on charges that he participated in the beating of six
gay men.
Venues that will host Banton include
the Lido Night Club in Revere, Massachusetts on Friday, September 18;
the Water Street Music Hall in Rochester, New York on Saturday,
September 19; The Nora in Norfolk, Virginia on Friday, September 25;
The National in Richmond, Virginia on Saturday, September 26; the
Majestic Theater in Detroit, Michigan on Wednesday, September 30;
Annies in Cincinnati, Ohio on Friday, October 2; Lifestyles
Communities Pavilion in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday, October 3; and
First Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Sunday, October 4.
Banton is also still scheduled to
appear at two large venues in the South.
In Atlanta, he will appear at the
Center Stage Theater on Saturday, October 24. And a Sunday, November
1 concert at Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Florida will cap the tour.
Banton appearances in Chicago and San
Francisco have drawn the loudest protests, lead by Chicago's Gay
Liberation Network. The group was behind the effort to close the
House of Blues concerts.