ULI JON ROTH Forced To Postpone North American Tour Due To Visa Issues
Архив новостей | Русская версия
Legendary German guitarist Uli Jon Roth has been forced to postpone his previously announced North American tour due to visa issues.
The trek, which was schedule to kick off in late May, was slated to celebrate a rare triple anniversary:
* 40th anniversary of SCORPIONS' "Tokyo Tapes"
* 40th anniversary of the birth of ELECTRIC SUN
* 50th anniversary of Uli's first-ever stage performance in 1968
Said Roth in a statement: "We're very sorry, but our tour of North America will have to be postponed now until a later date. We are forced to do this, because our work visas, unfortunately, didn't get issued on time to do this tour. As soon as we have the visas cleared, we will set up replacement dates and will keep you posted. All VIP passes will remain valid indefinitely until we get to play these shows. We hope that your schedule allows you to attend these new dates!
"We were all really looking forward to playing this special 'Triple Anniversary' program for you! But I promise we will make this happen as soon as possible.
"The visa situation has been getting worse year after year in recent times and this makes it very difficult for foreign artists to perform in the U.S. now. The same thing is currently happening to a lot of other artists, too, and several tours like ours had to be cancelled last minute at great expense to the bands and their American partners.
"We were told the percentage of work visas to the U.S. not being issued on time has suddenly increased by 1400% (!!!) since February this year… If this is true, this figure speaks for itself. It seems, now for the first time, we are caught out by this, too. (There was a visa delay on a tour with Yngwie in 2014 which resulted in a cancellation for me, but that was because of technical reasons and the visa was not denied.)
"We have played everything by the book, applied as early as we could, paid to have our visas expedited, employed the best immigration attorneys, have moved mountains, jumped through a veritable amount of hoops and STILL got delayed this year so far!
"We are confident that the visas will come through sooner or later, but until then we must be patient and move on to other things. I know that some of you had already booked flights and hotels, which must be very disappointing and annoying. I'm truly sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you!
"Please keep your fingers crossed that we receive the work visas soon! Stay tuned!"
To celebrate this special anniversary year, Uli will perform a whole series of concerts and tours worldwide with varying programs.
Uli's two-month "Triple Anniversary North American Tour" was slated to be devoted to performing a complete set of songs from Uli's ground breaking ELECTRIC SUN period.
"Electric Sun Reborn" was to consist of an intense 90-minute set by Uli and his band, complemented by multi-media projections. This was supposed to be followed by an intermission and a shorter set of the highlights from "Tokyo Tapes Revisited" to round off the three-hour extravaganza.
