BREAKING: NYC Oi! Fest Show gets Shut Down by Venue

This is the second time in three months the Black Bear Pub has hosted a neo-Fascist event, and this time people said enough. Mad props to all that helped get the word out!

UPDATE: Word is getting out that they found a new venue, Santos Party House, which is owned by singer Andrew WK and where they had the event last year. For more information, click here.

BROOKLYN, NY – The Black Bear Pub announced on its website Sunday morning that the NYC Oi! Fest, which was seen as a neo-Nazi event and had sparked outrage, has been canceled on its second day.

“Tonight show oi,s (sic) show/fest have been cancelled! Thank you”, is all that was written just over two hours ago at the time of this posting on the bar’s Facebook page. The Oi! Fest was supposed to be a two-day event and had taken place Saturday evening, but it was only hours before it started that promoter Dennis “Fed Up” Davila revealed the location of the show. Davila, who in recent years has been associated with neo-Nazi bands and scenesters and have had other shows shut down by venues when they learned they would feature such bands, kept the location secret for months fearing another shutdown.

When the Southern Poverty Law Center posted an article on the Oi! Fest on Friday, noting the promoters and bands’ association with the Rock Against Communism (RAC) campaign that was started by the UK neo-Nazi organization National Front, it shocked people who did not realize that such a show was taking place in New York City, and that many of the participants, including Davila himself who is Hispanic, were and persons of color and Jewish, yet subscribing to neo-Nazi activities.  In fact, the Black Bear Pub initially attempted to use the fact that there were persons of color there to defend the show on Facebook, even posting pictures of them to refute the neo-Nazi charge. One of those pictures however, was of two men of color posing with someone wearing the shirt of the Wrongdoers, a neo-Nazi band from Finland that played last year’s Oi! Fest.

Videos of one of the bands that performed, Offensive Weapon, who’s lead singer is seen wearing a T-shirt of the British neo-Nazi band English Rose, shows them doing covers of other neo-Nazi bands such as Brutal Attack, Spain’s Division 250, and the Youth Defense League (YDL), dedicating the performance of their song “New Glory” to YDL member “English” Nick Solares who was recently put on leave from his position as editor of the foodie blog Eater when his past as a neo-Nazi was discovered.

This is not the first time the Black Bear Bar has seen this kind of controversy. In March, the venue was the New York City stop for the Project Equinox tour sponsored by Heathen Harvest, a webzine organized by racial separatists. Many posted on the bar’s Facebook page that after this second event, they will no longer patronize the establishment despite the cancellation.

Friday evening, Davila, who promoted this event through his company United Riot Records, held a pre-party at big pre-party at the Red Star bar in Greenpoint. Calls to both the Red Star and the Black Bear were not answered when someone would call during their respective events.