Unfortunately Earthside cancels ProgPower Europe 2016. A replacement will be announced within the next few weeks.

Below the official message from Jamie, guitar player of Earthside:

"To our beloved PPE community,

I still remember getting the first email from René out of the blue thanks to our European publicist Lulu mentioning our name to René late last Summer. Earthside was less than 2 months away from releasing our debut album, and to that point we had played but one show in our home town with no sign of any tour opportunities coming our way. We were very fearful that our baby that we'd spent multiple years composing/recording/polishing would be born to the world with no one taking notice. Record labels had passed us over and declined to release our album because they assumed that we couldn't play live, even though we knew that not to be the case and only needed an opportunity to prove ourselves. And amidst all that, a man an ocean away was willing to take a risk on us with his prestigious festival in the country of my ancestry and that I root for every 4 years in the World Cup (my last name is van Dyck).

While we'd have to wait a year to actually experience the gratification we were feeling, we were ecstatic to have a confirmed show in a country/continent that we had longed to play - a dream that had seemed like some sort of farfetched surreal unattainable fantasy before René's invitation. We cared not about the costs. We knew that we needed an opportunity to prove that we could put on a great live show despite our guest vocalists model and show labels that we were willing to travel. We had never done any of this before and didn't know the factors we needed to weigh to make such a decision...only that this was finally our break and that we had to say yes!

At the same time as being excited, we were also quite anxious and felt immense pressure for our album to be a success - a pressure that we still feel to this day. Compared to any unsigned band's debut album, our album was unprecedented in scope, invested time, invested money, and the level of perfectionism with which we drove ourselves crazy to achieve. We were unwilling to compromise any facet of our vision as we wanted to make a record that we knew we would be proud of for the rest of our lives - a noble goal for anyone to have in whatever field they're in, I'd say, is to know that no matter what happens, you'll be proud of what you did/created/accomplished. That said, while that was the bear minimum of what we'd accept, with everything that we'd put into it, we felt a need for this record to be big in order to justify everything we put into it. With our big dreams came expectations of widespread exposure, extensive touring, and ample opportunity...things that we didn't expect to be handed to us, but a level below which we would not accept without a fight.

With our album now turning 1 year old this Fall and still without an extensive tour under our belt, we needed this Fall to be something big given everything we've put into this record. This felt like the final season during which our album would be new enough to squeeze some real life out of it...if we waited any longer we'd be too far removed from its release to continue pushing it. While ProgPower was to be the highlight of our Fall, we needed our Fall to be more than just that one show. The problem was that it was blocking every opportunity that we were getting, and the opportunities that we could have built around it were falling through and not working out. It would have been ideal if we could have built a great European tour around PPE as the tour's centerpiece and highlight, which we tried to do for many months. We had a tour opportunity as a supporting band for a major, major act nearly locked in that would have been huge for us, but a little over a month ago, unfortunately this tour was canceled by the headliner for economic reasons. We were desperately searching for a tour that made sense for us to do. Chaos Divine had kindly invited us onto their tour months ago, but they'd already added Votum in the place where we would have been by the time we learned of the other tour falling through, and we probably needed to support a band who was bigger than us in Europe anyway, rather than a band who's from even further away than we are and at a similar level in terms of number of fans. With everything we've put into this album and our general model of thinking big, we needed to support a band with a larger audience, especially with the travel expense to Europe in mind. We were waiting to hear back from one more major tour, a response we never got after several weeks of corresponding, and we were realizing that we were facing the prospect of paying $8,000-10,000 USD to play just one show. For those of you who've seen us live before, you may have noticed that we have a very specific live setup that involves far more than being able to use the festival's backline or easily/cheaply acquirable rental equipment in order to dynamically perform all the different sound worlds of our album and to depict our collaborators who fill out many of the songs that we would want to play. We wouldn't be using the amps/cabs provided by the festival as that's all built into our rack units. René generously offered to provide a projector/screen for the festival that would greatly accommodate us, but we still probably would have lost money in the above range even with merch sales factored in (and yes your incredibly generous, passionate, rabid reputation precedes you all ). Also, we would have only turned a small profit on the merch given the cost of getting it all shipped over there or the baggage fees in bringing it over, also with the original manufacturing costs factored in. Even if we sell less merch on this upcoming North American tour with Leprous, the cost of bringing it to each show is so much less that it's more bang back in our pockets relative to the loss of inventory.

Before we would have dropped off the festival, we were looking to consider other options in terms of gear rentals to recreate our very specific live setup, last-minute hail mary tour opportunities in Europe, crowd funding to help supplement some of the costs, and anything we could that might have made this financially work so that we could keep our commitment to you. But just when we were about to begin extensively looking into these various options, Leprous wrote us inviting us to be their direct support for their Fall North American tour after another band who had been slated to do it for months had to drop off at the last second. Leprous was wanting to announce the tour within 3 days and told us that we had but 24 hours to make that decision or that they'd have to move on and find someone else to fill the slot. We were torn as the Leprous tour was a great opportunity, but we felt that we still wanted to do everything in our power to make PPE work. But if we were to turn down the Leprous tour, we would still face the uncertainty of whether we could pull everything off to still have a Fall that we felt was a success and make the most of all we'd put into our debut album campaign. After much deliberation over what was by necessity a very short period of time given Leprous's timeline, we made the painful decision to go with the sure thing which for us was the Leprous tour. We then immediately began working on the email that you've seen on the PPE website to René so that we could notify him immediately to ensure that he would not learn of Earthside's bowing out of our commitment through Leprous's tour announcement. We banged it out, gave it a quick once-over and sent it out to convey the news as respectfully and as quickly as we could.

On our tour with Leprous in Europe this past Spring, we got to experience firsthand how incredible the PPE community is. You all are the last people that I or any of my bandmates would want to disappoint. I remember on April 1st in Den Bosch taking the stage and recognizing so many familiar faces that I'd seen online and first encountered in this very Facebook group, with many proudly wearing their PPE shirts. I remember giving the PPE community a shoutout that night and feeling like we were a part of something so meaningful and part of an arts culture that simply does not exist in our home country. It's something unique that we certainly don't take for granted, and we know that we have to earn that kinship through our actions in order to continue to be a part of it.

I saw in some of the replies to René's announcement...comments that had sarcasm indicated by quotation marks, "I'm sure they're "heartbroken" just like everyone says and Caligula's Horse said last year.' It upsets me to think that any of you would doubt our disappointment in not getting to join you for this incredible weekend of music. I don't know any of the guys from Caligula's Horse personally, but I'm sure they sincerely meant it when they said they were very upset, as are we. Why wouldn't we be? You love and care about this festival so much for a reason - because it's fucking incredible. You fiercely protect it as a rare treasure because it really is that special to you, and don't think for a second that I didn't want to hang out with you guys for a weekend of connecting through an appreciation of a breadth of rich, diverse, emotional music. I hope that those of you who have spoken to me and met me know that these relationships and shared experiences are some of the most gratifying I have had in my life as a musician. I couldn't wait to enjoy a full weekend of that, being among you while you're all in your version of heaven on earth.

My biggest regret in all of this besides not being able to play the festival for my own experience and disappointing many of you is that we made the commitment as a band with no professional experience and no professional team advising us. Now that we have newly taken on management and have some industry/touring experience of our own, we now have so much clearer a vision of what allows a band like us to be sustainable and create albums and play shows for years to come. We certainly aren't entitled to a second chance, but if you guys and René will ever have us back, we'd be delighted to do it right this time whenever that time comes, and hopefully make things right with many of you whom we value so dearly. To drop names of people specifically would be to egregiously omit someone whom I'm forgetting, but I'm sure many of you know who you are, and I hope that you feel that love and affection from us.

We don't expect that this message will make us absolved of all guilt or unworthy of criticism, nor do we think that it should. I remember reading that somebody called our decision "weak," and I wouldn't disagree with that person, even though she was reacting to our fired-off email rather than what was meant to be our statement. Still, she's not wrong. Any band who breaks a promise to a community who cares as deeply about music as you, barring a very major reason (one that we wouldn't wish on anyone such as a death in one's family or something of a similar level of severity) should not do so lightly and without expectation of consequences. We own that and totally understand it. But to me, the most important things that I want to express in all this message are 1) how much so many of you mean to us, and 2) the reasons why we felt that we had to make this difficult decision, regardless of whether that makes it the right decision in your eyes. My goal is not to convince you that it was...simply to let you know that it hurt us to make it and that we want to seriously make an effort to do right by all of you, however such an opportunity may present itself to do so. And as I've made known in this Facebook group before, please feel free to private message me if you'd like to express any feelings, criticisms, doubts, questions, suggestions for future, etc. I believe personal conversations are the way we learn best from this experience and also best show you how serious we are about wanting to make this right for any of you that we've let down.

I want to congratulate In Mourning on this great opportunity and express our happiness for those of you who are excited to see them. And finally, I want to wish you all a great time this year. Know that we'll be thinking of you while you're in Baarlo and we're in New York, each immersed in the very thing that we all love most - connecting and forming communities through that inexplicable and unparalleled feeling when we share that experience of beautiful, honest live music. We hope to be in the same place to do just that with all of you someday soon.

Love,
Jamie (on behalf of my Earthside mates)"

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