Pet Shop Boys' Gay Concert Fest Canceled

07/02/2001 3:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Neal Weiss

(7/2/01, 3 p.m. ET) -- A gay-themed concert tour featuring the Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, Rufus Wainwright, and others has been postponed just two weeks before it was to kick off. A terse note posted Monday (July 2) on the tour's official website (wotapalava.com) reads: "Wotapalava is moving to next year. Ticket refunds will be available from original point of purchase. We will publish further information about this ASAP."

Calls to the tour's spokesperson for further information were not returned at press time.

The Wotapalava Festival, billed as "the first openly gay music festival to tour the United States," was to kick off July 13 in Miami and reach 18 destinations in just under a month. Other acts slated to appear were indie-rock cult favorites Magnetic Fields and dance diva Grace Jones.

Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O'Connor was also initially on the bill, but bowed out last month due to "unforeseeable family commitments." Ironically, word surfaced a week later that the controversial artist, who came out as a lesbian in 2000, would marry a British journalist next summer.

-- Neal Weiss, Los Angeles

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