Morrissey refuses to play at ‘flesh-eating’ venue

REYKJAVİK - Agence France-Presse

Morrissey pulled out of plans for a concert in Iceland because the venue included a restaurant selling meat, his promoter in the Arctic nation said February 4, 2015. AFP Photo

British rock legend Morrissey pulled out of plans for a concert in Iceland because the venue included a restaurant selling meat, his local promoter said Feb. 5.

“We saw quickly that Harpa [concert hall in Reykjavik] would be ideal, but could not book it because there is a restaurant there. We let it be known and stopped further negotiations because he [Morrissey] would not play in a house that sold meat,” promoter Ragnheidur Hanson said.  

“The thing is, this concert was never booked, we were just beginning to check if any venue would fit,” she added.  

The singer and militant vegetarian, who had a hit album called Meat is Murder with his band The Smiths in the 1980s, criticized the concert venue in a comment to the online fanzine True to You.
    
“I love Iceland and I have waited a long time to return, but I shall leave the Harpa Concert Hall to their cannibalistic flesh-eating bloodlust,” he told the fanzine.  
 
The concert venue said there had been no discussions about a meat ban because plans for a Morrissey performance were dropped at an early stage.  

Morrissey caused a stir in another Nordic country in 2011 when he compared the massacre in Norway of 77 people by the right-wing extremist, Anders Behring Breivik to the fate of animals bred for fast food companies. 

The legendary British singer was in Istanbul for a concert in last December and has requested that no sale or consumption of meat or meat products be permitted in or outside the concert area.