The Australian band POND have canceled their planned North American tour dates after frontman Nicholas Allbrook’s visa was not approved by the United States government. The group, who previously toured in the States this past fall, were set to return this month for another run of dates, but last week they announced they would have to cancel their shows in Nashville and Atlanta, which included a stop at the Shaky Knees music festival.

“We applied for Nick’s visa over three months ago, but because of back-logs and bureaucratic bullshit due to the pandemic, he has still not yet been approved,” they wrote at the time. “We can’t do these shows without him.”

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure that the rest of the tour continues as promised and crossing our fingers we will hear about the approval this week so we can get on a plane to see you,” that statement continued. “We will update you by the end of this week with more news, good or bad.”

POND were supposed to open for the Pixies tomorrow night in Denver, but they just announced that they have had to cancel their entire May tour, including a couple dates in Mexico that were not financially feasible due to the extra travel required.

“Hi Guys – We are so extremely devastated to have to make the announcement that we can’t proceed with our North American tour due to Nick’s Visa not being approved,” they wrote. “All tickets will be refunded in full at your point of purchase. In our last post we noticed a lot of questions so we’d like to address those and explain exactly what has happened.”

The statement continued:

Our Visa Attorney and Management began the (wildly expensive) process of Nick’s Visa renewal (while his other Visa was still valid) almost a year ago on July 6, 2022.
Nick had his interview in February in Sydney and based on our previous experiences he should have had his Visa issued by now. In the past it’s taken 2 weeks to a month to receive approval after the interview process. The post Covid world has made these processes much more grueling, expensive and as it turns out extremely slow. 

We spent this past weekend trying to find a financially viable way to make this tour work without the shows in the US, but have been told it’s not possible with the cost of freight and flights. 

This wasn’t the outcome any of us were hoping for or expected. We have been practicing a new set with new songs that we were so excited to play for you guys. 

To everyone who bought tickets, thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, we wish we could be with you this month – this is what we love to do, it’s what brings us life fun and wonder – but powers that be wouldn’t let it be. we promise we will get back to the states AND MEXICO as soon as possible.

We love you x te amamos x
Pond

Earlier this year, musicians raised concerns about a pending price increase of visas for foreign musicians touring in the US, which would potentially cause them to cost 250% more than they currently. The public call to action period has already ended, though no official policy changes have been made yet.