After his show was canceled from Toronto venues, Croatian rock star Marko Perkovic, of band Thompson, performed yesterday at a hush hush gig in a Croatian community centre in Toronto’s west village.
Thompson, headed by Perkovic, has been accused of promoting fascism and sympathizing with neo-Nazism.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, has attacked the group for “glorifying” ethnic cleansing and genocide in its lyrics, with Thompson fans photographed giving a salute used by the Ustashe, a World War Two Nazi-allied regime.
The band was originally slated to play Toronto’s Kool Haus, but when owners were informed of the controversy the venue decided to cancel their November 4 appearance.
The show, however, went on.
Thompson’s Toronto-based tour manager, Marija Blazanin, sent emails detailing the under wraps new venue to ticket holders reportedly on the day of the secret show.
The band played for several thousand fans at the Croatian Centre.
Thompson, a Croatian hard rock band, will not be rocking out at Kool Haus tonight.
Their show has been cancelled due to concerns that the band’s frontman allegedly promotes Nazism. Marko Perkovic is accused of using lyrics embedded with slogans from a fascist group that ruled part of the former Yugoslavia during World War II.
“Lyrics that make reference to concentration camps and to throwing Serbs down a river, I consider that kind of problematic,” the Canadian Jewish Congress’ Len Rudner said in a Toronto Star article, as reported by Chartattack.com.
Kool Haus cancelled the concert because of the band’s controversy. The band is currently on a seven-city North American tour and is scheduled to stop in Vancouver on Nov. 16.
A rep for Thompson released a statement from Perkovic in which he says he has “always condemned the crimes of the Nazi regime that ruled parts of Croatia.”
This is not the first time the band has been prohibited from playing a show due to their alleged controversial views. They are banned from doing shows in the Netherlands.
It is also rumoured that fans of the group use Nazi salutes and wear clothes resembling Ustasha uniforms.
