UPDATE: Apparently Blackie broke out after refusing to pay the club a $198 food bill. Classy dude. Get the full skinny at SMN.

The cancellation of last week’s W.A.S.P. show here in New York was allegedly for very noble reasons – the promoters were charging fans extra for a meet and greet session, which is apparently a big no-no in W.A.S.P.-land – but why did the band cancel another concert last night, this time in Allentown, PA? Metal Insider’s Bram Teitelman (who cleverly suggests that W.A.S.P. must stand for “We Are Screwing Promoters”) did some investigating, and it seems that the reasons behind the cancellation were not quite as chivalrous this time around…

“If Crocodile Rock [in Allentown] was a Live Nation venue like Gramercy Theater [in New York], it would be understood why he might have pulled out of the show. However, Crocodile Rock looks like it’s booked independently, and not only were tickets only $12.50 in advance, it doesn’t look like there was any VIP package offered. A post on the band’s message board suggested that he canceled the Allentown show because the venue wanted too much of a percentage of the merch sold.”

So that’s not exactly sticking up for the fans, is it? In fact, it makes me wonder if I was right when I cynically suggested that the band may have been pissed that the NY promoter wasn’t giving them a big enough cut of the meet and greet fees.

Regardless, Bram hits the nail on the head when he notes that whatever the reasons for the cancellations, pulling the plug last minute on two shows in five days “is a dick move.” Axl Rose can get away with this kind of shit because idiots like me will always pay to see Guns N’ Roses no matter how many times he gives it to us in the tuchus, but if I was Blackie Lawless, I’d be doing whatever it takes to hold on to whatever fan base I had left. Pulling shit like this will make people seriously reconsider if they wanna even bother getting in the car for a W.A.S.P. show, y’know?

W.A.S.P. has another concert scheduled for tonight in Murrels Inlet, SC. I guess we’ll see if they actually play or not. If they don’t, I’d imagine this tour is just about done – the cost of driving from town to town and not actually getting paid is just going to be too much of a burden for the band to bear. And while that’s a bummer for W.A.S.P. fans, what did they really expect from the idiot who compared a liberal African-American to Adolf Hitler?

-AR