As I Lay Dying seem set to court more controversy with their latest show booking. The group are scheduled to perform live on March 23rd at Zappa in Tel Aviv, Israel as part of their run celebrating 20 years of their third studio album “Shadows Are Security“. Few international artists have taken to performing in that country since Israel-Gaza war broke out on October 07th, 2023.
As I Lay Dying‘s divisive vocalist Tim Lambesis commented on the decision to play the show in reply to an individual on the below Instagram post. He stated:
“Just to be clear, we are traveling across the world to perform with some of our friends in another great band for people that see past government control and want to unite over music.
If disagreeing with the government meant I could not perform music, then I would not be able to play music in my garage or my home studio. There wouldn’t be able to be any AILD music at all”
When another user asked Tim if he intended to, “play in Palestine as well?”, Tim responded: “If it was safe to go there I would be down for sure.”
Lambesis also replied to another user who commented, “Why? Lol there’s literally no original members from that album besides Tim.” Lambesis‘ reply read: “In all fairness the entire record was made by just me and one other guy, so even 2005 AILD only had 2 people responsible for that record.”
After another chaotic mass exodus of members back in November of 2024, Lambesis once again rebuilt the roster for his metalcore outfit, releasing new music and returning to touring last year. However, that time on the road also drew criticism, after As I Lay Dying opted to play two shows in Russia during it. Few western artists have taken to performing in Russia since the country’s ongoing war with Ukraine fully kicked off back in 2022. As I Lay Dying were not deterred by the pushback and now intend to return to the country next month for a full-fledged arena tour.
