Concert canceled over safety concerns

Ghost tribute band cancels 2025 tour due to alleged threats, cyber-attacks

By Ryan Horton
Choctaw Times

A Halloween-themed performance slated for Oct. 25 at Harrah’s Okie State Room was recently canceled following online opposition escalating to alleged threats and cyber-attacks.

Ghost is a Grammy-winning Swedish rock band known for combining costumed theatricality, heavy metal, and occult-themed stagecraft.

Kiss the Goat is an Oklahoma-based Ghost tribute band that has been bringing the Ghost-inspired look, sound, and theatrical stage presence to some of the state’s intimate theatres this year.

However, the band’s plans to ramp up performances for the Halloween season has come to an abrupt end following recent opposition to the Harrah performance.

“First and foremost, we are a Ghost tribute band. We are not Ghost the band. I think some people are getting that confused. We are a tribute band specifically for the music of Ghost,” said a Kiss the Goat band member who prefers to follow the lead of the band Ghost by keeping his name out of print, and identifying simply as a Nameless Ghoul.

Nameless Ghouls are the instrumentalists of Ghost, using an alias to keep band members anonymous.

“We had booked a show there at the Okie State Room in Harrah, Oklahoma, with Kenzie, and had even gone up to visit with her and view the facility and shoot some marketing videos that we were actually about to release to the public,” said the Nameless Ghoul.

Band members say social media marketing efforts were ramping up for the final four weeks leading up to the show, and that’s when online opposition became vocal against the scheduled Harrah performance.

“We started getting a lot of people in that region that were unpleased with that type of show coming to their area, and they showed their disapproval of it with opinions, which we’re accustomed to that. We’ve seen some opinions and are perfectly fine with people having their own opinion. That escalated very, very quickly to a threat,” said the Nameless Ghoul.
“With any type of Incident like this, the same as the authorities do, we take every threat seriously. After that, we started seeing more involvement directed towards trying to shut down not only that show, but a show we were having here in Tulsa also.”

Band members say they reported the threats to the social media platform, but things had soon escalated to cyber-attacks against the Harrah theatre.

“We immediately reported that to the social media platform, so it was immediately reported as what it was, and we did see very fast action from them in handling the blocking or stopping of those type of comments made. I have no idea how deep their investigation or involvement was, but I do know they had stopped it and then several days after that, it may have been only one day, we received notification from Kenzie that both her personal page and the Okie State Room page had been deleted. We thought this may be part of the social media process, but come to find out, she had been hacked and whoever hacked those accounts deleted them.”

The Okie State Room Facebook page was recovered last week.

“She was able to regain a huge marketing tool for her. That’s where we were so upset. With how much she’s put in to rebuilding that venue, marketing it, and bringing great music there, we did not want to see all those efforts just completely deleted,” said the Nameless Ghoul.

“We take any type of threat like that extremely serious, and we thought putting the safety of our fans, the band, our techs, and the owners of those venues needs to come first. We decided we should cancel those shows and not be unsafe in this matter.”

Ed Childress, owner of Red Eagle Audio, assists the band with sound, video and other elements of production.

“We consider this an extremely viable threat and that’s why the band decided to air on the side of caution, because we actually believe that this is a viable threat, to maintain the safety of the venue, owner, fans and the band, we just didn’t think that there was any other option than to cancel the shows,” said Childress. “There’s a difference between negative comments and viable threats.”

The band canceled all 2025 shows scheduled and in negotiation.

“We respect you having a different opinion on this genre of music or type of band, but when those opinions become threats and start disrupting commerce, we need to take them seriously,” said the Nameless Ghoul.

The tribute band had their debut show earlier this year in Tulsa, and had successfully performed shows during their breakout tour.

“The shows we played in Tulsa prior had fantastic attendance, peaceful events, great connection with fans, nothing odd or abnormal at all,” said the Nameless Ghoul.
Band members say they don’t expect this setback to prevent them from continuing their misson to create a great show for people who enjoy the music and spectacle of Ghost.

“We were presented with this about a year ago so this has been in the works for over a year and it was a challenge more than anything. Could you put on a show that involved this level of production including costumes? Musicians that are capable of playing at this level with a mask on, which is tricky, and also do it with eight members in the band. The actual band Ghost has nine now, and we are at seven or eight plus four or five techs on top of that just to put this type of show together,” said the Nameless Ghoul.

“In college I did plenty of shows with drama and theatre and never thought you may actually need to use that one day. But it has been a challenge, and I think we’ve all learned from it and had a great time putting this together. So, we’re not going to stop moving forward. We want to keep putting that music out there, and put this show out there and see if we can really master the art of this kind of production.”

Kiss the Goat plans to resume performing in the spring of 2026.

“The plan is to continue booking. I think we start back in March at the Ritz in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The venue we had played before in a separate band and it’s a fantastic old theatre that’s been remodeled with great, fantastic sound and lights. So, we’re looking forward to that show quite a bit. Hopefully we can get some of these that were canceled rescheduled, and get some of them that were in the works finalized.”

While disappointed by some actions of bad actors, the band was pleased to see community and fan support following the cancellation of the Harrah show.

“We were really pleased with the outcry of support from the fans we received. We’ve had overwhelming support, and in light of this, a lot of the fans wanted us to continue to go on, but we can’t risk everyone’s health and safety,” said Childress.

Band members hope the social media climate will settle down as they look toward 2026 scheduling.

Meanwhile, the band they pay tribute to continues to gain popularity in the United States, which could assist Kiss the Goat in gaining public support.
Ghost announced a Tulsa show as part of their 2026 North American tour on Sept. 29.

“I was surprised to see them put Tulsa on their tour list. Sometimes Oklahoma can get overlooked, but it’s kind of ironic to see them put out their Tulsa date while this was going on,” said the Nameless Ghoul.

“I think their fame will draw more people to the music, and we’ve noticed in their marketing, they’ve seemed to have tamed down some of the imagery and words they used maybe five or ten years ago.”

The Harrah Chamber of Commerce shared a statement to the public on behalf of Okie State Room, while waiting for their social media page to be recovered.

“Booking a talented tribute band was never about promoting anything ‘satanic’ or hurting anyone’s faith. It was about putting on an exciting show for a night that’s supposed to be about fun, theatrics, and a little harmless creepiness. Ghost is known for their over-the-top style and storytelling, but at the end of the day, it’s art. It’s music. It’s performance,” read the release from Okie State Room.

“Unfortunately, the backlash has gotten to a point where we’ve had to cancel the show, and that’s incredibly disappointing. Not just for us, but for everyone who was excited to come out and enjoy the night for what it was, a celebration. To those who were offended: we hear you. But we also ask that you try to understand the spirit of what this event was meant to be. If we’re going to point fingers at one part of Halloween for being ‘too dark,’ then maybe it’s time to rethink how we approach the holiday as a whole. Let’s move forward with more understanding and less judgment. That’s how communities grow stronger, not by tearing things down, but by listening and finding common ground.”

 

 

 

 

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