KITTIE bassist Ivana “Ivy” Vujic has sat out the band's performances on this year's ShipRocked cruise due to a prior family commitment.

In a statement, KITTIE explained that Vujic had honored a prior family engagement and would rejoin her bandmates for their appearance at the Sick New World festival in Las Vegas, Nevada in April.

ShipRocked 2026 sailed January 25-31, 2026 on board Carnival Horizon from Miami to Half Moon Cay, Celebration Key \u2014 Carnival's private cruise port on the island of Grand Bahama \u2014 and Nassau in the Bahamas.

Filling in for Vujic on ShipRocked was Rachel Gonzales of the Las Vegas band NEON KNIGHTS.

When KITTIE announced Ivy's ShipRocked absence, the band wrote in a statement: "For those joining us at @shiprocked this week, you may notice that Ivy won't be with us on this run.

Family always comes first, and she's honoring a prior family commitment, something we fully understand and support.

We're looking forward to being back together again at @sicknewworld in April." KITTIE drummer Mercedes Lander and guitarist/vocalist Morgan Lander spoke to Baby Huey and Chasta of the San Francisco radio station 107.7 The Bone about the band's decision to reunite in 2022, initially just for a couple of festival appearances.

Mercedes said: "We could not ignore the e-mails from [concert promoter] Live Nation in our inbox any longer.

Because we didn't have any representation for management, we didn't have any representation for our booking agents or anything like that." Morgan added: "But it wasn't just that \u2014 it was that more people were listening.

Spotify numbers were growing, and people just asking for new music.

And the voices just continued to get louder and louder." Continued Mercedes: "And we couldn't ignore them anymore.

And our plan was just to play a couple of shows and then be, like, 'Okay, bye.' That's the KITTIE universe \u2014 so it always ends up taking on a life of its own.

The band has been experiencing a remarkable resurgence across demographics since returning from their hiatus in 2022.

Their performances at major festivals including Sick New World, Welcome To Rockville and Sonic Temple have demonstrated the band's enduring live power, while their successful 2024 North American headline tour proved their enduring and undeniable ability to command stages as headliners.