FFS readers!! I have literally just got home after driving to Manchester for a gig that was cancelled half an hour before I got there*, a round trip of 90 miles. No fault of the band, venue or staff – apparently a huge burst water main meant that no clean water was available in the whole area.
Mrs 1537 and I were attempting to see Yannis & The Yaw at the New Century Hall. Yannis & The Yaw are a side project by Yannis Philippakis of the Foals, what makes them rather great is that they are an Afrobeat group and the late, great Tony Allen appears on their excellent debut EP Lagos Paris London. They really tick all my boxes and I was looking forwards to dancing with sweaty abandon tonight.
In 40+ years of gig going this is only my third ever cancelled gig, which looked at objectively is not too bad a strike rate. Yannis & The Yaw join an exclusive trio of the Rolling Stones (Wembley) and Korn (Bristol) as my only other cancellations.
Dear readers, who has cancelled on you over the years? entertain me please, show me I’m not alone.
1257 Down (still).
PS: was also really looking forward to going to the reopened New Century Hall for the first time too, a classic small old venue that had seen the likes of Hendrix back in the day.
*that I only discovered this after paying £12 for parking was the fucking gilding on the MF-ing lily.
Went to see Guy Clark and Townes Van Zant. Townes didnt make it through the border. Guy soldiered on. Great show which I could only wonder how much better it would have been if TVZ made it.
At least you got 50% of what you paid for though.
Actually no complaints. How about the shows where the band shows up physically and leaves any semblance of care or try in he dressing room? That grinds my gears.
Only had that once or twice. I’d rather they cancelled to be honest.
Agree
PS I have a pretty high average for quality shows I’ve caught. Most have been very good to fantastic.
Cancelled Gig Blues is a tune I know well. I’ve had tickets to see Ozzy since 2019 which I know I’m never gonna get to use. My wife’s fave band split up two hours before their show at the Tiv a couple of years ago. We’d planned a whole weekend around it and were already checked in at our hotel and on our way to the venue when they posted on the gram. I missed Pearl Jam at Spurs this summer because Eddie got Flu. Green Day in Camden because Billie got flu. Never saw Pete D with the Libertines despite having three valid tickets. I can count dozens of cancelled shows among my ‘shoulda woulda couldas’ but we forgive them. Because they’re people, just like us.
(crosses ‘Go to gig with Steveforthedeaf one day’ off bucket list)
I remember you coming up to the Tiv, I thought it was for Massive Wagons though?
My 3 cancellations is looking okay now. Thanks Steve!
Wagons was take 2
Those illness cancellations remind me of another one – Daisy Chainsaw. A couple of days before we were due to see them, they did a live radio show and Katie Jane completely blew her voice out live on air. She managed to splutter “my voice is completely fucked!” before stopping singing, and lo and behold, their next few gigs got cancelled and they split soon after. Was gutted about that one.
Katie Jane Garside (?), and a bloke called (from memory) Quentin, or Tarquin? I liked them in a very casual fashion and own a single by her next band Queen Adreena. There’s a deep memory.
Deep Purple and an Eliza + Martin Carthy gig spring to mind. Might have been others. The Carthy one ended up just being a lovely day out to Edinburgh regardless. Purple was rescheduled and ended up being one of the worst gigs I’ve ever seen.
I like that you probably had a better day without the gig to interrupt it. When was the Purple, it sounds bloody dire?
Can’t remember… early 2000s I think.
Neil Young and Crazy Horse have cancelled on me twice, once in Liverpool which I flew 6000 miles to see and once in Bend Oregon which is a lot closer. Roy Harper also cancelled on me so he could watch Manchester City on the television. I then drank my weight in the Swan and went home.
I think there may have been others but my memory is failing.
Covid cancelled my Billy Bragg gigs but I don’t blame him.
Write a scathing, yet happy-go-lucky song about this immediately and embark on a new career as the voice of a generation. Don’t forget to make it sexy to sell more copies.
6000 miles … wow. Blows my 90 off.
To be fair I was going to other things too.
Manchester, so much to answer for. Shame, Y&TY sound really good. Ignoring a big bunch of Covid cancellations, not too many that I can recall, nothing as cool as Suicidal Tendencies. Swearing At Motorists, err, Gypsy Queen… a friend of mine once had a ticket for a big gig by some lot called Nirvana…
Oooh, my brother had a ticket to see nirvana in Cardiff which was cancelled. It made it even better that I’d already seen them!!
You’re alone. I’m alone. We’re all alone. That is the harsh existential truth. Sartre arranged the burst water main to remind you.
Hmm, you really are a representative of the uncaring void tonight Bruce! So go on Methuselah, who’s cancelled on you over the years?!
I’m on the UV payroll, Joe.
I have never been much of a gig person, really. Probably less than fifty in my life. And the only cancellation I experienced was Michael Rother (Neu!) in 2022. He was ill; fair enough. The sad part was that I’d got my analogue ass moving and was right on the button with on-line booking, securing seats in the third row.
When he returned earlier this year we were in about the 25th row.
Ahhh, hence your prev inexplicable championing of the live LP. Psychologically you crave the control that vinyl gives you over the potential chaos of a live performance. It all becomes clear now, it’s symptomatic of a guarded engagement with life.
Either that or you don’t like paying a fortune for tickets, terrible toilet facilities, burly idiots spilling drinks over you and talking loudly over all your fave quiet bits, while a band you only half like play all their songs twice as fast as they should, while their singer spouts moronic twaddle between numbers.
Sorry you missed the gig. One gig which was cancelled on me was seeing Suicidal Tendencies in New York back in 1986. I think the reason was that the venue closed down a few days before the show.
Thank you. Oh wow! I can’t imagine how good they’d have been back then too. Mind you a venue closing down is a pretty good reason for a show not going ahead.
If they were as good as when I finally did get to see them in 2017 and 18, then they would have been awesome!