Last Friday, I should have been preparing for a night out with my daughter and friends — dinner first, then a concert with Ms. Lauryn Hill and The Fugees for “The Celebration Continues: The Miseducation Anniversary Tour.” But just over a week earlier, the tour had been canceled so, instead, I was at home writing this column.
I have never seen Hill and the Fugees perform live, not even 25 years ago during the heyday of the album that was being celebrated. So the opportunity, for me, was both nostalgic and new.
We weren’t the only concertgoers in Atlanta who had a disappointing turn of events last week. On Aug. 14, Usher postponed the opening night of his tour before later postponing the remaining Atlanta dates as well. The shows have been rescheduled for December.
Aerosmith. The Black Keys. J. Lo. Keith Sweat. The list of canceled concerts goes on.
It feels as if the trend has become business as usual in the music industry in recent years, and fans are showing signs of fatigue. “At this point … I am mentally prepared for artists to … cancel,” wrote a disillusioned fan in a 2022 Reddit thread.
Only the megastars of the moment seem consistently able to pull off big arena tours. But before I sounded another music industry death knell, I checked in with my friend and former colleague from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Melissa Ruggieri, national music writer for USA Today.
“I think fans are very forgiving up to a point. With certain artists, like Madonna, you know what you are in for,” she said, “She is not going to come on until 11 p.m., and so you don’t get to complain.”
One might argue the same is true for Anita Baker, who canceled a Mother’s Day concert in May at State Farm Arena just 15 minutes before it was scheduled to begin. Some fans were standing in line when they were notified that, due to “late, unforeseen circumstances,” the show would not go on.
Baker had already made headlines for cancellations. Last summer, I caught her show in Chicago and worried right up until she appeared on stage that the show might not happen.
Depending on the reasons they give, the time frame in which they cancel and the frequency, artists may end up losing the goodwill of fans.
“How many times can a fan get burned?” Ruggieri said. “When you have had all this time to prep a show and a tour, there has to be something seriously awry for you to decide five hours ahead of time that now 20,000 people have to find something else to do.”
Hill canceled the entire U.S. leg of the tour three days before it was scheduled to begin. The tour had previously been postponed after Hill said she was struggling with vocal strain.
Initial reports said the latest cancellation was not due to poor ticket sales. But then in a social media post, Hill offered a more transparent explanation, saying the reason was poor ticket sales due to media “sensationalism and clickbait headlines.”
Bandmate Pras Michel quickly challenged that claim with a track teased days later on his Instagram stories, “No one will remember: click bait beefs, how many Gucci bags you owned, bogus excuses. People will remember: How you made them feel, if you kept your word, if they could count on you, if you come on Time!!!”
There have always been questionable reasons for tour cancellations that leave fans suspicious. Like the time in 1988 when Mötley Crüe canceled tour dates in the United Kingdom ostensibly because snow on arena roofs created unsafe conditions. Fans soon learned the real reason was bassist Nikki Sixx overdosed on heroin. Sixx wrote a song about it on the band’s next album, and I’m sure true Crueheads forgave the subterfuge.
Most fans are willing to give artists a pass for shows that are canceled or postponed due to health concerns or injury, but fans always deserve more than a far-fetched cover story hatched in the eleventh hour to mask low ticket sales.
“It is not fair to fans to be left with the expectation that something is going to happen and then it gets pulled out from under you,” said Ruggieri, who wondered why J. Lo and the Black Keys had the temerity to think they could sell out arenas nationwide.
“Sometimes their agent or manager is showing them that they can sell arenas in certain markets, but on a 30-day tour it is not going to play like that in every city,” she said.
The Black Keys split with their management and told fans they were reenvisioning more intimate venues for their North America tour. J. Lo told fans she needed to spend time with family, but previous reports indicated that the tour, a showcase for the lowest charting album of her career, wasn’t selling.
“Everybody looks at Mick Jagger and says, you can do it so I can do it too,” said Ruggieri, “but there is only one Mick Jagger and I think we have seen it is hard to emulate what he does.”
For musicians, touring is a way of life and it is a big part of how they forge an identity and connection with fans. But if circumstances prevent them from showing up, they should at least be upfront about it or, as Pras Michel noted in his response to Hill, they may be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
Read more on the Real Life blog (www.ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/) and find Nedra on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and X (@nrhoneajc) or email her at nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
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