Veteran singer-songwriter Elvis Costello has canceled the remaining six dates on his European summer tour to recover from surgery to remove “a small but very aggressive cancerous malignancy,” according to a statement on his website.
“Six weeks ago my specialist called me and said, ‘You should start playing the Lotto,’” Costello said in the statement. “He had rarely, if ever, seen such a small but very aggressive cancerous malignancy that could be defeated by a single surgery. I was elated and relieved that our European summer tour could go ahead.”
Costello then admitted playing shows immediately after surgery was unnecessarily risky.
“Post-surgical guidelines for such surgery, recommend three weeks to four weeks recovery, depending on whether you are returning to a desk job or an occupation that involves physical work or travel,” Costello said. “It was impossible to judge how this advisory would line up with the demands on a traveling musician, playing 90-minute to two-hour-plus performances on a nightly basis, but by the time we reached the Edinburgh Playhouse, I was almost fooled into thinking that normal service had been resumed.”
The canceled dates in the U.K., Croatia, Austria, Norway, and Sweden were scheduled through mid-July. Costello apologized for disappointing fans, but he ended with some news to which they could look forward:
To leave you with some more optimistic news, The Imposters and I –
together with several of our other friends – have made a magnificent new
record of which we are truly proud. It will be issued in October, I
believe. We will return at the soonest opportunity to play that music
and your favourite songs that still make sense to us all.
The upcoming record will be Costello’s first since Wise Up Ghost, his 2013 collaboration with the Roots. He’s scheduled to tour North America in the fall.
