Will Arctic Monkeys Cancel Their Glastonbury Appearance?

Glastonbury Festival 2023

Wednesday 21st to Sunday 25th June 2023
Worthy Farm, Pilton, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 4AZ, England MAP
£335 + £5 booking fee - SOLD OUT

Daily capacity: 210,000

The band had posted the news on Twitter earlier today, informing fans of the cancellation of their upcoming performance at Marlay Park, Dublin tomorrow, Tuesday the 20th of June. The cancellation is due to Alex Turner "suffering from acute laryngitis" and following medical advice to rest.

pic.twitter.com/L7Oh9Iz8MT
— Arctic Monkeys (@ArcticMonkeys) June 19, 2023

With eager fans enthusiastically waiting to see the band return to the Pyramid Stage in a few days time, the obvious burning question on everybody's mind is, will Alex recover in time for the band to fill their headline slot at Glastonbury this Friday?

The NHS defines laryngitis as vocal cords becoming "irritated or swollen", and can last from 1 to 2 weeks. Given this information, it becomes impossible to really say if Turner will recover in time as we don't know when his illness began. However, we speculate that the cancellation of their last tour date before their Glastonbury show, is a protective manoeuvre by the band to ensure that Alex's vocals are as well-rested as possible when they hit the stage on Friday.

A very similar situation befell George Ezra last year before his secret Glastonbury performance, as the singer was forced to cancel a show at Tinderbox Festival in Denmark due to a "nasty case of laryngitis". A few days later, Ezra made his Glastonbury appearance as planned. And there are other cases of acts prioritising Glastonbury over smaller festival and even their own tour dates, with the most recent example being Lewis Capaldi cancelling most of his June shows to ensure he's in tip-top shape to grace the Pyramid stage on the 24th of June and give the best performance possible.

With artists clearly prioritising their well-earned and prized Glastonbury slots, it seems likely that Arctic Monkeys will rock Glastonbury on Friday as scheduled but as a trade-off, had to disappoint some Irish fans today.

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