Jeff Lynne‘s Electric Light Orchestra canceled what was meant to be their final concert Sunday due to the frontman battling an infection.
Lynne and ELO’s farewell tour, which launched in August 2024, was scheduled to conclude July 13 at London’s Hyde Park. “It seems like the perfect place to do our final show,” Lynne said last October when the final concert was announced.
However, the band announced Saturday, a day before the Hyde Park gig, “Jeff Lynne is heartbroken to report that he will not be able to perform… Jeff has been battling a systemic infection and is currently in the care of a team of doctors who have advised him that performing is simply not possible at this time nor will he be able to reschedule.”
While the group didn’t elaborate on the nature of Lynne’s health issue, he was unable to play guitar at recent U.K. shows in his hometown of Birmingham, England this past week due to a hand injury he sustained in an incident involving a taxi. After the Birmingham shows, Lynne and ELO canceled their gig Thursday in Manchester due to illness, but insisted at the time that the Hyde Park show would continue.
However, doctors ultimately advised Lynne to cancel ELO’s final concert. “The legacy of the band and his longtime fans are foremost in Jeff’s mind today – and while he is so sorry that he cannot perform, he knows that he must focus on his health and rehabilitation at this time,” the band added in a statement.
After resurrecting in 2014 as Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra, the reformed, Rock Hall-inducted band staged their first gig back at Hyde Park. “I had all these negative thoughts before agreeing to play Hyde Park,” Lynne told Rolling Stone in 2016, “but the crowd just went bananas all the way through. They loved every minute of it. It was the best show I’d ever been involved with up until that point.”
The reaction to the 2014 Hyde Park show inspired Lynne to bring ELO back on the road for a series of successful arena tours between 2015 and 2019, before announcing their farewell tour last year.
Rolling Stone‘s Andy Greene wrote of the band’s farewell show at Madison Square Garden, “Time has been very kind to Jeff Lynne‘s wonderfully unique fusion of prog rock, orchestral music, disco, and pop.” He added that the tour is “a well-deserved victory lap for a true pop genius, and a gift for fans to take a ride on his spaceship one last time.”
It’s unclear if and when Lynne and ELO will return to the stage for a final concert.
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