Stevie Nicks, in an abundance of caution, has pulled out of all her scheduled concert dates in 2021 due to the COVID-19 variant causing a huge uptick in cases in recent weeks.
That includes Atlanta’s Shaky Knees Festival, a three-day event scheduled Oct. 22-24 at Central Park in Atlanta.
Nicks, 73, was set to headline the Friday night festivities. The Foo Fighters were quickly named as her replacement.
Run the Jewels is set to headline Saturday, while The Strokes are scheduled to conclude Sunday night’s set. Other acts in the lineup include St. Vincent, Mac DeMarco, Alice Cooper, Modest Mouse and Phoebe Bridgers. General admission tickets for all three days start at $219 with pricier VIP packages available, as well.
“These are challenging times with challenging decisions that have to be made,” Nicks said in a statement Tuesday. “I want everyone to be safe and healthy and the rising COVID cases should be of concern to all of us. While I’m vaccinated, at my age, I am still being extremely cautious and for that reason have decided to skip the 5 performances I had planned for 2021. Because singing and performing have been my whole life, my primary goal is to keep healthy so I can continue singing for the next decade or longer. I’m devastated and I know the fans are disappointed, but we will look towards a brighter 2022.”
Other cancelled dates include Jazz Aspen Festival in Colorado and BottleRock Napa Valley over Labor Day Weekend (Sept. 3-5), both weekends of the Austin City Limits Music Festival (Oct. 1-3 and Oct. 8-10), and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Oct. 8-17). That New Orleans festival was canceled completely.
Nicks last did a solo show in Atlanta in 2016 with Chrissie Hynde in what was then Philips Arena.
Other acts are postponing or canceling shows as well. Limp Bizkit and Michael Bublé dropped all August shows.
Lynyrd Skynyrd dropped four shows after guitarist Rickey Medlocke tested positive with the coronavirus. Their scheduled show at Cellairus Amphitheatre at Lakewood on August 13 has been postponed to October 23.
