Stevie Nicks postpones remaining 2021 shows due to COVID-19
Stevie Nicks announced on Tuesday that she is cancelling her remaining 2021 performance dates due to COVID-19. The singer was set to play at several festivals, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which has been postponed altogether.
"These are challenging times with challenging decisions that have to be made," Nicks said in a statement posted on Instagram. "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," the 73-year-old said.
"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," the statement continued. "I'm devastated and I know the fans are disappointed, but we will look towards a brighter 2022."
In addition to the New Orleans set in October, Nicks was also booked for Jazz Aspen Festival in Colorado, Austin City Limits Music Festival and BottleRock Napa Valley in California.
She was replaced by country singer Chris Stapleton as the headliner of the BottleRock festival.
On Sunday, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival announced it would postpone the annual event from October to April. In addition to Nicks, the Rolling Stones were set to play.
Nicks and the Rolling Stones both pulled out of the New Orleans festival in 2019. Nicks' band Fleetwood Mac was wrapping up its 50-plus city tour, but she needed to cancel the show as she reportedly battled the flu. Rolling Stones canceled because of Mick Jagger's heart surgery.
Nicks was supposed to make up the performance in 2020, but the jazz festival was postponed a whole year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2021, it was postponed again to October.
The postponements come as the Delta variant continues to rapidly spread throughout the U.S. More than a year after the pandemic started and months after vaccines were rolled out, cases are still climbing, with 184,346 new cases reported on Tuesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins.
Only 51% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated and hospitals report the vast majority of their COVID-19 cases are unvaccinated people.
Alabama and Louisiana are among the states that have seen some of most severe COVID-19 surges so far this summer. Louisiana had one of the lowest vaccination rates, but last week shots accelerated 84%. Likewise, Alabama increased 100%. Nebraska and Minnesota also saw a large increase in vaccinations.
