Animal Collective Cancel EU Dates, Cite Difficult Conditions For Live Music

Animal Collective have been forced to cancel their upcoming UK and European tour dates.

The band reunited earlier this year, sharing new album ‘Time Skiffs’. Lauded as a superb piece of pop-edged psychedelia, Clash went deep with Panda Bear on its release – find that Q&A in our archive.

Since then, Animal Collective have struggled to gain their rhythm. Tour dates initially scheduled for May were pushed back due to three band members getting COVID, and this has deeply impacted their plans.

In a new note, the band have decided to cancel their upcoming shows in the UK and continental Europe, citing the difficulties facing live music currently as a key factor.

Animal Collective explain: “It has been a wild year for us trying to push through a mountain of touring obstacles related to COVID and the economy. Three of us got bad cases of Covid. We were forced to cancel shows and lost large amounts of the income that sustains us and our families.”

Continuing, Animal Collective state that “preparing for this tour we were looking at an economic reality that simply does not work and is not sustainable. From inflation, to currency devaluation, to bloated shipping and transportation costs, and much much more, we simply could not make a budget for this tour that did not lose money even if everything went as well as it could.” 

“We have always been the kind of people to persevere through the difficult times and get on stage unless our health prevented it. We are choosing not to take the risk to our mental and physical health with the economic reality of what that tour would have been. We hope you understand and that you know we would not make a choice like this lightly. We truly want nothing more than to make it out there again.”  

Closing, they write: “Thank you so much to our team, the promoters and venues who worked so hard on this tour for us. We look forward to getting back out to play for all of you and hope you will be there with us when we do.”

Find the statement in full below.