The Smile cancel their August tour after Jonny Greenwood falls ill

The Smile have cancelled their August tour of Europe because Jonny Greenwood has become seriously ill. In a statement on Instagram on Friday 12 July, the band said he had been taken ill a few days earlier with an infection that needed emergency hospital treatment, some of it in intensive care. The medical team looking after him has told them to cancel everything until he has fully recovered.

The trio last played on 24 June, the second of two nights at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome that closed their June leg for Wall of Eyes. Now eight headline shows are gone, from Sigulda Castle in Latvia on 13 August to Valencia on 28 August, and with them the festival dates booked around them. Rock en Seine, outside Paris, has lost one of the headliners of its Sunday 25 August bill, and named Pixies in the slot about three hours after announcing the news.

The band ended their statement by wishing Greenwood a speedy recovery. Mercifully he is now out of danger and will soon return home.¹

The cancelled headline dates, August 2024