According to an announcement made by Deep Purple this morning, the group’s lead singer, Ian Gillan, has been hospitalized. As a result, the rock band has canceled two shows on its international tour.
“With great disappointment, Deep Purple must announce that they are unable to perform as scheduled tonight at the QI Arena (Leipzig) and tomorrow evening at the Sporthalle (Hamburg),” the announcement reads. “This comes as a result of a medical emergency involving Ian Gillan, which has resulted in his current hospitalization.”
The post continues, “We understand that this announcement comes at short notice and share the disappointment of all our wonderful fans that we are unable to perform in Leipzig and Hamburg.”
Deep Purple added that the Leipzig and Hamburg shows would be rescheduled.
Is Retirement in the Near Future for Deep Purple?
Honestly, fans are pretty lucky that Gillan is still making appearances onstage. In fact, it was just last year that the 81-year-old singer shared his thoughts on retirement with Uncut.
“I think if I lose my energy I’m going to stop. I don’t want to be an embarrassment to anyone,” he explained, admitting that perhaps retirement “isn’t far off.”
Gillan also talked to the magazine about his vision problems, which make it hard to look at his laptop screen.
“It’s one of those things. I’ve only got 30 per cent vision,” he explained. “It makes life mysterious. The hardest thing is working on my laptop. I can’t see anything on the screen unless I use my peripheral vision – I pick up a line by looking at it sideways. But you find a way. You adapt.”
In an interview with Paul Cashmere of Noise11, the band’s bassist Roger Glover made it seem that retirement isn’t totally out of the question, and not just for Gillan. He shared that Deep Purple keyboardist Don Airey admitted in an interview that, basically, the group’s next album could be their last. Apparently, he said, “I thought the last album was gonna be the last album.”
In 2016, the group announced their The Long Goodbye tour, and fans perceived it as a final hurrah for the hard rock band. Ten years later, Deep Purple is still on that same tour and still hasn’t announced they’re hanging up their boots.
“We ain’t gonna stop,” Glover explained. “We’re not gonna have a final tour, a final gig and make a hoopla about it. Although that was actually Steve’s [Morse, former Deep Purple guitarist] suggestion years ago, which is why we started calling it The Long Goodbye tour. Well, The Long Goodbye got longer and longer, and we decided to ditch that in the end.”
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