Morrissey cancelled a Monday night show in Stockholm saying a lack of financial support from the industry had left him exhausted.
The singer, whose full name is Steven Patrick Morrissey, announced the cancellation on his website the night before the show was scheduled to take place at the Hovet Arena in the Swedish capital.
“The pain at not reaching Stockholm this week is horrific for the band and crew. I know it’s impossible for people to understand, but we dream of Stockholm, Reykjavik, Trondheim, Helsinki, Aarhus...but there is no financial support from imaginary record labels to get us to such places,” Morrissey, 66, wrote.
“In the last seven days we have traveled into six countries, and we are travel-weary beyond belief. We can barely see. We pray to God that someone, somewhere can help us reach Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark…where we have thousands upon thousands of friends, yet absolutely zero music industry support. No label will release our music, no radio will play our music…and yet our ticket sales are sensational. What does this tell us about the state of Art in 2025?”
Morrissey, however, said he would perform at his next show at the Tempodrom in Berlin on 27 June.
The former Smiths frontman is in the middle of the European leg of his tour, which began in May. The tour has no other gigs scheduled in Scandinavia.
Fans were reportedly told the Stockholm show had been cancelled due to “exhaustion among the band and crew”, according to NME.
Fans upset with the cancellation commented on his social media, with one writing: “Why schedule so many dates without proper funding? Just say you don’t have the money rather than making excuses.”
“A very confusing statement, basically you're tired after a few weeks of touring? Stockholm is almost completely sold out tomorrow so can’t see how you wouldn’t ‘afford’ to make the trip?” wrote another.
During the US leg of his tour, Morrissey needed “medical supervision” after he cancelled two arena gigs at short notice.
His spokesperson said the singer was getting medical care after suffering “physical exhaustion”.
“He does this quite often and will keep doing that as long as people are still buying tickets. He should be ashamed,” a fan wrote on his Instagram, referring to the huge number of shows Morrissey has cancelled over the years.
According to Consequence of Sound, he has cancelled or postponed at least 120 shows since 2010.
Morrissey was expected to put out a new solo album, Bonfire of Teenagers, last year but it remains unreleased.
The singer-songwriter has claimed he finished recording the album in May 2021 but has not released it yet due to record label concerns over the title track, which is about the 2017 terror attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that killed 22 people.
The album was initially going to be released through Capitol Records, but the musician parted ways with the label in late 2022.
He told The Telegraph that he bought the rights to the album back in April this year but “every major label in London has refused it whilst also admitting that it is a masterpiece”.
He went on to call Bonfire of Teenagers “the best album of my life” and argued that “the madly insane efforts to silence the album are somehow indications of its power”. “Otherwise, who would bother to get so overheated about an inconspicuous recluse?” he asked.
Last week, The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr said the band were recently offered the chance to reform for an “eye-watering” amount but turned it down because the “vibe” wasn’t right.
“We got made an offer really recently, in fact, but yeah, I said no. It was a little bit about principles, but I’m not an idiot, I just think the vibe’s not right,” Marr said on the Stick to Football YouTube show.
“It was an eye-watering amount of money, but also, I really like what I’m doing now which makes it a lot easier. I like where I’m at. I still want to write the best song I’ve ever written. I want to be a better performer.”
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