Opeth Cancels Shows Due to Mikael Åkerfeldt’s Case of Laryngitis


Opeth is now on a North American Tour supporting last year’s stellar album In Cauda Venenum, released last year via Moderbolaget / Nuclear Blast Records, with Graveyard as direct support. Frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt and is being forced to cancel tonight’s performance in Worcester Massachusetts, followed by the next two shows. The band will hopefully resume this Friday in New York for their two landmark shows at The famed Apollo Theater in Harlem. Åkerfeldt broke the news of the cancellation earlier today in a social media post. He wrote: “I regret to inform you that we have to cancel the following shows on the North American run: Worcester, Toronto and Montreal. The reason being ‘acute laryngitis,’ according to the doc.

“It all started with voice problems in Royal Oak, Michigan. I had a doctor take a look at me before that show, and even if he gave me the all-clear in terms of being free from flu symptoms and the likes, he couldn’t dismiss potential problems with the vocal cords. Which indeed I had during Saturday’s show. So we have a day off to rest during Sunday and arrived in sunny Worcester Monday morning to another doctor’s appointment. This time the doctor advised a 3-4 day rest due to ‘acute laryngitis.’ We set the stage up and started getting ready for soundcheck anyways. As I was warming up my voice, it was abundantly clear that I was not going to be able to perform at the level where I want to be vocally. I sounded like a goddamn troll. And not in a good way.

“So, I’ll end this rant with a massive apology to the people looking forward to tonight’s event as well as to our Canadian friends. We are currently looking into postponing these cancelled shows and come back hopefully with a clean bill of vocal health and everything else. Try and make it up to you. In the meantime… I ‘ll watch TV. The joy!

“All ticket buyers can get a refund at their point of purchase if so desired but you can also opt to hang on to your tix as we’re definitely intending to reschedule these shows and all purchased tickets will remain valid for these.”

Affected dates:

Feb. 17 – Worcester, MA – Palladium

Feb. 18 – Montreal, QC – Mtelus

Feb. 19 – Toronto, ON – Rebel