The Human League were a no-show at the Lytham Green festival in the UK on Friday after an unnamed member, believed to be Phil Oakey, took “seriously ill”.
Ultravox’s Midge Ure filled in for The Human League. The band released a statement to fans saying the member “was taken ill quite suddenly late in the evening and was barely able to stand let alone before”.
However former member Martyn Ware (British Electric Foundation) took to Twitter to post “Get well Phil #TheHumanLeague”
Get well Phil #TheHumanLeague
— martynware (@martynware) August 5, 2017
Paramedics looked after the band member who was then taken to the hotel to rest.
A later statement read:
Further to our brief and rather badly spelt update last night here, as promised, is a slightly more detailed explanation of the issue surrounding the Lytham Festival. But before we get to that there are three groups of people we need to thank first:
Firstly we need to thank you our fans and most specifically the fans who were at the Lytham Festival, we hugely appreciate the understanding and compassion you have shown us and we are very sorry we were unable to perform for you last night. That was the first time in the bands entire career that we have had to cancel a show because of illness and it was not something we were at all happy to do, but we had no choice.
Secondly we would like to thank the promoters of the event Cuffe And Taylor. We have seen some comments here on FB and in other places criticising them for a perceived lack of communication but we have to say that from our point of view they were utterly brilliant and when someone in the headline act is taken ill so close to their stage time there really isn’t much anyone can do about it. They had less than thirty minutes to sort out an alternative plan for the rest of the evening in order to give the audience the best possible experience and again we are sorry for the situation they found themselves in, clearly it was none of their doing.
Thirdly we would like to thank the brilliant Midge Ure for stepping up and agreeing to play a longer set at almost no notice at all. We have no doubt he was fantastic and gave everyone at Lytham a wonderful performance, as indeed he always does. So many thanks again Midge, we owe you one.
As to the reason why we had to pull out of the event so close to our performance time there isn’t a lot we can add to what we said last night really. One of the band members was taken ill quite suddenly late in the evening and was barely able to stand let alone perform so we had a very difficult and uncomfortable decision to make. The person in question was treated by one of the onsite paramedics and returned to the hotel to rest. We thank you all for your concern and we are happy to say they are feeling a little better this morning.
Again, our sincere apologies for this turn of events.
The Human League are due to tour Australia in December.
