Lady A cancels Minnesota festival gig after bandmember gets appendicitis
Charles Kelley's hospitalization forced the trio to scrap its first live show in 16 months, a scheduled headlining set at Lakefront Music Fest in Prior Lake.
Lady A canceled its Saturday night headlining performance at Lakefront Music Fest in Prior Lake, Minnesota, after bandmember Charles Kelley was hospitalized with appendicitis, according to Fox News and the Nashville Tennessean.
The show, roughly 20 miles southwest of Minneapolis, would have been the country trio's first live performance in 16 months. Bandmates Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood announced the cancellation on social media Saturday morning, per the Tennessean's reporting.
"Unfortunately, Charles [Kelley] has appendicitis, so we're sorry to say we won't be with you in Minnesota and Lakefront Music Fest tonight," the band said, according to Fox News.
What the band said
Scott and Haywood added that Kelley was in "good hands" and that the group would return to the road once he was medically cleared, per Fox News's account. Kelley himself posted from the hospital the next day: "so bummed to have missed performing our first show back in Minnesota, not to mention in 16 months," and joked that he "didn't even know what an appendix was until Friday," according to the Tennessean.
How the festival adjusted
Lady A had been billed alongside Styx and Cheap Trick at the outdoor festival. With the headline slot open, performers Jake Owen and Noah Guthrie were asked to extend their own sets to fill the schedule, according to Fox News's reporting.
What it signals
The cancellation came just as touring acts were resuming full schedules after the pandemic shutdown, and it landed squarely on what multiple outlets described as the band's first show back in over a year — raising the stakes of a routine medical emergency into a bigger disruption than it might otherwise have been. The retrieved coverage does not report whether Lady A rescheduled a return date specifically for the Minnesota market.
A sold-out show, announced late
The cancellation news reached ticket holders late, according to Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul's contemporaneous coverage: the festival was sold out, and the announcement of Lady A's withdrawal went out Friday evening, hours before the Saturday show. Fox 9's report also carried an additional detail on the band's own statement, quoting Scott and Haywood's assurance that "the minute he is cleared by doctors, we will be back on the road to see y'all."
The festival's own read on the weekend
Despite losing its headliner, Lakefront Music Fest organizers described the 2021 event as their most successful yet, according to a swnewsmedia.com report on the festival's own after-action assessment — a detail suggesting the extended sets from Jake Owen and Noah Guthrie were enough to keep the sold-out crowd satisfied. Festival organizers also said at the time that Lady A was expected to return to headline the Lakefront Music Fest in a future year.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Fox News and the Nashville Tennessean, with additional detail from Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul and swnewsmedia.com's contemporaneous reporting on the festival itself. It restores a story originally published on this site in July 2021; figures are as reported at the time.