Frank Ocean performs at the 2017 Panorama Music Festival on Randall’s Island in New York on July 28, 2017. The R&B singer has withdrawn from his scheduled headline slot at the second weekend of the Coachella music festival due to a leg injury, his publicist said Wednesday, April 19, 2023. ANGELA WEISS / AFP
LOS ANGELES, United States—R&B singer Frank Ocean has withdrawn from his scheduled headline slot at the second weekend of the Coachella music festival due to a leg injury, his publicist said Wednesday, April 19.
Ocean suffered the injury before his performance last Sunday at the buzzy California festival’s first weekend—a highly anticipated set which began an hour late and was widely panned by audiences and music critics.
“After suffering an injury to his leg on festival grounds in the week leading up to weekend 1… Frank Ocean was unable to perform the intended show but was still intent on performing, and in 72 hours, the show was reworked out of necessity,” Ocean’s publicist told AFP.
“On doctor’s advice, Frank Ocean is not able to perform weekend 2 due to two fractures and a sprain in his left leg.”
During Ocean’s previous set, which closed last weekend’s festivities, the singer mostly turned away from the crowd to perform his track “Novacane,” and took prolonged pauses between songs including “Crack Rock” and “White Ferrari.”
Press photos or a livestream of the performance were not permitted, and Ocean closed the set abruptly with the words: “Guys, I’m being told it’s curfew so that’s the end of the show.”
Variety called the set “messy, loose and a near-disaster that will likely go down as one of the most divisive in Coachella history.”
In a statement from Ocean provided by his publicists Wednesday, the singer said: “It was chaotic. There is some beauty in chaos.
“It isn’t what I intended to show but I did enjoy being out there and I’ll see you soon.”
According to Variety, this Sunday’s headline slot could be taken by Blink-182.
The pop-punk group surprised fans last weekend with a first performance from their original lineup in nearly a decade.
Representatives for Coachella festival did not immediately respond to AFP request for comment. /ra
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