Sure, you know about the Drake curse, but did you know about the Toronto concert curse? Two totally separate, yet undeniably linked things. Fans of Jhené Aiko are the latest victims of the latter, with the singer-songwriter postponing her Scotiabank Arena performance last night (July 2) at the last minute.
The Toronto show of Aiko's Magic Hour Tour — her first headlining run in five years — was unable to go on "due to unexpected production issues." A new date is expected to be announced in the near future and tickets will be honoured.
The Toronto concert curse seems to go back to 2022. That February, Kacey Musgraves cancelled her star-crossed tour finale after "vital production elements" were unable to make it in time for the show due to inclement Ontario weather. Then, Dua Lipa postponed her February Scotiabank Arena show behind Future Nostalgia to July — when unauthorized fireworks ended up being set off in the middle of the crowd.
Justin Bieber postponed — and then later outright cancelled — two Toronto concerts that July while coping with the symptoms of Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, and the Weeknd's hometown tour-opener fell victim to the nationwide Rogers service outage that same month.
Drake proceeded to postpone his Young Money reunion due to contracting COVID in August, which also had a weekend of disastrous GTA music festivals. (For extra salt in the wound, Aiko had initially been scheduled to headline the accursed Kultureland Festival but cancelled her appearance when the event abruptly changed its location from Markham to Ajax.)
And Toronto has continued to foster an environment of unmitigated concert cancellations: last year, KISS cancelled their Toronto (and Ottawa) gigs due to Paul Stanley's "unforeseen illness" and SZA once again cancelled on the city during the second half of her SOS world tour.
As for this year, nostalgic hip-hop festival Hot in Toronto was recently postponed after headliner Lil Wayne cancelled his appearance and just yesterday, Heart announced the postponement of their August show in Toronto (and the rest of the tour) while Ann Wilson undergoes preventative chemotherapy. Plus, Neil Young and Crazy Horse will no longer be returning to Budweiser Stage in July.
All of this is to say: if your fave comes to Toronto and you get to attend an event that actually happens when it's supposed to, you should probably consider yourself lucky.
