“This is the last thing I want to do”

Rex Orange County (aka Alex O’Connor) has cancelled the bulk of his touring plans for 2022, effective following his show in London next month.

The Grayshott singer-songwriter will perform at Gunnersbury Park on Saturday August 13, following two shows in Glasgow – one of which has sold out, with remaining tickets to the other available here – as well as sold-out shows in Manchester and Dublin later this month. 

The Gunnersbury Park gig will be O’Connor’s last for the rest of the year, he announced today (July 2), meaning 17 shows across Australasia and Europe have now been cancelled. Tickets for the Gunnersbury park show can be found here.

In a post shared to his social media pages, O’Connor wrote: “It is with a great deal of sadness to announce that due to unforeseen personal circumstances, I am having to spend some time at home this year and I will not be able to continue with touring as planned.”

Noting that tickets for the cancelled dates – which were scheduled to go down between September and November – will be refunded automatically, O’Connor continued in his statement: “This is the last thing I want to do. I love touring and I am so sorry to be letting anyone down. I look forward to getting back to it as soon as I can.”

Read O’Connor’s full statement below:

💔 pic.twitter.com/4GoiaEjoaS

— rex orange county (@rexorangecounty) July 2, 2022

March saw the release of O’Connor’s fourth album as Rex Orange County, ‘Who Cares?’. Flanked by the singles ‘Keep It Up’, ‘Amazing’, ‘Open A Window’ (which features Tyler, The Creator) and ‘One In A Million’, the follow-up to 2019’s ‘Pony’ earned O’Connor his first UK Number One album.

In a four-star review of ‘Who Cares?’, NME’s Sophie Williams wrote: “Even if there is no clear breakthrough moment for O’Connor on ‘Who Cares?’, there is something to be said for an artist that is this consistent, and this committed to uplifting his listeners. These 11 tracks simply encourage his audience to draw those curtains wide, to look at the sun outside that window, to keep moving forward.” 

In his NME cover story about the album, O’Connor opened up about working with Tyler, The Creator and the transformative effect it had on his career. The pair first linked up for Tyler’s 2017 album ‘Flower Boy’, which O’Connor said opened his eyes to “a different world” that he “couldn’t possibly understand from a bedroom in the countryside in the UK”.

You can view the original article HERE.