In what’s believed to be a music industry first, the Steve Miller Band has cited climate change-driven weather disasters as the impetus for canceling its 2025 concert tour.
The band made the announcement late Wednesday in a statement shared on their official website and social media platforms.
“You make music with your instincts. You live life by your instincts. Always trust your instincts… The Steve Miller Band has cancelled all of our upcoming tour dates,” the statement read.
“The combination of extreme heat, unpredictable flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, and massive forest fires make these risks for you our audience, the band, and the crew unacceptable,” it continued. “So… You can blame it on the weather… The tour is cancelled.”
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Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, the Steve Miller Band had been slated to kick off the tour in Bethel, New York, on Aug. 15. The 31-show trek would have concluded Nov. 8 in Anaheim, California.
The band didn’t share plans to reschedule any of its shows, but added in their statement: “Don’t know where, don’t know when… We hope to see you all again.”
As Variety pointed out, the tour may be the first to ever be canceled due to extreme weather as a whole, rather than a single event.
On social media, many fans applauded the band’s decision.
“There’s not much to celebrate right now and this man knows it,” one person wrote on Instagram. “Our country has tilted way off balance and if we don’t stand up, speak out and save it, no concert tours will be the least of our worries.”
Added another: “This is so responsible, and anyone that disagrees is irresponsible.”
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Others, however, were more critical, suggesting the band had other reasons for scrapping their shows.
“What a joke. If this is a real reason why are you the only band/touring act to cancel a tour right now?” one person wrote. Added another: “Somehow all the other bands are managing. Maybe tour in the winter?”
Formed in San Francisco in the late 1960s, the Steve Miller Band remains a staple on classic rock radio thanks to era-defining hits like 1973’s “The Joker,” 1976’s “Fly Like an Eagle” and 1982’s “Abracadabra.” Frontman Steve Miller was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, five years after the release of the band’s most recent studio album, “Let Your Hair Down.”
While the Steve Miller Band might be the first to cancel an entire tour due to extreme weather, artists like Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran have also faced weather-related challenges on their recent tours. Many music industry experts believe the impact of climate change on concerts and other live performances, particularly those held outdoors, will continue to rise in the years ahead.
“When I first joined Reverb, probably one out of every 10 acts we worked with would have at least one weather cancellation when they went on tour,” Lara Seaver, director of projects at the music sustainability company Reverb, told Rolling Stone in 2024. “Now pretty much every artist we work with has a weather incident. The increase and severity is increasing.”
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