The Pretenders’ lead singer’s social media post comes as heat waves grip the U.S. and U.K.
Heat waves are freaking everyone out right now, including Chrissie Hynde. The Pretenders‘ lead singer took to social media to heed the warning about the future of outdoor concerts as both the U.S. and the U.K. experience record-high temperatures.
“I trust you’re all surviving the heat waves,” Hynde wrote in a long Instagram post. She continued: “I’m remembering the last couple years when we supported Guns N’ Roses, and then the Foo Fighters in stadiums (to pay for the clubs which I prefer playing). It was so hot I had to strap ice packs around my waist.”
“I realised then that outdoor events are going to come to an end. It’s too hot,” Hynde predicts in her post. The musician went on to give her fans some more updates, including her summer book pick (none other than Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights).
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But Hynde’s warning rings true. This week, as 160 million people in the U.S. are under heat alerts, an outdoor K-pop concert for Stray Kids had five attendees who were rushed to the hospital for heat stroke. Last week, popular music festival Bonnaroo was forced to cancel the event due to weather-related conditions at the festival grounds.
Last year, the director of projects at the music sustainability company Reverb, Lara Seaver, spoke to Rolling Stone about how climate change is affecting the live music industry. “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,” she said. “Now pretty much every artist we work with has a weather incident. The increase and severity is increasing.”
