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After hospitalization in the spring in Brussels to treat his pancreatic cancer, “his doctors asked him to take a long period of rest,” said Filip De Groote in a message to the press.
This means that public appearances and concerts planned in Belgium, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands in the fall and winter are canceled, he adds.
The 72-year-old artist, known for his broken voice à la Tom Waits mixed with a Flemish accent, his exuberance and his excesses, announced in February 2020 that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer.
He was then in full promotion of an album (Santeboutique, released in September 2019) and had to interrupt his tour to undergo an operation.
The coronavirus pandemic and the inability to hold concerts then postponed several times throughout 2020 the prospect of getting back on stage, even though he was able to record a new album (Live, with pianist Sofiane Pamart, released at the end of May 2021).
Hopes of regaining the stage continued to be dashed this year with the third wave of the pandemic, coupled with the artist being hospitalized again in May for chemotherapy treatment.
Now Arno has been released from the hospital, but the effects of the treatment require this long period of rest at his home in Brussels.
The dates postponed several times are therefore now canceled, Filip De Groote told AFP, speaking of “a technical decision” to allow ticket holders to be reimbursed.
Originally from Ostend, a Flemish coastal town to which he has remained very attached and which he evokes in his songs, Arno began his career with the rock group TC Matic in the 1980s, notably with the song Fucking, fucking (“Damn, damn, it’s really good, we are all Europeans anyway”).
It was solo that he then revealed himself to a wider audience, thanks to songs like My mother’s eyes or its resumption of Seaside girls from another Belgian, Adamo.
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