Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan has been hospitalized after a medical emergency, forcing the band to postpone two German shows this weekend. The Ian Gillan hospitalized announcement came on Saturday, October 31, hours before the band was due on stage in Leipzig, and the band has given no details yet about what happened or how long Gillan, 81, will be in hospital.
Ian Gillan Hospitalized, Deep Purple Says In Statement
Deep Purple announced the news in a statement posted on the band’s official social accounts on Saturday. “With great disappointment, Deep Purple must announce that they are unable to perform as scheduled tonight at the QI Arena (Leipzig) and tomorrow evening at the Sporthalle (Hamburg),” the statement read. “This comes as a result of a medical emergency involving Ian Gillan, which has resulted in his current hospitalisation.”
The band apologized for the timing and pointed fans toward rescheduled dates rather than refunds. “We understand that this announcement comes at short notice and share the disappointment of all our wonderful fans that we are unable to perform in Leipzig and Hamburg,” the statement continued. “Deep Purple and their team are focused on finding a suitable time to reschedule both these shows. All tickets purchased will be valid for the rescheduled dates.” The message closed: “With the greatest love and respect… Deep Purple.”
Deep Purple posted the announcement on X: read the band’s statement here. As of publication, that statement is the band’s only word on Gillan’s condition. It does not name the medical emergency, does not say which hospital is treating him, and does not give a timeline for his recovery. Billboard, Blabbermouth and Far Out all reported the same statement on Saturday, and no further medical detail has been released by the band or its team.
Leipzig And Hamburg Shows Will Be Rescheduled
The two affected shows are the Leipzig date on Saturday, October 31 at the QI Arena and the Hamburg date on Sunday, November 1 at the Sporthalle. Both were part of the German leg of the band’s Splat! World Tour. The band says both shows will be rescheduled and that tickets already bought stay valid for the new dates, so fans in both cities should hold onto their tickets and watch the band’s official channels for the replacement dates.
The statement named only Leipzig and Hamburg. The next show on the published tour schedule after Hamburg is Dortmund, on Tuesday, November 3 at the Westfalenhalle, followed by Berlin on November 4, Frankfurt on November 6 and Nuremberg on November 7, then Amsterdam and a run through France before a United Kingdom leg from November 18 to November 25 that stops in Newcastle, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and London. The band has not announced any change to Dortmund or any later date, and nothing in Saturday’s statement extends the postponement beyond the two German shows named in it. Whether the tour resumes on schedule in Dortmund depends on news the band has not shared yet.
The Splat! Tour Already Rolled Through Canada
Gillan is fronting a band in the middle of one of the heaviest touring years of its career. Deep Purple’s current lineup, Gillan alongside Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Don Airey and guitarist Simon McBride, is on the road behind Splat!, the band’s new studio album, released on July 3 via earMUSIC. The album is Deep Purple’s sixth with producer Bob Ezrin, who has worked on every Deep Purple record since 2013’s Now What?! The Splat! World Tour runs to 86 shows across 28 countries on three continents.
Canadian fans saw this exact lineup weeks ago. The tour’s summer North American leg, with Kansas and Jefferson Starship as special guests, crossed Canada in August, including Halifax, Laval at Place Bell on August 17, Toronto at RBC Amphitheatre on August 18 and Ottawa at the Canadian Tire Centre on August 19, before heading west to Winnipeg, Calgary and Abbotsford. Toronto reviews from that night described a band still leaning hard into the catalogue, with Highway Star, Space Truckin’ and Smoke on the Water all drawing the biggest reactions of the night. Gillan, who first joined Deep Purple in 1969, was at the centre of it, which is part of why Saturday’s short notice hospital news landed the way it did with fans who had just seen him work a full arena show this summer.
Gillan Had Been Open About His Health And The Road
Gillan has spoken plainly in the past year about the physical cost of still doing this at 81, though the band has not connected Saturday’s emergency to any earlier health matter, and no cause has been reported. Speaking to Uncut, he described his failing eyesight in direct terms: “I’ve only got 30 percent vision. That won’t get better. It makes life mysterious. The hardest thing is working on my laptop. I can’t see anything on the screen unless I use my peripheral vision; I pick up a line by looking at it sideways. But you find a way. You adapt. But it’s achingly tiresome.”
On retirement, his line has been consistent: he stops when the energy goes, not before. “I think if I lose my energy I’m going to stop. I don’t want to be an embarrassment to anyone,” he told Uncut. Bassist Roger Glover, speaking to Australia’s Noise11 in July 2026, put the band’s position the same way: “We ain’t gonna stop. We’re not gonna have a final tour, a final gig and make a hoopla about it. We’re just gonna carry on till we can’t. That’s it.” Gillan himself said last fall that the band felt rejuvenated since McBride joined, and that they were looking a long way ahead rather than planning an ending.
For now, the only confirmed facts are the ones in the band’s own statement: Ian Gillan is in hospital after a medical emergency, the Leipzig and Hamburg shows are postponed, tickets stay valid, and rescheduled dates are being worked on. The next updates that matter are a word on Gillan’s condition and confirmation of the Dortmund show on November 3. This story will be updated as the band releases more.
