Numan & Bad Lieutenant Cancel Coachella Slots

GARY NUMAN has been left devastated after Iceland’s volcanic eruption forced him to pull out of his slot at the Coachella festival on Sunday (18Apr10), just a day after BAD LIEUTENANT cancelled their performance at the event.

The Cars hitmaker and his band were caught up in Europe’s travel chaos on Thursday (15Apr10) after flights across the continent were grounded.

Numan booked seats with British Airways for Sunday morning in the hope the air ban would be lifted.

But the heavy cloud of volcanic ash floating in the skies above Europe isn’t moving, and all flights out of Britain have been cancelled until at least Monday (19Apr10).

And the electro-pop pioneer is heartbroken “to see such a huge opportunity” to perform at the California festival wasted.

In a post on his website, he writes, “We have called every transatlantic airline that operates from the U.K. and not only are they not flying, they are not currently accepting any new bookings, not until Tuesday for many of them.

“So, even if they do allow planes to fly later on Sunday or Monday, we can’t book seats on any of them. I can’t tell you how disappointed we all are.”

Numan isn’t the only star who has cancelled a Coachella slot because of the disruption - British rockers Bad Lieutenant pulled out of their appearance on Saturday (17Apr10) after they were also stranded in the U.K.

Frontman Bernard Sumner says, “We’re stuck in Manchester. We were hoping that conditions might change at the last minute and we’d be able to come and play for our fans.”

The group has also axed gigs in Chicago, Illinois on Monday (19Apr10) and New York on Wednesday (21Apr10) because of the flight ban.

Boy George has also been affected by the volcano chaos - he cancelled a show in Switzerland on Saturday night (17Apr10).