After being hospitalized with “a sudden illness” on Tuesday that forced her to cancel her show in Bologna, Italy, Patti Smith is on the mend. U.K. newspaper The Guardian reported that, according to Bologna health officials, Smith was discharged after a brief hospital stay, and is in good health.
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The newspaper also revealed that Smith canceled her December 14 concert in Venice, Italy, as well as a book signing that was to have taken place later this week in Milan.
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Smith’s Instagram Message
Smith took to her Instagram on December 14 to thank the hospital staff for the care she received, to apologize for the cancellations, and to share a brief health update.
“This is thanking all at the hospital for their help and guidance,” she wrote. “I am so sorry that we had to cancel concerts in Bologna and Venice. I will return to fulfill my happy obligations.”
The 76-year-old singer, songwriter, and author also thanked “all the medical teams globally, who attend to the people’s needs, especially those altruistically serving under fire, all healers, physicians, nurses, attendants.”
[RELATED: Patti Smith, 76, Taken to Hospital with Sudden Illness, Cancels Italy Show]
She finished her note by thanking “everyone for sending messages of love and concern,” adding “I am resting, as the doctor ordered, grateful to have had such care, though being painfully aware that many are not so fortunate.”
Smith accompanied her message with a photo of her smiling alongside hospital staff members.
Tour Plans
The concerts in Bologna and Venice were to have been her final shows on an Italian tour that she launched on November 28 in Ancona. The trek, dubbed A Tour of Italian Days, also featured performances in several other cities, including Naples and Modena.
Smith is slated to close out 2023 with a trio of U.S. dates later this month. They’re scheduled for December 27 in Chicago, and December 29 and 30 in Brooklyn, New York. The last show falls on Smith’s 77th birthday.
You can purchase tickets to Smith’s upcoming concerts at various outlets, including StubHub.
Tribute to Tom Verlaine
Meanwhile, Smith also took to her Instagram page on Wednesday, December 13, to poetically commemorate the birthday of her late friend, Television frontman Tom Verlaine, who died in January 2023 at age 73.
“This is Tom Verlaine’s birthday,” she wrote. “If a birch tree was a somnambulant. If a bluebird was no more.”
