Is Yusuf / Cat Stevens going to open his “Cat On The Road To Findout Tour” at the Met Philly on Oct. 2?
He’s supposed to.
It’s a hot ticket. The Met is sold out, with only resale tickets going for over $1000. That reflects the enduring popularity of the early music of Stevens, who was born Steven Georgiou and changed his name to Yusuf Islam in 1978 after converting to Islam.
The British artist, 77, a massively popular singer-songwriter in the 1970s with hits like “Peace Train,” “Morning Has Broken” and “Moonshadow,” is set to embark on an American tour behind his new memoir, with a performance that will include storytelling and songs.
But last week, the artist who returned to making secular music in 2006, and started using the moniker Yusuf/Cat Stevens in 2017, suggested in a social media post that fans may not be able to see the show billed as “Cat On The Road To Findout—An Evening Of Tales, Tunes, And Other Mysteries,” after all.
A post on the singer’s Instagram on Friday said that the U.S. leg of the tour “is in serious jeopardy due to significant delay in U.S. immigration processing. Despite our team’s exhaustive efforts, the required performance visas for Yusuf and his band have not yet been issued.”
“We’ve prepared something truly special for our American fans, but this is out of our hands,” the post said. It went on to “strongly advise” fans to hold all travel plans “until official conformation is provided.”
When might that confirmation come? “We are working urgently with authorities and will share the news the moment we have it.”
The singer, who in 1989 was asked about the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie and said “he must be killed,” has had trouble with U.S. immigration authorities in the past. (When Rushdie was stabbed multiple times in 2022, he condemned the attacks and wished Rushdie a full recovery.)
In 2004, while on his way to record with Dolly Parton in Nashville, Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ plane was re-routed to Maine and he was deported, with a spokesman for Homeland Security claimed there were “concerns of ties he may have to potential terrorist-related activities,” a charge that the artist strenuously denied.
In recent years, he has traveled to the U.S. to perform many times times, most recently playing Philadelphia in a hits-heavy show at the Kimmel Center in 2016.
Representatives for Yusuf/Cat Stevens and Live Nation, who are presenting the performance at the Met, were contacted but did not comment on the status of the show.