Awful news tonight, as THE COCTEAU TWINS have bowed out of their headlining slot at this year's Coachella Festival. The band, who were planning additional live dates in and around the time of the festival, have now cancelled all planned activity. The guilty party in the cancellation appears to be eccentric Cocteau frontwoman Elizabeth Fraser, who, according to the Coachella press release, "has decided that she is unable to participate in the reunion, and apologies for any inconvenience that this has caused."

The release on cocteautwins.com is less inflammatory, but still points towards Fraser as being the cause:

"It is with deep regret that we confirm the news that Cocteau Twins, at the request of vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, have cancelled the planned reunion performance at this year's Coachella Festival on 30 April. No future plans for any reunion are currently being made. Our sincere thanks and apologies to all the fans and media who wrote to us expressing your enthusiasm and support."

Unreal... but then again, it almost was too good to be true, eh? The fan backlash should be pretty wicked on this one... we're heading to the Cocteaus forum to check it out now...

UPDATE: Well, that sure didn't take long. Cocteau guitarist, songwriter, and studio uber-guru Robin Guthrie has already posted to the Cocteaus forum in an attempt to explain/justify the situation. This is a direct pull from his first post:

I know this probably doesn't help, but, well, I'll be there, if the organisers will let me in.....What can I say? We have had no rehearsal, nor discussed a setlist nor have seen each other since the first and only meeting, six weeks ago, when we committed to doing the coachella show. We were due to start rehearsing this week, but, well, now we will not.
I feel for every person who is, well, completely fucked off about this, because,well, you know what? I am extremely fucked off as well....With the exception that I didn't buy tickets, book international travel or any of the other things that will be thrown around in the forecoming debacle about, reasons, who's fault it is, why, etc etc... wtf?Well it certainly makes me feel nostalgic for those days in '97, the first time I felt that I had found out I was no longer necissary...... it's such a nice way to enter springtime....
My gratitude goes out to all those who have put so much effort into this project behind the scenes, people like Marc Geiger, Brian Ahern, Paul Tollett, Heidi Robinson, Colin Wallace and countless others, as there has been much effort by everyone involved.... I should say no more for the moment, except to again express my apologies to everyone who has lost out on this...Well, I guess that's most of us really.....
"we're in the same place at the same time dealing honestly with how we feel and who we really are"
OK, I guess that applies to how a lot of us feel right now....