British Lion, the side project of Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris, were scheduled to be the opening act on The Darkness' upcoming UK tour, which begins November 17 in Brighton, and wraps up December 17 in London.

Earlier today, British Lion issued the following statement:

"Due to circumstances beyond our control British Lion are really sad and disappointed to announce that we will not be able to participate in the tour with The Darkness. Very recently we received their own protocols that are not Government protocols which are completely unacceptable to us. Therefore, we have no alternative but to withdraw from the tour.

We are really gutted that this has happened and although it is really short notice we will try our best to put together some shows of our own in November/December."

Thankfully, this unfortunate turn of events has no bearing on British Lion's previously announced European club tour for summer 2022; it will go ahead as planned.

Says the band: "We're thrilled to announce a nine date European headline club tour in summer 2022, in addition to the three festival shows already announced for Finland, England and Belgium, working in conjunction with the routing for Maiden’s 2022 Legacy Of The Beast tour. Five of the cities are there to make up for the shows that were cancelled back in 2020."

Tickets are on-sale now, here.

Dates:

June
3 - Hyvinkaa, Finland - Rockfest Festival
10 - Donington, England - Download Festival
17 - Dessel, Belgium - Graspop Festival
19 - Prague, Czech Republic - Lucerna Theatre
25 - Paris, France - Trabendo

July
1 - Cologne, Germany - Kantine
3 - Berlin, Germany - Hole 44
8 - Stuttgart, Germany - LKA Longhorn
19 - Bremen, Germany - Aladin
23 - Warsaw, Poland - Progresja
25 - Frankfurt, Germany - Batschkapp
30 - Lisbon, Portugal - LAV Lisboa ao Vivo

The support for each show will be advised shortly.

In other news, British Lion have released an official video for "Bible Black", the fifth single from their 2020 album, The Burning. Watch below: