The Super Furry Animals have confirmed they have pulled out of the Glastonbury Festival a fortnight before the event.

The band have been unable to find a suitable replacement at short notice for their sound engineer, who cannot be join the Furries owing to family commitments.

Huw Bunford on guitar

With a complex live sound to replicate, the band told BBC News Online that it did not want to risk disappointing fans at Glastonbury on 30 June.

A support slot with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Dublin on 25 June has also been cancelled, leaving the band with festival dates in Finland and Spain.

"We had no time to rehearse with a new engineer as the band are in and out of the studio," said spokesman Alun Llwyd.

"Our sound engineer has been with us for six years, so he knows how we work.

"They simply could not play a show with a brand new sound manager - it would have been a nightmare for those listening to it.

The band have a loyal live following

"If there was any way round this, we would have done so."

In the meantime, the band will continue with their recording plans this summer.

Last September, they narrowly missed out on the Mercury Music Prize for their Rings Around The World album and spent last autumn on the road promoting it.

The band's stage show is both eccentric and energetic, with frequent twists and turns in the music and images of aliens, fire and brimstone lectures and allusions to football.