W.A.S.P. Cancels 2023 U.S. Tour Due To BLACKIE's 'Extensive Back Injuries'

25 July 2023

Because of the extensive back injuries suffered by Blackie Lawless during the European leg of W.A.S.P.'s 40th-anniversary tour, the band's previously announced 2023 U.S. tour has been canceled and will be rescheduled for spring 2024. Tickets and VIP packages can be refunded at the point of purchase.

Lawless comments: "The extent of the trauma I endured on the 2023 European tour was far greater than originally diagnosed and surgery will now be needed to correct the problem. In addition to the original herniated disc, as that tour continued, a second disc became herniated. Upon returning home, a second MRI also revealed a broken vertebrae to my lower back.

"I've been fortunate to work with the best specialists in the U.S. and I've been in intensive rehab since we got home. It's going well but the damage was pretty extensive and all the doctors agree moving the tour a few months back will be the safest thing. It's all been as the result of an injury that happened several years ago. I'm working my butt off to get ready and I'll be up riding on [my mic stand nicknamed] Elvis... bigger and badder than ever. If the Torture Never Stops, then the 40th Never Stops!"

The 66-year-old guitarist/vocalist, whose real name is Steven Duren, continued: "I had to go to Berlin four times to get treatment. I received eight epidurals throughout the tour. That was the only way I was getting through it, because the pain is literally off the charts. And the doctors there told me, they said, 'This thing can become so intense, people commit suicide from it.' And I can see why people would do that.

"So we did the new pictures on Monday, and I have a cracked vertebra now in my spine. But as bad as that sounds, it's not the first time it happened," Lawless said. "It happened the first time in '92 on 'The Crimson Idol' tour. I got a little too close to the edge of the stage one night and some of the fans pulled me off the stage into the audience, and I ended up upside down in the crowd and they fell on top of me, and I broke a vertebra then. So this is the second time I've been through this. So it'll heal on its own. I start therapy tomorrow — it's a swimming pool thing that I'm gonna have to do to start first. But they say they're gonna have me up to speed in eight weeks to start the tour. So I'll be ready to go."

W.A.S.P.'s massive European leg of the 40th-anniversary world tour wrapped on May 18 in Sofia, Bulgaria at Universiada Sports Hall.

Source: blabbermouth.net

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