Aerosmith Canadian tour in turmoil
The Canadian leg of a concert tour by legendary rockers Aerosmith has been thrown into turmoil, with promoters on Friday scrambling to determine how an injury to lead singer Steven Tyler would affect the schedule.
A Friday night concert in Winnipeg and a Sunday night gig in Regina have been officially cut, with promises for makeup dates in the future.
An Aug. 11 concert in Edmonton is still a go for now, promoters said. The Canadian tour has other dates, including Calgary on Aug. 13 and Vancouver Aug. 15.
“It is unfortunate that we do have to announce that the Regina concert that was scheduled for this Sunday is postponed,” Brad Walker, a spokesman for Keystone Entertainment, told CBC News on Friday. “We are working really closely with the venue right now to come up with a re-scheduled date, which we are hoping to have announced early to mid next week.”
Information about the Aerosmith tour has been changing almost hourly as fans try to keep up with the status of Tyler’s health. The charismatic singer fell from the band’s stage during a performance Wednesday in South Dakota.
Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry told an Illinois radio station on Friday that the future of the tour was up in the air.
“We still don’t know if we’re going to keep the tour up or what. It’s breaking my heart,” Perry said.
Tyler, 61, fell several feet while entertaining the crowd by dancing around as the sound crew replaced a fuse that blew during the song Love in an Elevator.
An amateur video showed him spinning around before falling off the stage.
A concertgoer said Tyler’s head was bleeding and he was holding his shoulder after the fall, but it wasn’t immediately clear how seriously he was hurt.
The music entertainment magazine Billboard reported Friday that a band insider told them Tyler had broken his shoulder.
Perry said the band had to cancel only a couple of concerts during its first 25 years, but has had a run of bad luck the last three years.
On June 28, Tyler hurt his leg at a concert in Uncasville, Conn., and the band had to postpone seven shows in July. Tyler also battled pneumonia before the tour began in June, while Perry fought a knee infection.
After Tyler’s fall, Perry said he decided to ride the tour bus home and stop at radio stations along the way to play some of his solo work.
“As soon as I knew that the tour was going to get postponed, or cancelled or whatever, it was, ‘All right, where’s the first radio station I can hit?”‘ he said.
According to the band’s website, the 2009 tour schedule was to make stops in five western Canadian cities and then, after Vancouver, continue with more U.S. performances.
The band makes another swing through Canada in September, with dates in Toronto (Sept. 3) and the Ottawa suburb of Kanata (Sep. 5).
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