Yesterday should have been a day of celebration for Motörhead. Bad Magic, their 22nd studio album was released to good reviews across the board, and Lemmy and crew were to play Denver’s Riot Fest about a week into their five week tour in support of the album. However, after the band were forced to cut short a show in Salt Lake City earlier in the week after the 69 year-old frontman had some breathing problems, they wound up canceling their performance at the festival for the same reasons. Here’s what the band said via Facebook:
The Rocky Mountain High has affected Lemmy like the high altitude of Salt Lake City. It’s been quite a while since Lemmy was this “high” in the US, and thus having got a burst of altitude sickness (which made it hard for him to breathe and sing properly) he has very reluctantly decided not perform in Denver. Lemmy is really sorry and wants to thank the fans for their support and trust. He looks forward to the next-up Texas shows…at low elevations.
As we’d said yesterday, given that Denver is at a higher elevation than SLC, we kind of had our doubts but were optimistic that he’d be able to power through. Here’s hoping that he’ll be able to perform just fine for the rest of he tour. The band’s next show is in Austin on Tuesday (1), and their US tour will continue until September 26. The Motorboat cruise is on the 28th, and a European tour is scheduled to start in November. Hang in there, Lemmy!
