Heart kicked off their North American “Royal Flush Tour” this past Friday (February 28th), and singer Ann Wilson has been performing the initial shows while seated in a wheelchair. While it was speculated that the legendary vocalist was still recovering from her cancer battle, Wilson has explained that she actually injured herself when she fell down in a parking lot.
The band’s “Royal Flush Tour” (tickets available here) runs through an April 16th show at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, and will be followed by a just-announced additional US outing dubbed “An Evening with Heart” that kicks off in late May (an artist pre-sale using the code DREAMS is under way).
Last year, Heart had to postpone their summer tour when it was announced that Wilson was diagnosed with cancer, and would undergo treatments. As the singer noted in the latest episode of her podcast After Dinner Thinks With Ann Wilson (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), she is now cancer-free, but suffered an unfortunate injury to her arm just days before the tour.
“I think some people thought that I was in a wheelchair because of cancer, which I just kicked its ass and I’m nice and clear now,” explained Wilson. “It’s not about cancer. It’s about me being a klutz [five days before the tour] and missing a step and falling into a parking lot and busting my elbow in three places and then having to have it pinned back together with screws and all that kind of stuff.”
She continued, “In other ways, I’m perfectly fine. It’s just I don’t have the use of my left arm right now. So it’s hard to navigate when you just have one hand and your other whole arm is in a sling … And you don’t have the same balance. So I had to get used to that. And singing on stage, I really think that the pain level is still way too high for me to take it out of the sling. So I chose to sit because then I can just concentrate on singing and not on keeping my balance and having somebody out there catching me when I reel to the side.”
Wilson added, “I think it’s looked on as some kind of an admission of vulnerability. And we have to look at the person and go, ‘Oh, that’s too bad’ and bring negativity into it. It doesn’t have to be that way. No, it’s a great tool. And I’ll be up and out of it after a while.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer said that some fans have suggested that she sit in a throne, a la Dave Grohl when he broke his leg in 2015 after falling off a stage in Sweden.
Hear the singer discuss her injury in the latest episode of the After Dinner Thinks With Ann Wilson podcast below.
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