2001.05.10 - CDNow/Allstar News - Guns N' Roses Cancels European Tour Due To Buckethead's Illness

Guns N' Roses Cancels European Tour Due To Buckethead's Illness

With less than a month to go before launching its first tour in eight years, Guns N' Roses has cancelled its pending European road trip citing illness on the part of guitarist Buckethead.

The 14-date tour was set to begin June 1 with the Rock Im Park in Nuremberg, Germany, and culminate with the Roskilde Festival June 28 in Denmark. A source close to the band told allstar that Buckethead, a.k.a. Brian Carroll, has been too ill to rehearse with the group and that medical experts have yet to determine the source of some reported internal hemorrhaging. They say that more tests are required.

It's thought that the guitarist is being treated on an outpatient basis at home in Southern California and is not currently hospitalized. According to a note from the guitarist's official Web master, "Buckethead is OK at this point in time. The problem is still being looked into."

The revamped group, which consists of Buckethead, guitarists Robin Finck and Paul Tobias (a.k.a. Huge), bassist Tommy Stinson, keyboardist Dizzy Reed, and drummer Brain backing singer Axl Rose, has only performed together twice -- a New Year's Eve performance in Las Vegas and a mid-January appearance at Rock in Rio in Rio De Janeiro.

An album, Chinese Democracy, has been underway for six years and is currently thought to be in the final mixing stages. Although Interscope, the band's label, has consistently declined to guess at a release date, the most recent speculation had the album out this summer, although that no longer appears to be the case.

Buckethead performed a solo show April 20 in San Francisco, and according to Bucketheadland.com, his official Web site, he has several CD and soundtrack projects underway as well, including a solo CD titled Somewhere Over the Slaughterhouse due out next month on the Stray Records label.

-- Bonnie Nicolson