MASTODON’S BILL KELLIHER HOSPITALIZED

According to various eyewitness accounts, Mastodon’s show on Tuesday, April 27th at the Water Street Music Hall in Rochester, NY (with Between the Buried and Me, Baroness and Valient Thorr) was canceled due to guitarist Bill Kelliher’s hospitalization. The show was originally going to be moved to Wednesday, April 28th — an off-date on the tour — but according to the venue website has now been postponed until May due to “ongoing illness with Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher.” While Mastodon’s own official site confirms the initial rescheduling to April 28th, it does not comment on the most recent postponement or Bill Kelliher’s condition.

No other information is available. The hospitalization could be linked to the alcohol-related illness that forced Kelliher to sit out the band’s European dates in 2008, but there’s no evidence available to either support or shoot down any such rumors. All we can really do right now is wish Bill a speedy recovery and hope that he’s well enough to continue the tour tonight in Grand Rapids, MI — the band’s just not the same without him.

-VN

Thanks: Bryan Kemp, Alex Johnson