Guitarist Orianthi Drops Off Alice Cooper Tour Due to Injury, Replaced by Gilby Clarke (Ex-Guns N’ Roses)
Back in November, we reported that Alice Cooper, on his upcoming string of tour dates to start on January 31 and run through February, he would be without his guitarist, Nita Strauss, who has been playing for Cooper since 2014 but will be busy during that time with her own solo tour dates. Since this is Alice Cooper and he has a lot of friends he can lean on when he’s short one person, he reached out to his own former touring guitarist Orianthi Panagaris, often known by the mononym Orianthi. Well, the reunion of Cooper and Orianthi seems to have been cancelled with less than a week to go until the tour starts, as Orianthi has sustained a few injuries on her recent tour that are going to require immediate treatment.
On Orianthi’s personal Instagram account, she posted on Friday about her planned performance at the PRS Guitars showcase, explaining that she would be seated while playing due to surgery and then would be resting up:
“Unfortunately I have a torn hamstring and damage to my hip after Last tour , not sure exactly when it happened but the pain I feel/ felt is bad .. getting it fixed up now …I’ll be seated tonight playing a couple of tunes for 40th anniversary @prsguitars then resting up ❤️???? love u all”
Orianthi posted a few other posts about her injury on Instagram, including one of her on what appears to be some sort of medical table saying:
“Hopefully be mended up soon!! Will be a process .. love u all”
According to Wikipedia, Orianthi and I are the same age and, I can confirm, we’re right at the point in our lives where people tell us that we still look young, but underneath it all it feels like our bodies are slowly starting to break down. At least that’s my experience. So I think all of us at MetalSucks would like to wish her a speedy recovery.
Meanwhile, Cooper, with just about a week to find a new replacement, didn’t waste any time. According to our friends over at Metal Injection, Cooper has recruited former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke to fill in for Orianthi who was filling in for Nita Strauss. If Clarke is forced to drop out of the tour for any reason, then Cooper might want to check to see if he was cursed by an angry witch for some reason.
The full list of tour dates with Clarke are listed below:
Jan. 31 – Augusta, GA – Bell Auditorium
Feb. 01 – Cherokee, NC – Harrah’s Casino Resort Event Center
Feb. 02 – Greensboro, NC – Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts
Feb. 04 – Mobile, AL – Saenger Theatre
Feb. 06 – Orlando, FL – Hard Rock
Feb. 07 – Ft Myers, FL – Barbara Mann Performing Arts Hall
Feb. 08 – Clearwater, FL – Coachmen Park
Feb. 11 – St. Augustine, FL – Amphitheatre
Feb. 13-Feb. 17 – Miami, FL – Rock Legends Cruise
