Per his ongoing battle with cancer, Barry Manilow has postponed the next set of Las Vegas residency shows.
Diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer in December of last year, the iconic singer/songwriter had cancelled Nevada shows in February, along with his arena tour launch dates in February and March, followed by his April concerts.
Admitting that he’s still “not quite ready” to return to the stage, but making “great progress” with his health, the now 82-year old musician took to his Instagram Story with:
“Good news! I went to the doctor yesterday and he said I’m making great progress and look great. Well of course I do! Thank you very much! All the training and exercising I’ve put in is paying off.” “He did say, however, that I’m not quite ready for Vegas. That means I won’t be able to return for our May shows at [Westgate Las Vegas].”
Confident that his scheduled UK arena shows will go ahead and that he’ll eventually return to the Las Vegas stage for his July shows, the native New Yorker concluded:
“But the good news is he said I will be ready for my June arena shows in the UK. It’s going to be great to see you all in the UK. Westgate Las Vegas is my home away from home…and I’ll see you all in July. In the meantime…come to the UK! We’ll be there in June and hope you will be too! See you then… Barry.”
Admitting it’s “agony” waiting for his health to improve enough for him to be allowed back on stage, in a Sunday Times newspaper interview he said:
“I am still not there yet … I’m not totally healed. The doctors said that it would take a while, but I have no patience and waiting is agony.” “For my voice to come back, for my breathing to come back. It’s driving me nuts. I tried to sing my show, but I have not been able to make it to the end without getting so winded that I have to stop. I haven’t been able to do 90 minutes yet.” “I am getting closer and the doctors say it will come back, but they say: ‘Barry, you’ve been through hell. Ease up!’ And I have never heard a doctor say that, so it must have been more difficult than I thought.”
Crediting his quick-thinking doctor with saving his life by ordering a scan as a precaution after hearing about recent bouts of bronchitis, Manilow admitted he thought he was “dying” after he was diagnosed with lung cancer, telling People magazine:
“If he [the doctor] hadn’t done that [ordered the scan], man … He saved my life, because there’s no symptoms for what I had. “I could go on, nothing hurt – but they found the dot in my lung. They called me and said: ‘Could be cancer.’ That’s a bad word.” “Not me. F*** you. I can’t have cancer’ … “They don’t even know how long I had this thing sitting on me. It could have been years. If it had gone any further, then I would be up s*** creek. It just so happened that it hadn’t spread, and boy oh boy, I thought I might be dying.”
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Author: Saul Goode
Photo: Matt Becker (talk) (Uploads)