Weezer back on tour after bus accident
Frontman Cuomo 'feeling up to rock and roll once again'
January 21, 2010, 11:32 a.m.
STAFF REPORT
Weezer is set to return to the stage Thursday night at Florida State University with frontman Rivers Cuomo having recovered from a bus accident last month.
"Doctor says my lung is all healed—cleared to fly to Florida for the show," tweeted the 40-year-old Cuomo.
Cuomo suffered five broken ribs, a ruptured spleen and a punctured lung when the group's tour bus hit some ice, skidded across the New York State Thruway, struck a guide rail and slid into a ditch in early December, according to police.
They were traveling from Toronto to Boston, where the band was scheduled to perform.
Firefighters needed the jaws of life to pry Cuomo out. Cuomo's wife and 2-year-old daughter also were on the bus when it went off the road, but the two were unhurt.
Cuomo and the band's assistant, identified as Sarah Kim, were taken to a local hospital following the accident in the upstate New York town of Glen, about 40 miles west of Albany.
Kim is said to be "on track for a full recovery," according to a statement on the band's Web site.
"Rivers' recovery has gone well so far, and he is feeling up to rock and roll once again—not ready to fly through the air, but ready to play and sing at least," the post added.
Cuomo spent the past six weeks recuperating and catching up on songwriting projects, including writing a tune for the soundtrack to "Shrek: The Final Chapter."
The Tallahassee show is the only one the band has scheduled until the May 2 Bamboozle Festival in East Rutherford, N.J. A message on the band's Web site after the accident said Weezer was canceling the rest of its Raditude tour but would try to reschedule those dates.
Patrick Wilson, the band's drummer, posted an entry about the accident on his Twitter feed hours after the crash.
"It was perfect conditions for black ice," Wilson said. "Got loose going towards the meridian, driver saves it but bus goes thru guardrail into 6ft ditch."
Formed in Los Angeles in 1992, Weezer released its seventh studio album, "Raditude," in November.