Blink-182 cancels fall tour, citing drummer Travis Barker's ongoing medical issues

San Diego Union-Tribune

Sept. 7, 2018 8:40 AM PT

The Poway-bred punk-pop band blink-182 has canceled its nine-city September concert tour because of drummer Travis Barker’s ongoing health issues.

This comes after the June postponement of Las Vegas dates at the Pearl Theater — where the three-man band kicked off a seven-month, 16-show residency in May — following the diagnosis that Barker had blood clots in both his arms. Hopes that time off the road would clear up the problem for the hard-hitting drummer have apparently not yet panned out.

In a Thursday post on its Facebook page, the band wrote: “It is with a heavy heart to report that blink must cancel its fall mini-tour which was set to kick off September 8th on their way to headline Riot Fest in Chicago. Medical issues have sidelined Travis per doctors’ orders. Trav’s medical team anticipated that he would be well enough by fall to tour but after recent checkups, they were not able to clear him in time for the scheduled run of dates.”

Barker, 42, added: “The past few months have just sucked as I have been sidelined just waiting for my doctors to clear me so I could get back on the road and perform with my band. Unfortunately, the risks associated with drumming are still too great. I am doing everything I need to do so I can get back on the road as soon as possible. I want to thank my fans, family, friends, and bandmates for all the love and support.”

If Barker rebounds in time, blink is scheduled to perform eight shows at The Pearl Theater in Las Vegas between Oct. 26 and Nov. 17.

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga

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George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”