Tonight’s Morrissey show in San Jose will go on, but without its highly-anticipated opener, Amanda Palmer.
The Boston musician and performer revealed yesterday that last weekend she was hospitalized for acute Lyme disease treatment, and therefore will not be opening for the former Smiths singer tonight at the Event Center at San Jose State University. Palmer, who is also seven-months pregnant, received two spinal taps while receiving treatment in a Maine facility. She stressed that her baby, due in a few weeks, was unaffected by the bug bite.
Palmer detailed the situation in a blog post on her website and Patreon, where she has been doing most of her writing recently. It’s titled “i am sick, i am canceling morrissey, and i am sad,” and she gives a pretty colorful breakdown of a very scary situation.
Goldenvoice relayed word of the cancellation yesterday, as well.
Due to illness @amandapalmer will not perform at tomorrow's #Morrissey show in San Jose.
— GoldenvoiceSF (@GoldenvoiceSF) July 24, 2015
Here is part of Palmer’s assessment of the situation:
on wednesday night in boston, before leaving for maine the following day, I got a weird feeling in the night, woke up, dragged my pregnant body to the bathroon to pee, felt a chill in my bones even though it was 75 degrees out, thought “that’s odd, must be some weirdo pregnant thing” and went back to bed. on thursday neil and i drove up to maine, and on thursday night I had a fever and a chill. neil made sympathetic sounds. on friday, he noticed the back of my arm and noticed that there was a giant bull’s eye-shaped insect-bite. we took a photo and sent it to doctor dan, our wonderful family doctor. doctor dan phoned in some antibiotics and told us to keep him updated.
on friday night, i sweated through the sheets and moaned and groaned with a chill so bad I had to ask neil to wrap my feet, which were like ice blocks, in a hot washcloth. then my icy feet would turn to burning logs, and I had to ask neil to put a cold washcloth on them to cool them down. i was delirious. he fetched all the washcloths. he’s a really, really, really good husband.
we were worried about the baby. i’m seven – almost eight – months pregnant. this was not good. we went to the emergency room on saturday morning. it was a half hour drive to the closest hospital. neil was careful going over the bumps. i oozed and gurgled.
[snip]
our cousin judith spent the first night with me, and then she and neil tag-teamed back and forth between being with the family and being by my side while I beat the fever. we got the blood tests back eventually: acute lyme disease. and the best news possible: early stage lyme disease, which means they caught it in time and it hopefully can’t linger, and most importantly, it can’t hurt the baby.
i don’t know what fucking tick ruined my week, but fuck that tick. the tick bite may have happened the day outside near the woods at anthony’s memorial, or i may have been punished for rollicking around on the grass in upstate new york the week before. i’ll never know. i don’t care. i forgive the tick. the ticks are hungry. i am food. we are all one. whatever.
i was really, really, really, REALLY looking forward to opening for morrissey. the gig of a lifetime, basically, and if you know me, you know why.
i got out of the hospital on tuesday, i crossed my fingers, stayed in bed, drank all the fluids, took all the tylenol, wished all the wishes, and hoped that i would recover quickly.
no such luck. it seems it’s not even the lyme disease itself which is holding me back: it’s the fucking spinal tap.
(insert spinal tap joke HERE)
As of press time, no replacement opener has been announced by Morrissey’s camp.