Weezer's Cuomo Remains Hospitalized After Bus Crash as Band Cancels Shows

In a harrowing post on Weezer's official Website, band pal Karl Koch details the tour bus accident that injured frontman Rivers Cuomo severely enough to force the cancellation of the band's remaining December tour dates. Cuomo, who Koch reports remains hospitalized, suffered three cracked ribs, "painful internal damage" and a lower leg injury; band assistant Sarah Kim fractured a lower vertebrae and two ribs; the bus' other passengers — Cuomo's wife, two-year-old daughter and her nanny — and driver were not injured.

Koch writes that as RS reported earlier, the tour bus skidded on ice and careened across several lanes of traffic on I-90 in upstate New York, crashing over a guardrail and into a muddy ditch. Cuomo was alone, sleeping in the bus' back lounge at the time of the incident, and he was trapped and unable to speak immediately after the crash due to his injuries. Emergency responders used the "jaws of life" to pry the back window of the bus off to free Cuomo, and Koch writes that he was horrified by the scene once the other buses in the convoy caught up to the accident site.

"I couldn't believe what was happening in front of me, as Rivers lay so helpless, shivering in the center of the chaos, and meanwhile the sun was coming up and revealing an utterly beautiful light covering of snow on the surrounding trees," Koch writes. His post includes chilling photographs of Cuomo being removed from the bus on a stretcher and the bus' extensive damage.

See photos from the Weezer frontman's recent RS shoot.

Kim has been released from the hospital, but Cuomo was transported to a larger hospital for observation. "He is resting about as comfortably as could be expected now, and we were relieved to hear that surgery is unlikely," Koch adds.

Weezer were scheduled to perform Monday night at Boston University's Agganis Arena, December 9th at Washington, DC's Patriot Center and December 10th at Camden, New Jersey's Susquehanna Bank Center. The status of the rest of the band's Raditude trek, which is slated to resume January 9th in San Francisco, is still unclear. Koch writes that refund information for the December shows will be posted on Weezer's Website when it becomes available, and that the band intends to reschedule the canceled dates.

Related Stories:
• Weezer Riff Like Metal Gods, Party With a Hip-Hop Star at Tour Launch
• Rivers Cuomo on Adam Lambert Team-Up, Favorite Pop Stars
• Weezer Say Lil Wayne "Tapped Into the Spirit" of Raditude Track

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Great Gatsby' Is a Crushing Disappointment
• 
  TV Why You Should Watch 'Happy Endings'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“Let My Love Open the Door”

Pete Townshend | 1980

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter