Bob Seger powers past surgery
He’s ready to turn the page, get back to tour.
Bob Seger was three weeks into his tour when the numb tingle first crept into his hands.
“Whoa, this is weird,” Seger remembers thinking after a Sept. 12 show in Rochester, N.Y.
At 72, the iconic rocker had been riding high. His 32-show tour was packing arenas and reviews were glowing. Beyond the nightly set of time-tested hits, Seger and the Silver Bullet Band had been rehearsing his new songs, prepping for the release of I Knew You When, his emotional tribute to late friend and Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey.
But now his hands were tingling, and the MRI results were startling: Seger had ruptured a disc in his neck. His spinal cord was severely pinched.
That medical evaluation, undisclosed until now, would ultimately lead to an intense spinal surgery, interrupting a tour that Seger now hopes to restart in the spring.
“Let’s face it: I’ve been singing real hard for 52 years,” Seger says in his first interview about the situation. “That’s a strain on the upper shoulders and neck. And I guess I finally just popped one out.”
Specialists viewing Seger’s scans were amazed by his lack of pain — “you should be screaming,” one told him — and advised him it was safe to continue performing unless the numbness moved elsewhere.
“If you start dragging a leg,” Seger says they warned him, “run for emergency.”
For two weeks, Seger persevered with his Runaway Train Tour.
“It was nerve-wracking to go up there every night, singing as hard as I could,” Seger says. “But I thought, ‘You know, I can do it. I’ll take care of this after the tour.’ ”
Then it hit. Ahead of a scheduled Sept. 30 date in Columbus, Ohio, Seger woke up at his suburban Detroit home, walked out of his bedroom and realized: “Jesus, I’m dragging my left leg.”
“I said, ‘OK, that’s it! Pulling the plug!’ ” Seger recounts. Carrying on would risk permanent nerve damage.
His remaining 19 dates were called off as he braced for a grueling spinal operation through the back of his neck, guaranteeing an aftermath of severe pain. Less drastic procedures were available, but this one would steer clear of the larynx that had long fueled one of rock’s most distinctive voices. “I opted for the pain,” Seger says. Seger underwent his cervical laminectomy Oct. 20, and doctors were pleased with the outcome.
Seger left the hospital four days later facing a tough recovery of at least three months — daily therapy required and no singing allowed. For a week he could barely walk, calling the pain “about an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10.” Now, he’s improving daily, though a consistent neck pain remains and the only real relief comes with sleep.
For Seger and Silver Bullet, the tour postponement was frustrating because they’d been excited to roll out material from the new album. Seger hopes that chance will now come in March or April, but it is dependent on the post-surgery pain going away.
All things considered, Seger sounds in high spirits, frequently breaking into hearty laughter as he recounts his ordeal and enthuses about the record.
I Knew You When, out now, is Seger’s 18th studio album.
“I wanted this album to rock,” Seger says. “I didn’t want it be some maudlin thing in order to regard his memory. Glenn loved rock ’n’ roll.”