FIRST Oasis and now The Cranberries. The Limerick band has pulled out of its US tour, cancelling nine gigs, due to the illness of singer Dolores O'Riordan who is suffering from exhaustion.
The band will travel back to Ireland over the next few days but is keen to emphasise that the tour will resume in Europe in October.
The band, which is six months of the way through an 18 month world tour, has been on what they call a "punishing" schedule in the US. They have been touring the US since July on a "two days on, one day off" schedule.
The problems for O'Riordan arose when she had to spend all her days off doing press interviews, photographic shoots, television spots and in store record signing sessions. As a consequence, her voice is strained, and although a three day break last week did ease matters, the band decided to pull all the remaining gigs after taking medical advice.
"The band are very disappointed," said guitarist Noel Hogan. "The North America part of the tour was going really well and we were having a great time with our fans."
The Cranberries, who have now notched up more than 20 million sales of their three albums worldwide, are touring their most recent album, To The Faithful Departed, and so far have completed the Asian and Australian legs of the tour. They resume live action in Munich on October 18th and complete the European leg of the tour in London's Wembley Arena on December 16th.
