The band were forced to cancel all of their shows this past weekend and BW&BK's Mitch Lafon had to get to the bottom of it. So he rang up guitarist Phil Collen who explained, "Joe (Elliott - vocals) and I came down with a virus - they thought it was pneumonia, but it's not. But we both have lost our voices and there was just no way to do the shows. We are currently holed up in Quebec City." Which leads us to ask: if he lost his voice, how in the hell did he tell Mitch this? Not important. We'll have to take his word for it that the voice of the band (a.k.a. Joe) is really mute.

And to add injury to illness, Collen also told Mitch that Rick Allen is laid up and can't drum because he threw his back out. Now before we shoot you off to BW&BK for the latest on this saga of Leppard woe, we must clarify that we assumed the vet part in the beginning of this article because of Phil saying "they thought." He could have been talking about Styx and REO Speedwagon (who they are touring with.) Since we're reading into things, it should be safe to say that Viv and Sav have apparently escaped calamity (for now). On happier note, we can report that the advance of "Songs From The Sparkle Lounge" showed up today and we gave it a spin before Tony K snatched it up for his forthcoming review. All we can tell you is that some guitar loving fans might be pleasantly surprised come April 29th when it hits stores in America. - We hope they can claw their way back to health real soon. For now read the latest at BW&BK

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