Dana Fuchs "Broken Down" Tour Important Announcement!

I am so very sorry to say that I have to end the European tour early with the last show being on October 20.

As many of you know, my family and I have been through a lot of tragic loss very recently and now I need to take some time off to deal with some pressing matters of heart and health.  

Please know that it PAINS me to cancel.  I have pushed through each loss and continued touring each time, but this time I truly cannot.  I'm so sorry.

When the dates are rescheduled, you all will be the first to know.  Meanwhile, I do hope to see many of you on the tour now in Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and at my last two German shows (for a while.) 

Please join me on October 19th in Aschaffenburg, DE at Colos-Saal and October 20th in Bensheim, DE at Musiktheater Rex to continue to celebrate our very precious human lives together and end the year stompin' and sweating in our Church of Love and Music!

On what may seem to be a separate note, but I assure you is not, after I say a heartfelt thank you to all of you for getting me through such dark days and continuing to celebrate life with me these past few years, I also feel tremendously compelled to say thank you to author Katherine Boo, for her doctrine into a realm of human suffering I have been only loftily aware of, and for the most part shielded from, which is so starkly depicted in her beautiful and tragic book, "Behind The Beautiful Forevers".

I discovered this book 2 years ago thanks to a woman who reads this blog, in particular an entry I wrote about my week in Mumbai and my 5 days visiting the Annawadi Slum that Katherine Boo writes about.  A slum only minutes from my luxury hotel.  A hotel that so many of the slum dwellers only dream of being given, at best, the opportunity to fold napkins and steal garbage from the many dumpsters.  

The lessons from that trip were just a small whetting of my appetite to "know sufferings," yet I've still found myself feeling a seemingly fortunate sense of separation from what such a hell realm must really feel like.  

Katherine Boo so generously and dutifully covers this particular slum without even changing the names of her precious characters, like Asha, Adbul and Sunil, and I keep peeling back more layers of the indelible mark it has left on me and the ways in which it manifests that force me, at least for a fraction of a second, to recognize the preciousness of my own human life.  

Starting with the smallest things, like not wanting to just "toss" the extra condiments or utensils from my take out supper, because I know now that little Sunil, the 12 yr old malnourished orphan whose biggest hope is to grow a few inches taller and stay alive by scavenging this "trash" from treacherously death-defying and revolting places so he can sell it for maybe 50¢ a day to those only marginally more fortunate, would simply never have the luxury of such carelessness.  One person's trash is indeed another person's treasure.

I am now taking a series of flights and long drives on a tour that I've had to almost cut in half and I'm feeling the pressure of disappointed agents and promoters, the financial loss that impacts mostly me and my band and to all of you who have faithfully bought tickets and told your friends to come and planned for the dates!  I'm so sorry.  

All of this is reeling through my head as I sit stuffed in a tiny narrow coach class seat, poor me because I didn't get my upgrade, while under-appreciating the vegetarian pasta that I would normally call "pathetic" but now have the almost inconvenient awareness of how Sunil would likely give his life to have just one "rich person experience," as the slum kids call flying and this meal would be a FEAST for him and his entire family, so I stop my mind from going to this selfish luxury of dissatisfaction.  

Ok I know, we have all heard and rolled our eyes over the whole, "eat all of your dinner because children are starving in Africa" speech.  But the fact is, by now we all know that humans and animals ARE starving and suffering grave conditions everywhere. 

What if we stopped to contemplate this in a way that takes it from "an old cliche" that we've heard again and again and instead begin to check in with ourselves to see if it has really sufficiently moved our heart in a way that evokes and inspires change?  Small change, like asking the restaurant to hold the condiments and utensils.  Wasting less and appreciating more.  Patiently accepting life's "curve balls" knowing that for many of us, they are almost always "luxury problems."  

Can we make room in our hearts, not by dismissing our own suffering, but rather through our own suffering, can we contemplate ways to find empathy for everyone's suffering?

I can't help but wonder what impact this would have if we all just tried a tiny bit more to be conscious of that for all living beings.  

"Behind the Beautiful Forevers" keeps reminding me of just how much truth there is in the phrase, "a little goes a long way."

Anyway, as I am forced to cancel the last few weeks of this tour in order to be present for the "suffering" of others, my heart is moved with gratitude that I have the blessing of choice.

Lastly, I have released a new album.  Advance copies are available at my online store by clicking here.

The title says it all, "Broken Down". It is not only reflective of how the songs are recorded but also speaks to the heartache and perseverance of the last two decades of my music career. 

A career that thanks to you all, has steadily built over these recent years of touring non-stop and gives me a place to let it all out!  The album has been officially dedicated to my late family members and to all of you who celebrate life with me at every show.

Thank you all for not only being a part of my story but helping me to create it and for your unending love and support.  

I look forward to continuing to celebrate life, love, pain and joy with you.

Love,

Dana