Steven Van Zandt Undergoes Emergency Surgery for Appendicitis

Steven Van Zandt will sit out several shows with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band following emergency surgery for appendicitis. The guitarist shared the news on social media on Monday night, revealing that he was treated in San Sebastián, Spain, following a show in the city.

“Got a sharp pain in my stomach, thought it was food poisoning, turned out to be appendicitis,” he wrote. “Got lucky with an exceptional hospital in San Sebastian. Operation was a complete success and I’m hoping to get back on stage for at least one of the shows in Milan. Thank you all for all the good vibes. See you soon.”

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are in the middle of a European stadium tour, with the next stop scheduled for Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on June 27. The band is due to perform back-to-back show at Milan’s San Siro Stadium on June 30 and July 3. They haven’t made a formal announcement about who will fill in for Van Zandt during his recovery.

Earlier on the tour, Springsteen took aim at Donald Trump, earning the ire of the president. During his second concert in Manchester, England, in May the rocker delivered a three-minute speech critical of “an unfit president and a rogue government.”

“Things are happening right now that are altering the very nature of our country’s democracy, and they’re too important to ignore,” Springsteen said, echoing much of his message from the previous concert. “In America, my home, they’re persecuting people for their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. That’s happening now.”

Last week, Springsteen released a new box set, Tracks II: The Lost Albums. It features seven complete records the musician shelved between 1983 and 2018, including 74 songs most hardcore fans have never heard. 

“If you look at them as a group, they’re sort of genres that I haven’t quite dived into as of yet,” Springsteen told Rolling Stone of the release. “They were all these sort of outliers, and what do you do with them? I don’t know. So this is how we ended up solving the problem.”