X reaffirm their legacy, rally around ailing guitarist Billy Zoom at the Observatory
Kevin Bronson on
2
Punk legends X kicked off a four-night residency at the Observatory on Thursday night on the heels of an announcement that morning that guitarist Billy Zoom has been diagnosed with bladder cancer.
||| Photos by Monique Hernandez
Zoom, 67, born Tyson Kindell, vowed to participate in Observatory shows, which celebrated X’s first four albums — “Los Angeles” on Thursday night, “Wild Gift” on Friday, “Under the Big Black Sun” tonight and “Fun in the New World” on Sunday — as he begins chemotherapy treatment. Fundraising efforts have been launched to help cover Zoom’s treatment; click here to help.
Zoom, the father of 9-year-old twins, underwent treatment for prostate cancer in 2010 and admitted in a note to the fund-raiser’s early supporters that his family is not yet financially recovered from that previous bout with cancer.
The band announced that Texas guitarist Jesse Dayton would sit in for Zoom on X’s ensuing tour, which starts next week on the East Coast and includes a free show with Dwight Yoakam on Aug. 8 at the Annenberg Space for Photography.
Thursday’s show at the Observatory was a show of old-school L.A. muscle, as the Blasters and Mike Watt & The Secondmen opened.
[…] Secondmen supporting, are headlined “Support Billy Zoom,” the band’s guitarist who revealed in July that he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and has been undergoing treatment since. The big X news is that Zoom plans to rejoin the quartet […]
[…] fans know, the guitarist had been undergoing treatment for bladder cancer and veteran Texas musician Jessie Dayton filled in for him on the band’s string of summer shows. But he’s doing okay now and, at least for these holiday shows, back in the fold, if playing much […]