Earlier this year I had sniffles one day, but I was talking fine and when I did my vocal warm up my voice was ok.
But when I went on stage that night my voice started to just go towards the end of the last set.
It became more and more hoarse. I had to continue to the end - the show must go on, and all that

but I sounded dreadful. And I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. Oh the shame of sounding bad and expecting to get paid for my singing. I felt awful. And those last twenty minutes felt like days!
We had four more gigs booked that weekend, but we cancelled them. My voice was under par for the next ten days so we had to cancel the next weekend's gigs too.
We have no other source of income - but we cancelled because I know that singing while my larynx/vocal chords were like that would
A) sound horrid and
B) cause damage.
So do I just lose two weekends work and rest or do I risk damaging my 'golden goose'?
I do not have loads of money in the Bank, and a weekends gigs for us is like a whole week's wage for someone in a 9 to 5.
So we lost the equivalent of two weeks wages because I was ill. But we still cancelled. And we're still not caught up financially because of that loss of wages.
I have access to recording studios in my area, so I could go and record my vocal and I could have mimed those gigs, but I didn't.
I stayed home, feeling lousy but nurturing my throat until the infection and swelling went away.
It isn't rocket science. You have a throat problem, you rest and you fix it before you sing again. That golden throat is precious. If you break your guitar or your drum skins you replace 'em. Can't do it with your throat.
Although I sympathise with SA - because I think there must have been some legal pressure or something hanging over him, and I blame whoever put that pressure on him, but he has to be accountable for some of the blame. I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable singing croakily for about twenty minutes. And I felt bad about cancelling all those gigs, but my throat isn't damaged, and all those venues have booked us again now I'm better.
'Blame' if you want to call it that, falls equally on everyone on the Journey stage and those puppet masters in the wings.
BUT - having said that, everyone can make a bad decision and later regret it.
Thats human nature - what gets me is that certain people seem to continue to make bad decisions. Will they ever learn?
I'm glad Augeri's throat is healed, I really am. And Best of Luck to him in future. Maybe now he can make his own decisions and hopefully HE has learned from past mistakes. Come out and show us what you can do, Steve, but if you get a throat problem again - cancel the gig and get better before you sing again.
