Britney Closes Onyx Hotel
(6/15/04) Joal Ryan E!

Britney Spears is out of the hotel business.

The summer Stateside leg of Spears' Onyx Hotel tour was canceled Tuesday, nearly a week after the pop tart underwent arthroscopic knee surgery.

Spears' camp blamed the blown-out knee on the blown-out dates.

"Ms. Spears will be immobile for six weeks, with her knee in a hard brace," a statement said. "This will be followed by a minimum of eight to 12 weeks of rehabilitation."

The Onyx Hotel tour opened for business in North America in March. It was to resume June 22 in Hartford, Connecticut, concluding Aug. 15 in Bakersfield, California.

Dates for Europe and Asia were also planned. It was not known if the overseas shows would go on.

Spears' reps said the singer hoped to revisit the U.S. cities she'll miss during her "hard brace" period sometime "in the future."

Spears is the second ex-Mouseketeer to go on the disabled list for the summer concert season. In April, Christina Aguilera nixed her 28-city North American sojourn, citing strained vocal cords.

While rumors were that Aguilera begged off the tour because of poor ticket sales, Spears, at least, was doing solid business with Onyx Hotel.

The first portion of her tour averaged a $728,000 gross in 18 cities, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of the concert trade magazine, Pollstar.

Citing the limited number of shows aimed at the teen market this beach season, Bongiovanni said he would have expected Spears to do decent business.

In what's shaping up to be an overall soft summer for live acts, Bongiovanni said he understood Spears taking it easy.

"She is a very high energy show and you can start to recover from something like a knee injury, but if you don't rest it you can very easily reinjure it," Bongiovanni said.

The irony is, that while fellow teen pop acts such as 'N Sync and Backstreet Boys have all but disappeared, "Britney has proved she's still got legs," Bongiovanni said.

Spears' legs began giving her trouble March 18 when a knee went out on her during a show in Moline, Illinois.

On June 8, Spears was prancing under a subway line in New York City with Snoop Dogg, shooting a video for her upcoming single, "Outrageous," when she went down again.

Doctors found floating cartilage in one of the knees, and ordered up arthroscopic surgery. The procedure was performed June 9.

It was unclear if Spears immobility would force her to turn down Madonna's reputed offer to join her kissing buddy on stage for the Material Mother's six-date stand at New York's Madison Square Garden, starting Wednesday.

The Onyx Hotel Tour Is Cancelled
(6/15/04) PRNewswire (thanks Eva!)

NEW YORK, June 15 /PRNewswire/ -- After last week's injury resulting from a fall on the set of her video shoot for "Outrageous" in Queens, NY, Britney Spears underwent arthroscopic knee surgery at a New York hospital. The surgery was necessary to repair severe damage caused to the singer's leg by the incident.

Ms. Spears will be immobile for 6 weeks, with her knee in a hard brace. This will be followed by a minimum of 8-12 weeks of rehabilitation.

The Onyx Hotel Tour which was scheduled to begin on June 22nd in Hartford, CT and end in Bakersfield, CA on August 15th is cancelled. Britney Spears hopes to revisit those cities in the future. For ticket information call Clear Channel.

New Magazine JC interview
(6/15/04) New Magazine UK (thanks glittertwirler!)

Just like Britney, Justin and Christina, JC Chasez started his singing career in the Mickey Mouse Club, back in the late 80s. It was there that he met Justin, and they then went on to form NSYNC, America's biggest boyband. Despite their solo projects, JC insists that the band is still together - they're doing their next annual charity show in Miami in July. Meanwhile, he's been a very busy boy: touring with Britney, promoting his first solo album Schizophrenic, and getting thrown off the NFL half-time show for being too sexy. Here, he tells new! about work, love and why he likes singing about sex...

Are you enjoying touring with Britney?
It's been fun. NSync never really blew up in the UK, so when I did the London gig it was the first time I'd been in front of an audience this big in England, and it was exciting. I felt hungry again. I had to fight for everyone in that room, because they were all there to see Britney. My goal was that, when they walked out, they would say, hey, Britney was good but that guy JC was pretty good, too. I think it worked!

Is it true you gave Britney a hard time about her love life, and made her cry?
Are you serious? Tjhat's total crap. Touring with her is a blast. I stay out of her way when she has to go on stage and she stays out of mine. We chat backstage and that's it.

Was it fun being in The Mickey Mouse Club?
It's the best thing that ever happened to me. People didn't make fun of you for wanting to sing and dance - they'd embrace you for it. I met Justin and Joey [Fatone, also in NSYNC] when I was down there, too.

How often do you see the boys from NSYNC?
Whenever we're all in town, we always hook up, and whenever it gors too long, one of us will pick up the phone.

Your solo album, Schizophrenic, is very sexy. Was it important to you that it was different to NSYNC's stuff?
I just made a record that I would like. Every day I woke up and thought, I'm going to make a good record today, a cool song, it didn't matter what style.

You co-wrote all but one song on the album. What did you listen to while you were writing?
Nothing. I cut myself off from the world. Everybody and their mother had an opinion about what I should do, and I was just like, no, this is my record.

Who are your longer term influences then?
I listen to everything.

Everyone says everything, but they don't mean everything.
Listen to my record, it's everything! The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Police, Marley, Duran Duran, George Michael...

What's your plan for the next ten years?
Just to stay busy. My dream is to live the cycle. Make a record, promote it, tour it, go back in the studio, make another record and do it all over again. And I want to have fun along the way.

Are you single at the moment?
Yeah.

Do you like being single?
Yeah. Because I don't have to answer to anybody [laughs]. Don't get me wrong, though, relationships are amazing - if you're in a good relationship. This is actually the longest I've ever been single. I've dated and stuff, but I haven't had a full blown relationship for two and a half years. I've grown a lot on my own. I never really knew how to be single. It's better to be single now, at 27, than it was when I was 18. Now I feel like I've got my head on right, and I don't do stupid things when I'm dating.

You just write about them in your songs...
Yeah. Not only that, I don't waste my time with dumb stuff.

What do you mean, dumb stuff?
I don't hang around for the wrong reasons. Like it's great for a month, and then you spend four extra months in a miserable relationship. I'm not going to waste my time doing that. If I'm unhappy, I'm either going to change it or I'm going to bounce. I'm out, dude.

You don't have your eye on anyone at the moment?
No. But if I'm dating somebody, I wouldn't put them on blast anyway, because they didn't ask for the spotlight - unless they're famous. And I'm probably not going to date anyone famous, because I don't want that hassle.

Do you think Justin has had a hard time with Cameron Diaz because of that?
Not at all. But everybody likes different things. Me, I'm a lot more chilled than that. When it comes to my relationships, I like it to be mine. That's your quiet time, something special that you have for yourself and your lady. I like to keep it that way. If you have to worry about her public image, too, it's like a whole other responsibility on top of the relationship.

What happened with the NFL?
[Laughs] I got kicked off the Pro - Bowl! It was all booked, then the week before I was due to perform, the incident with Janet Jackson and Justin happened at the Superbowl 'the infamous 'wardrobe malfunction', where Janet's nipple was exposed mid-song], and they just freaked out. The next day, they called me and said, "We can't do the song, can you change it?" I changed the song, I changed the lyrics, I changed the dancers' outfits...

Then they said they couldn't do a pop song, and would I sing the national anthem instead? I told them I'd think about it, then the next day, there was a statement out to the press, saying I'd missed a rehearsal and that they'd pulled me from the half-time slot.

But the rehearsals were scheduled for Saturday, and this was on the Wednesday, so they lied. The next morning they called and asked if I wanted to do the anthem. I'd made up my mind to do it, but then I read their statement. So, I said no.

Has there been a big reaction in the US to the sexual content of the album?
No, it's been fine. The Eamon record is playing everywhere, and it's called F*** It! To have a knee-jerk reaction to my record would be silly.

Most of the songs are about sex though, aren't they?
About half. Maybe a little more than half [we actually counted 13 out of 17]. When I wrote this record, I wrote 25 or 30 songs, and we chose these 17 because those were the ones everybody seemed to be drawn to.

All Day Long I Dream About Sex is great...
That's probably my favourite song on the record. I just shot a video for it actually, it's the next single. It's a simple, big song, so the video's big, too - this epic performance. We shot it with a regular camera and then we pulled this camera out of storage that hadn't been used since 1979. It's got this gritty, messed-up look. I love it.

JC's tour dates with Britney cancelled
(6/15/04) (thanks missdonyae!)

According to JC's site, Music Freedom, "all Britney tour dates have been cancelled due to her knee injury."