Friday, November 21, 2008

The Roots got in a bus crash

The Roots Recovering After Tour Bus Crash

Photo by Matt Ziegler

"Just wanna be the first celeb to twit... from an ambulance," reads an entry on the Twitter of Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson of Philly's the Roots. From the sound of things, ?uestlove and his bandmates are pretty pleased to be alive and relatively well after their tour bus crashed en route to Paris last night (November 19).

The band emerged from the mess relatively unscathed, and ?uest was in fact able to extensively blog about the accident mere hours after it happened. Thompson writes, "in reality the crash was all of about 7 seconds....but to do a 360 on the highway and end up ramped up (the van that crashed into ours was UNDER our double decker bus) in the air....is....well... a frigging miracle." As he writes elsewhere, "dog we are soooo alive right now."

Though some suffered injuries leading to "cuts and neck braces," everyone on the bus is-- again-- okay, though the fate of the band's upcoming dates appears somewhat in limbo. ?uestlove notes something about the band's participation in Kanye West's Paris gig tonight (November 20) being highly unlikely but as of now no announcement has been made about any further cancellations. "That was divine intervention. we are so grateful for this outcome," he writes. Us too.

Of course, an incident like this might help along the widely circulated rumor going around this week that the band would retire from proper touring and, instead, serve as the house band when Jimmy Fallon takes over for Conan O'Brien on NBC's "Late Night" in 2009.

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