I happened to be in the front row in Helsinki back in June 2011 when he injured his knee. It was during LTOR and I saw it happen very clearly. It was raining and at first it looked to me as if he just stretched his knee joint a bit on the slippery stage.

That was when I realized what an amazing work ethics the guy has. He just briefly screamed ‘ouch’ and kept on singing, unable to move. And according to my knowledge, not one single song was dropped that night. We even got Thorn In My Side, No Apologies and Wild Is The Wind towards the end of the show. And he even slowly limped onto the catwalk to sing WWWB with Richie. Judging by the expression on his face, it was very obvious he was in a lot of pain.

The next time I saw them in Finland was in 2013. He never got onto the catwalk during that show. He said he left “a part of his knee cap” on the catwalk the last time he was in Finland so he didn’t want to try his luck this time. Fair enough.

(But of course, in 2011, the injury took place on the main stage, not on the catwalk so I guess he was just being funny or he didn’t remember the details).