Food poisoning robs At The Gates of lead guitarist

At The Gates were left a man short when guitarist Anders Bjorler was struck down by food poisoning.

The Swedish metal outfit played as a four piece in Milan, Italy – the first time they have ever performed without their lead guitarist Bjorler.

Apologising to fans, frontman Tomas Lindberg tells the Italian audience: “You might have noticed we are only four people here. Anders is off sick. So we try, okay. If something happens, have patience.”

The singer asked the crowd to sing Bjorler’s guitar parts, according to Italian website Soundblog.

The band announced Bjorler’s absence in the hours leading up to the show. The full statement read: “At the Gates are sad to inform you that Anders Bjorler won’t perform with us tonight at Metal Italia. He was forced to stay behind in Gothenburg with acute food poisoning.

“We will, however, make all the necessary preparations to go through with the show anyway, and to the best of our abilities, make it as close to a normal ATG show. We hope that you will understand and support our decision to go through with the show for all you die hard Italian metalheads.”

At The Gates next play live in Maryland, USA, later this month before a European tour in November and December.

See Tomas Lindberg explains Anders Bjorler’s absence to Italian fans.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.