Jimmy Barnes faces more surgery after finishing epic Cold Chisel tour ‘in agony’

Rocker Jimmy Barnes hid secret, severe pain as he wowed audiences on the Cold Chisel 50th anniversary tour.

Jimmy Barnes is heading for another round of surgery next week after battling through Cold Chisel’s epic 50th anniversary tour in severe pain with a “temporary hip”.

The rocker has been hit with a raft of health challenges over the past two years due to the wear and tear of performing, and then a life-threatening staph infection that damaged his heart.

The infection returned to his hip last August and Barnes underwent emergency surgery. He returned to the stage just seven weeks later with the Big Five-O tour, which ran from October to December, before three final shows in New Zealand last month.

“When I had the staph infection, they put in a temporary hip. It’s a smaller joint because the infection goes into the bones and when they put the rod into the femur where your hip joins, they have to pack it with this antibiotic cement,” Barnes said.

“We knew they were going to have to change it, get all that cement out and put in a titanium ball.”

Barnes is upbeat about his next round of surgery. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Barnes said he “just got through the tour,” with the pain worsening halfway through the run and restricting his movement.

“When I finished the gig, I would be in a lot of pain. I couldn’t swim, I couldn’t go to the gym, I’d just get up and do the gig. I was in agony,” he said.

“I sing leaning on my left leg all the time and I couldn’t do that. I had to try to keep the weight off it because I could have popped the hip.

“I strapped it up every night to remind myself not to move in certain ways.”

The rocker has spent a lot of time in hospital over the past two years. Picture: Instagram.

Before his operation on Monday, Barnes will reunite with his surgeon Dr John Rooney for a special recording session.

Over the course of his many surgeries, Barnes discovered Rooney is also the singer for the band The Lonelyhearts, and the rocker will record a guest vocal over the weekend for the doctor’s upcoming new record.

In another striking coincidence, Rooney’s band was the opening act for Cold Chisel on the night Barnes married his wife Jane in May 1981 at a Sydney registry office.

Barnes screamed through the pain during the Chisel gigs. Picture: Caroline Tan.

“We got married and played the Comb and Cutter hotel (in Blacktown) that night and his band supported Cold Chisel,” Barnes said.

“John’s a great singer and a good writer. So I’m gonna sing on John’s record and I figure I’ve got to sing really good, otherwise I’m gonna get a shitty hip and walk with a limp for the rest of my life.

“One of us is going to end up looking pretty hip.”

Barnes expects to be back swimming, and swivelling his new hip, in six weeks.

Originally published as Jimmy Barnes faces more surgery after finishing epic Cold Chisel tour ‘in agony’