'I’m excited': Donnie Iris ready to hit the stage a year after cancer diagnosis

It’s been more than a year since Donnie Iris last got to play a concert, but he isn’t nervous. Not after the year he’s had.

“No, I’m excited,” Iris said in a phone call last week. “I’m excited more than anything.”

Iris, who just turned 81 on Feb. 28, finally will be back on stage with the Cruisers on Saturday night at UPMC Events Center in Moon, with Pittsburgh stalwarts the Clarks and the Vindys out of Youngstown, Ohio, opening the show.

The return comes almost a year after he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, not long after an 80th birthday concert/celebration for the Pittsburgh music luminary known for songs such as “Ah! Leah!” and “Love Is Like a Rock,” as well as “The Rapper,” from his time in the Jaggerz.

“My doctor had called me after a visit to her, and she said flat out, ‘You have cancer.’ I said, ‘What?’ and she diagnosed it,” he recalled. “I went back to her right away, of course, to see what could be done, and we had to start treatments right away. It was weird, man, very weird.”

After “absolutely freaking out,” Iris began treatments that included surgery, as well as chemotherapy lasting about seven months. He moved in with his daughter and her husband for about a year and is now cancer free.

“I was able to be taken care of and, of course, I thank her with all my heart for that. It was great,” Iris said. “It could have been — without somebody there to help you — it would have been so difficult. I don’t know if I’d have made it, but she was there and everything worked out for me.”

When word broke of the cancer diagnosis, messages of support from all over helped to lift his spirits.

“My phone was blowing up,” he said. “I couldn’t keep up. It was great.”

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Several regional shows, where he was slated to perform on the same bill as REO Speedwagon, Foreigner and Loverboy, among others, had to be canceled. He said his health had to be the main priority, but the itch to perform never left.

“About halfway through, I started thinking about it. ‘Am I going to be able to do this again?’ ” he said. “And with everything that was going on, everything that my care, what I had going for me, I figured, yeah, let’s give it a try. And, sure enough, the doctor said, ‘OK, go ahead.’ So I’m ready to go.”

The Cruisers — keyboardist Mark Avsec, bassist Paul Goll, guitarist Marty Lee Hoenes and drummer Kevin Valentine — have been rehearsing with Iris for the past few weeks.

“Yeah, they’re sounding good there,” Iris said. “It’s kind of like riding a bicycle, you know what I mean?”

Iris said he doesn’t think he’ll have quite as much energy as he used to, but he still expects to be good to go Saturday.

“My voice has been fine. I’ve got no problem with my throat,” he said. “But the stamina is the big thing right now. And that’s what we’re working on.”

Beyond Saturday’s “Luck of the Iris” show, Iris said there are at least 10 more shows booked, so his concentration is on live performances rather than writing any new music. With the cancer diagnosis in the rearview mirror, he said he has a different perspective nowadays.

“I guess I just learned, like everybody else probably was, that life is fragile, and I’m not immune to it. Nobody is,” he said. “And that’s the realization that I came to, and thank goodness for my doctors, the care that I got and all that. It just buoyed me up. It really did.”