Last February a heart attack and subsequent surgery nearly took Foreigner‘s Mick Jones off the road permanently.  Though he had to cancel a whole slew of tour dates, the guitarist is now happily on the mend and back on stage.

Jones recently opened up about his ordeal at the UK premiere of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Celebration Day’, telling reporters, “I’m feeling well – I just did a show a couple of weeks ago in Atlanta.”

Jones continued on, describing his return to the stage as “really emotional,” saying: “That’s never happened to me before; I never missed a show in my life.  The band is so good though, I wanted to keep it going – I could not let go of it.  They held it together, and just getting back to the guys was wonderful – everybody was very supportive.”

As to whether or not he thought the heart attack would force him to retire, Jones said:  “It was a thought at one point, yeah.  I didn’t know what was going to happen; I was coming to terms with the fact that might be a possibility.  But really,” he admitted with a chuckle, “at the end of the day that’s what keeps me alive and happy.”

Jones and the rest of his band mates will be performing at the Grammy Museum next week.  Fans can tune into AXS TV on October 30th at 11pm to watch An Evening with Foreigner at the Grammy Museum live.  For those not in the US, Foreigneronline.com will have a webcast of the show shortly after the performance.  According to their website this is Foreigner’s last show of the year, so you don’t want to miss it!

The band also performed early Friday morning on VH1’s Big Morning Buzz Live – check out the videos below: