Christopher Lawrence

Christopher Lawrence's backbreaking tour schedule literally broke his back. The king of techno-tinted trance returns to the road this weekend after canceling two months of scheduled performances to undergo surgery on a ruptured disc. No stranger to the strains of DJ superstardom, Lawrence probably needed the rest: He's the only American jock slated to headline all three of the upcoming inaugural U.S. runs of Cream, Gatecrasher and Ministry of Sound events; he's earned every imaginable dance-music honor since starting out in the mid-'90s; and he's issued nine of the best-selling trance mix CDs in history. Essential Lawrence mixes such as 2001's United States of Trance, on the Moonshine imprint, and his new Gatecrasher mix Live From Moscow demonstrate the arena-sized sound of America's Favorite DJ, a title bestowed on him by BPM magazine at the end of 2006. With a pedigree like Lawrence's, a little herniated disc is no reason to stop the party.