TOM ARAYA HAS VERTIGO
Slayer is already down one member, what with guitarist Jeff Hanneman currently recovering from surgery on his arm while Exodus’ Gary Holt fills in for him — or, rather, is supposed to fill in for him. ‘Cause the band got to play exactly one show with Holt before canceling their scheduled appearance at Australia’s Soundwave Festival after vocalist/bassist Tom Araya found himself in the hospital.
Lotsa folks, including us, suspected that the culprit must have been the same the same back issues that forced him to cancel touring plans last year, but this is apparently not the case. From Slayer fan site Slayerized:
“Tom’s wife Sandra Araya, posted a new message on her Facebook account stating:
‘Tom was suffering from vertigo due to extreme dehydration and lack of rest, our doctor is in the process of getting the results on the test that were ran (major time zone difference and being the weekend has held up those results). Hopefully there will be nothing more to add after the results are returned.’”
Other than having seen Hitchcock’s movie about a dozen times, I know nothing about vertigo, so I looked it up on the world’s leading research site, Wikipedia:
“Vertigo (from the Latin vertō ‘a whirling or spinning movement’) is a type of dizziness, where there is a feeling of motion when one is stationary. The symptoms are due to a dysfunction of the vestibular system in the inner ear. It is often associated with nausea and vomiting as well as difficulties standing or walking.”
The page doesn’t say anything about back problems being caused by vertigo, and Mrs. Araya herself says the cause was dehydration and exhaustion, so, uh, Tom is just getting older, I guess.
Which sucks! But hopefully the doctors are able to treat this and Slayer can resume touring ASAP. In the meantime, we’re sending out good thoughts to the Araya family…
-AR
