Charlatans drummer Jon Brookes, who collapsed in the middle of a concert in Philadelphia last month, has published a lengthy, detailed statement on his website describing the seizure and its aftermath from his perspective. Jon Brookes writes how he first saw \"strange lights in the corner of my eyes\" at the start of the set in Philadelphia:\"Little was I to know that the brain tumour several centimetres across was starting to emit its electrical impulses across the bottom half of the right hand side of my brain… and after asking for sound levels to be lowered on stage I continued to play the set, but was already hopelessly out of time and disorientated and on a different song from the set list and rest of the band, the count down to disorder had begun. Strange feelings of floating quickly replaced by violent head movements engulfed me. Then I was approached by strangely familiar faces asking me what was wrong but, I couldn’t speak, my mouth wired tight by lockjaw and panic spreading across my frozen body, the first seizure had begun and was in full affect.\"
Brookes goes on to describe being taken to the hospital where he experienced a second seizure, the bevy of blood tests that followed, the relief of pain and cramps provided by a morphine drip, the successful diagnosis and pinpointing of his brain tumor and, finally, the operation to remove the cancer.
Read Jon Brookes\' full statement on the group\'s web site.
