Music/News: 02 Sep 2010
The Hot Press Newsdesk

Guns N' Roses storm off stage at the O2

Bottles were thrown at the band after their show started late.

Guns N’ Roses' troubled UK and Irish tour struck another rock last night when the band walked off five songs into their Dublin O2 set.

The Gunners had just launched into ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ when plastic glasses and water bottles were thrown on stage causing Axl to tell the rest of the band, “Stop, stop” and then announcing to the crowd: “Alright, here’s the deal. One more bottle, we go home. It’s up to you. We would like to stay. You want us to stay? We want to stay. We want to have some fun. If you don’t wanna, all you have to do is let us know and we’ve got no problem, we’ll go on our way.”

Three songs later, another bottle hit the stage and after saying “have a good night” Rose and the band left the stage.

A female venue official then took to the microphone saying: “If you can bear with us we are trying to sort out some technical difficulties. Give us a couple of minutes, and we’ll be back to you as soon as possible.”

When the crowd were got back to, it was to be told by MCD supremo Denis Desmond: “We’re trying hard to get Axl to come back on stage, and I would ask you please to refrain from throwing items. I promise you a great show, but you need to calm, please. Thank you for your patience, it’s appreciated”

According to Hot Press’ man in the moshpit David Keane, “Guns N’ Roses came on at 10.25pm – almost two hours after the support, Danko Jones, had finished – to as many boos as there were cheers. People were really angry that they’d been kept waiting so long, especially after hearing reports of the same thing happening at Leeds and Reading. To make matters worse, there was no apology from Axl or acknowledgement that they were late.

“The band lasted 30 minutes before walking off and then returned at around 11.25pm to play for another hour or so by which time at least a third of the crowd had gone home.

“The irony is that up until walking off the band were really letting rip. There have been varying reports about the state of Axl’s voice recently, but he sounded really good on ‘It’s So Easy’ and ‘Sorry’. You could see that the O2 and MCD people were doing their best to sort things out, but it was pretty much out of their hands.”

Concet-goers' tweeted comments ranged from the supportive: “Any1 who threw a bottle = idiot. Y pay money 2 see sum1 if ur gonna act like a dipstick? Axl Rose is usually late!” to the furious: “I came up from Cork for this shite? Axl, ur a disgrace!!!”

Stay tuned to hotpress.com for more on the gig and a gallery of photos.