14 DAY TRIAL // In what the media sarcastically calls a victory of bottle-throwing fans (if that’s what they are), Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses were bottled off stage 20 minutes into their set in Dublin.
According to ongoing reports, Axl was unusually late, which made tension in the venue almost palpable – so much so that, when the band began to play “Welcome to the Jungle,” fans were already booing.
Axl offered no apology for his being excessively late and did not even address the crowd, which reportedly made the fans lose their temper completely. So they started throwing plastic bottles at the stage, E! Online says.
And that’s not the worst part: as Axl kept on trying to go on with the song, fans continued hurling objects at him – with some of the bottles being filled with what was believed to be urine.
“Stop,” Axl said to his bandmates, before addressing the crowd to ask them to stop throwing stuff at him. Either that or he and the band would pack up and just leave, he offered them a deal.
“All right, 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?” Axl said.
“We want to stay. We want to have some fun. You want to have fun? If you don’t want to have fun, all you gotta do is let us know, and we got no problem, we’ll go on our way,” he added.
Fans did not want to have fun, one may say judging by how they reacted even to this offer.
“Have a good evening,” Axl said once more into the microphone, before putting it down and just leaving the stage, accompanied by the entire band.
To avoid a riot from starting (as it had happened at other GNR shows in the past), organizers took to the stage to tell the crowd they were having “technical difficulties” and needed a few more minutes to sort them out.
Later, they changed their story, coming clean with the fans and telling them that Axl didn’t want to return to the stage.
“We’re trying hard to get Axl to come back onstage. I would ask you please to refrain from throwing items at him. If you bear with us for five minutes… thank you for your patience, it’s appreciated,” an organizer said.
“Well, five turned into nearly 60, but the group eventually – and contractually – returned to the stage. The promoter forced the volatile band to finish out its set, albeit to a much more scaled back (OK, nearly empty) venue,” E! notes.
Contacted for comment, Rose’s management said it was only logical he would act this way since no normal person would stand to have “unknown substances” and bottles thrown at him.
Below is video of the incident. *Some discretion is recommended as it contains strong, graphic language.