2010.08.29 - Leeds Festival, UK

SET-LIST:
01. Chinese Democracy
02. Welcome To The Jungle
03. It's So Easy
04. Mr. Brownstone
05. Sorry
06. Live And Let Die
07. This I Love
08. Rocket Queen
09. Street Of Dreams
10. You Could Be Mine
11. Sweet Child O' Mine
12. November Rain
13. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
14. Nightrain
15. Paradise City

Axl cancelling the Leeds concert:

On Saturday 28th August 2010, @bumblefoot said:

Hi honey, what a day at the office! Had the plug pulled on us, power shut off - I grabbed an acoustic, Deej turned his amp up, Ax grabbed a megaphone, told him I'd grab 10 random people from the audience and bring 'em on stage for a personal acoustic show, but shit was winding down, local security wasn't lookin' to help, had a bit of a Paradise City sing-along but finally we had to just bid farewell... (Leeds: Axl/management will let ya know if there's gonna be any definite change of plans...) This is the kinda crazy shit I need, I feel fukkin good - party hoppin with my bandmates for the last 6 hours. Love you!!

So let's hope Axl changes his mind. Too bad to let the Leeds people suffer.

Leeds Festival 2010: Guns N' Roses headline slot to go ahead
Guns N' Roses are set to headline the Leeds Festival on Sunday despite the band's bitter dispute with the event's promoter.

The US rockers took to the stage an hour late at the Reading Festival on Friday and then had their headline set cut short when organisers turned the power off to ensure a council curfew was not broken.

Famously volatile singer Axl Rose attempted to continue the set without amplification, before grabbing a megaphone and telling the crowd the band would not perform at Leeds.

However, festival organisers believe they have reached an agreement with the band to ensure they fulfil their contract to headline at Bramham Park.

The outbreak of peace between the band and festival promoter Melvin Benn seems to have been missed by guitarist DJ Ashba, who believes the incident was a result of Guns N' Roses being two hours late for their Leeds slot in 2002.

Talking to fans about the Reading debacle on his Facebook page, he said: "Apparently the promoter has had a personal grudge with GN'R stemming from 8 years ago, if this was the case why book the band?"

He added: "For us this was all about the fans, the show and the music. For the promoter it was all about the money and not about the fans or the music."

Saturday's Reading headliners Arcade Fire chose to begin their set with a joke about Guns N' Roses, with vocalist Win Butler saying: "We're very happy to be here. At least we're punctual, right?"

Source: http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/839414-leeds-festival-2010-guns-n-roses-headline-slot-to-go-ahead

Guns N' Roses We r in constant talks to ensure the fans attending Leeds get what they paid for w/out undue bureaucratic interference. We thank you for your understanding. Peace!!

I am quite certain the show will go on, but I have no idea if they will start on time

DJASHBA Looking forward to a great show tonight at Leeds Festival!! Hope to see ya all there. 2 hours ago reply

gunsnroses Please feel free to share retweet, etc.: The show tonight at #leedsfestival is ON!

bumblefoot Leeds! Dizzy's taking a solo, thought I'd say hi....! 15 minutes ago reply

benevanson Guns N' Roses are killin it here. Best show of Leeds 2010! #leedsfestival

Rock singer Axl Rose launched a foul-mouthed tirade against police and promoters as he left the stage at a festival.

The Guns N' Roses singer told the crowd at Leeds Festival the band was informed it would be allowed to play until just before midnight but was pulled off stage at around 11.15pm on Sunday night.

He told the throngs of watching fans: "We come here to play for you but the cops and the promoters wanna fuck us in the ass.

"We would like to play a few more songs for you but we'll just play one."

The band, which was 35 minutes late to the stage, then broke into Paradise City.

There were fears the frontman would repeat his performance at the festival in 2002 when he kept fans waiting for nearly three hours, especially after he arrived on stage one hour late at the festival's sister event in Reading on Saturday.

As the group's Leeds set drew to a close, Rose, who underwent numerous costume changes during his performance, repeated his earlier sentiment and said: "Be safe, good night and to all the cops and promoters - fuck you."

But despite the hostility towards promoters and police, the band played for nearly two hours and was met with a warm welcome from thousands of fans on the festival's last night.

The band mixed in many new songs with old favourites such as November Rain, Sweet Child O' Mine and Welcome to the Jungle.

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/rose-launches-foulmouthed-tirade-14928347.html?r=RSS#ixzz0y3iw6Oz1

DJASHBA What an amazing crowd tonight at Leeds!! Wow!! Thank you all so much for coming out!!!! Had a blast with you all!!! Much love! 34 seconds ago reply

bumblefoot Sending a Twitter hello between songs at Leeds... http://twitpic.com/2jkp7r BIG THANKS to the crowds at Reading & Leeds, was a pleasure!! about 1 minute ago reply

Axl Rose and Eleven O'Clock Curfews
I don't very often talk about music on this blog, but every now and again an issue comes up which crosses rock music (my 2nd passion) and politics, this is one of them.

Axl Rose is the lead singer of Guns n Roses, a once great rock band whose reputation has nose-dived since the departure of Slash and a few others. Everyone in rock music circles knows of Axl Rose's reputation as a self-important rock star who is losing his talent. And also that Slash featuring Myles Kennedy on vocals was a far better watch on the festival circuit this year (including their covers of GnR songs). A Guns n Roses let down at Reading and Leeds was easily predicted. In fact the band went on stage an hour and a half late at Reading and half hour late at Leeds resulting in short sets and Axl having a moan at everyone except himself about the curfew being imposed

There are two issues here. The first is Guns n Roses behaviour - which shows a real disrespect for their fans who spend good money seeing the band and paying the always over-inflated prices that are charged for merchandise etc. I say this because there does not seem to be any explanation for the problems and these were certainly not unusual occurrences.

The second issue is a real bugbear of mine and that is the stupid way that eleven o'clock curfews have become the norm at British rock venues and festivals, especially the way they are enforced without an ounce of flexibility. I hate it. I thoroughly enjoy going to European festivals for a few reasons; they are less of a rip off than their UK counterparts; they often have a great international feel to them; and they have live music until 2 to 3 o'clock in the morning.

This universal idea that music has to finish at 11 o'clock is just daft and causes real problems. I went to see Ace Frehley earlier this year in London and he has some real technical problems before the gig which meant the band went on stage late, the ludicrous curfew meant that he played a 40 minute set, the result - lots of angry and upset fans.

At festivals the result of the curfew is that everyone heads to the bars or back to their tents and drink. Is that what we are supposed to be encouraging?

I am not saying that all venues and all gigs should have later curfews. But clearly some common sense is needed - if a band is unavoidably delayed on stage, let's be flexible. Where a venue is not surrounded by housing and especially when it is surrounded by night club venues that are open all hours, let's allow later curfews. And especially, where people are paying a couple of hundred quid to go to a festival, let's have a curfew at a sensible hour so they can spend as much time as possible doing what they paid to do - watch bands playing music.

The current licencing laws were brought in by the control freakery that was New Labour. I hope the Conservatives have the sense to revisit this piece of legislation and inject a bit of localism and common sense.

Source: http://whittleseynorth.blogspot.com/2010/08/axl-rose-and-eleven-oclock-curfews.html

On Monday 30th August 2010, @axlrose said:
Don't know what it is w/us or these last 2 shows. Takes the fun out it 4 everyone fans, band n' crew alike but whatever. So u know, we allegedly had a deal in place pre show w/the city at least at Leeds to do a bit longer performance that was either miscommunication, someone wasn't informed, changed their mind, didn't care or was a con. Regardless the nonsense just seems so unnecessary but w/out real management or industry presence is unfortunately beyond r control. We hope the fans feel they got at least what they could from us under the circumstances as 4 us all things considered that's the main thing. The rest is filler. Anyway, enough rambling. Peace, thanks 4 understanding n' what we did manage to get done out there was a blast! The crowds n' fans were amazing!! And in r opinion (not that apparently it means much) u deserved better!! Thanks again!! Axl-

I was there, great show. Didn't get as close as I did at Reading, but it was a better show even so.



Finding a group of guys and singing along to 'Sorry' together was great fun!

Bootleg added to our database: http://gnr-afd.forumotion.com/t856-20100829-leeds-festival-leeds-england