2007.06.19 - Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane, Australia

Why his world runs on Axl time - A Guns N' Roses tour is more like a wacky sideshow fuelled by alcohol thanks to its wacky singer

By TONY VERMEER, TREVOR SEYMOUR

WHEN legendary rocker Axl Rose is on a national tour, a continent is forced to add another time zone. For the past fortnight Australia has been running on Eastern Standard, Central, Western and Axl Time.

You mightn't have noticed but the fans who turned up to see Guns N' Roses for the first time in 14 years have been left in no doubt that Rose is not a morning person.

On stage and behind the scenes, the tour has proved the flamboyant frontman has shed none of the idiosyncrasies that have earned him the sobriquet "the Howard Hughes of hard rock".

Fans have been warned that, unlike other acts, Guns N' Roses does not officially take the stage until 11pm. But that's 11pm Axl time. In reality it's more like 11.30. And that's only if Rose has cranked up his private Lear jet in enough time to make it.

Last Tuesday night, when support act Rose Tattoo took to the stage in Brisbane at 8.30pm, the jet was still on the tarmac at Melbourne airport warming up its engines, tour insiders say.

The rest of the band was waiting patiently for him in Brisbane. They fly commercial; only Rose, as the sole original member of the Gunners, travels on the Lear.

Eventually he made it to Brisbane in the nick of time and strolled onto the stage at the Entertainment Centre at 11.45 to kick off the set.

But the punters in a town which generally goes to bed early were none too impressed. A flying can of soft drink -- bought earlier from the centre's Farnham or Torvill and Dean bars -- narrowly missed Rose 10 seconds into the opener Welcome To The Jungle.

"Is that what you want? You want a battle," Rose said, wiping the liquid from himself. "If you're going to act like that, then you know I don't have to be here."

Rose then proceeded to walk off stage in the middle of several songs, leaving the rest of the band to invent extended solos to cover his absence. Later one of them called it the worst gig of the tour.

But it didn't stop them partying in the dressing room till after 6am. The effects were obvious the next night when Rose told his fans, who paid up to $175 for tickets: "I just want a big truck to hit me".

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