2010.06.12/13 - Blabbermouth/I Heart Guitar - Slash Comments On Milan Stage Tackle Incident

Blabbermouth, June 12, 2010:
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Slash And His Wife Comment On Milan Stage Incident

Slash and his wife Perla Hudson have commented on the incident Thursday night (June 10) when the legendary Velvet Revolver/ex-Guns N' Roses guitarist was tackled by a man who had climbed onstage during Slash's performance in Milan, Italy. The guitarist was not harmed, but had his guitar broken and after a few seconds had to stop his solo in the song "Sweet Child O' Mine" until a new instrument was handed to him.

Slash: "What'd I say? Rowdy crowd for sure. But amazing! The guy who nailed me didn't take me down but he busted my poor guitar. Ah well... it was a kick-ass rock show in the first order!"

Perla: "The guy came down from the rafters [and] ran up to Slash and grabbed him during his 'Sweet Child O' Mine' solo. Broke the head on the guitar, junior grabbed the asshole [and] they both fell to the floor. Junior hit his head hard and the Milan security did nothing! Kicked him out but didn't arrest him. I love Italy! But fuck those security [and] promoters for doing nothing! Slash could have seriously and Junior did. It's not right! What [are] they there for? As decoration? No they [are] there to protect the people [and] the artists. It's not right."

https://archive.blabbermouth.net/news/slash-and-his-wife-comment-on-milan-stage-incident/

I Heart Guitar Blog, June 13, 2010:
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EXCLUSIVE: Slash comments on Milan stage tackle incident

Author: Peter Hodgson

As you may have heard, Slash was tackled by a fan while performing in Milan a few nights ago. Here’s what Slash had to say about it.

So what’s with some jerk tackling you on stage the other night?

Now that all the facts are out, it was just some drunk guy who got on stage. It doesn’t seem like he had any ill will. What happened was, he came up behind me, and he’d managed to get up on stage and my security guard came up and tackled him, not knowing what this guy was neccissarily capable of or whatever. So the real melee was the tackle (laughs). He basically deflected the guy off of me, and somehow the guy had managed to be hooked onto my guitar, which I let go of, all in a split second. They went off the edge of the stage, my guitar hit the ground and I picked it up and continued playing, only to find that it was broken, so I had to switch guitars and finish the song. It turned out to not be that big a deal, but you never know exactly what it could have been.

Being a guitar nerd I have to ask, which guitar? Is it gonna be okay?

Yeah it’s fine. I used it yesterday, and this happened the day before yesterday. All he did was rip the machine head off. The whole mechanism was sort of off. It was one of the Gibson ‘Inspired By’ guitars, which is a replica of my 1988 Les Paul Standard. So it’s one of those guitars that’s been Murphy-aged [aged by Gibson's Tom Murphy]. That’s why I only take new guitars on the road. I don’t take old guitars on the road because, in the sort of spirit and energy of the kind of performances that I do, and all the bands I’ve been in, there’s a certain amount of chaos, so if you’re looking to keep something preserved in its pristine state, don’t use it! (Laughs). Gibsons are durable, but if you feel any sentimental attachment to something that you’ve had for years and obviously have been through a lot of stuff with, leave it at home and take something else.

https://web.archive.org/web/20101029051545/http://iheartguitarblog.com:80/2010/06/slashpreview.html