Guns N Roses were kicked off the stage on Friday night at the Reading festival, after they continued to play after their curfew, even though they had negotiated an extra thirty minutes to their set.
A message from festival chief Melvin Benn reads as below:
“After failing to take to the stage at the scheduled 9.30pm (BST) time, the performance started at 10.30pm and the band were given permission by the festival to play 30 minutes extra to its scheduled 11.30pm finish until midnight.”
He added: “Guns N’ Roses wanted to ‘extend’ the new agreed curfew past midnight but were prevented from doing so in order to comply with the entertainment licence issued by Reading Borough Council.”
In a series of inflammatory tweets, guitarists Richard Fortus and DJ Ashba have made their feelings very clear.
Ashba posted: “Apparently the promoter has had a personal grudge with GN’R stemming from eight years ago, if this was the case why book the band? He knows our show. Let me guess… To take our fans money and then not allow us to give them a show that they payed for. This was clearly not a curfew thing because after cutting our power like a selfish money grabbing prick, he allowed music blasting through out the venue till the early morning.”
“The promoter was already being a cocky f$#k in the press before we arrived, so yes we went on a little late, and for this we apologies [sic],” added Ashba.
He then went on to say the band were disappointed because they felt the fans were let down.
Meanwhile, Fortus defended the behaviour of Axl Rose and the spirit of the band. Guns N’ Roses led a sit-in after the plug was pulled, performing ‘Paradise City’ acoustically.
“I don’t think there is another band out right now that has the balls to do what we did last night,” wrote Fortus. “Axl insists on doing things his way and not playing by the fucking rules. You can love him or hate him for it, but the fact of the matter is…. he’s the real fucking deal. skin, blood and soul. Deal with it or not, but it won’t ever change.”
