35 years on from the Guns N’ Roses deep cut ‘Nightrain’
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Credit: Delusion23
Remembering Guns ‘N Roses disastrous Reading and Leeds Festival performance in 2010
Booking Guns ‘N Roses for a festival appearance has always been risky, as you never know what you’ll get with the group. Typically, there’s no in-between with the band, and they’ll either give a masterclass in rock ‘n’ roll or woefully disappoint, as they did at the Reading & Leeds Festival in 2010.
2010 was a strange time for the group, which had recently released their comeback album, Chinese Democracy. The record had taken 15 years to make and left fans feeling wholly disappointed, similarly to their sets at Reading & Leeds. Somehow, Guns ‘N Roses managed not only to mess up one leg of the festival but both. Unsurprisingly, they’ve never been booked since.
For a youth-orientated festival, a band who’d released one album since 1993 was a peculiar headliner choice in the first place. However, despite their two decades in the dark, they still had their catalogue of hits which was strong enough to warrant their booking. Yet, Guns ‘N Roses’ issues with punctuality would stop them from playing their greatest hits.
It was already a farce before they stepped foot on stage at Reading Festival when Axl Rose’s Twitter account was hacked and posted their set was cancelled. Soon afterwards, Rose took to the social media platform to reassure his followers and wrote: “Bkstage at Reading. Tour’s ON! Our apologies 4 any inconvenience. Peace!”
After Queens of the Stone Age finished their set, fans had to agonisingly wait in the fields for Guns ‘N Roses to start their performance. An hour after they were originally set to perform, the band finally arrived and, after eating into their own time, the sound was cut off when they reached the curfew.
In a statement, the festival explained: “Guns ‘N Roses wanted to ‘extend’ the newly agreed curfew but were prevented from doing so to comply with the entertainment licence issued by Reading Council”.
Rather than learn from this experience and turn up at Leeds Festival on time for their show two days later, Guns ‘N Roses were once again late, albeit only by 35 minutes. Again, their sound was cut-off, and it was a lacklustre way to end the festival.
“We come here to play for you but the cops and the promoters wanna f**k us in the a**e,” Rose told fans at Bramham Park in Leeds. “We would like to play a few more songs for you but we’ll just play one”. Following the closer, ‘Paradise City’, he signed off by telling the audience, “Be safe, good night and to all the cops and promoters – f**k you”.
Both performances over that weekend in 2010 were historic Reading & Leeds moments, but for all the wrong reasons. Guns ‘N Roses proved themselves to be festival headliners you couldn’t rely upon, and their involvement put a dampener on the weekend for attendees.
