Leeds Carling Festival

Dave Simpson

The Carling Festival's reputation as one of the more corporate pop festivals is taking a battering. Logos are refreshingly thin on the ground and the festival seems actually geared to music. This year's bill treads a fine line between acting as a barometer of pop at the moment (okay, no manufactured pop acts, but plenty of punk/pop/metal hybrids) and offering enough glimpses of history to place the music in some sort of context. In this and every other respect, obtaining Guns 'n' Roses for their first UK appearance in a decade is a marvellous coup. After a nervous additional 75 minute wait, sole original member Axl Rose finally dispels fears of incompetence, tantrums and the curfew and thrills the biggest crowd of the weekend. Without infamous guitarist Slash, Guns don't cause riots anymore - they just sound like one. Blistering renditions of Welcome to the Jungle and Axl's hilarious response to a heckler are delivered with equal raw feeling: "Where's Slash? He's in my ass! Fuckhead!" Business as usual, then.

LEEDS – 50,000 FANS CHEER AS AXL SCREAMS FOR THE SHOW TO CONTINUE Thanks to gnronline

Guns N’ Roses wish it to be known that Saturday night’s appearance in front of the massive sell out crowd was delayed through logistical problems beyond their control.

The band were contracted to play a 2 hour set and scheduled to take the stage at 10pm, at which point The Prodigy were still on stage. Despite concerted attempts from the festival organizers to make up time, the show continued to run late. The running delay was further compounded by the vast amount of equipment between the two bands. As a result the Guns N’ Roses crew were not able to take control of the stage until 10.30 pm to begin their preparations for the band’s set.

In consequence, Axl and band did not take the stage until just past 11.00pm – so the show overran the curfew set by local authorities, but nevertheless they continued to play to an ecstatic audience who witnessed several new songs which included ‘Madagascar’ and ‘The Blues’ in an electrifying set which included classics such as ‘Welcome To the Jungle’, ‘Mr. Brownstone', ‘You Could Be Mine’ and ‘Sweet Child of Mine’.

Guns N’ Roses would like to thank the promoters, The Mean Fiddler, for making the correct decision in allowing the show to continue in the interests of public safety.

[posted 8/26/2002 U.S.A.]

Thanks to Louise and Babylon @gnrbar

I would like to take this opportunity to let everyone know about the "behind the scenes" events at Leeds regarding GN'R. From the first band all the way through the day, the set changes kept getting longer and longer. Prodigy was supposed to go on until 9.30pm, but didn't end up leaving the stage until 10.10pm.

This letter is not to make excuses for Gn'R taking time to get to the stage. We had out normal 45-minture set change. This letter is to thank one man. festival organiser Melvin Been. He risked going to jail - and they were not idle threats from the local authorities - if he did not shut down the show. Myself and my partner Merck, and out production manager were in his office during the GN'R set, and I saw this man, who had been a gentleman to us from the inception of our committing to play the event, in great emotional turmoil and unrest. He faced the very real threat for being prosecuted, and the very real possibility of losing any future chance of ever having another Leeds festival. He also knew that if we shut down the show, the fans would most likely riot, and another rock'n'roll tragedy would be the headlines today.

Readers, if you enjoyed the festival as much as I did, I urge you to do what you can to keep Leeds alive. The whole even was one of the best bills I've bee involved in. And to Melvin, thank you for making the choice you did. You took a huge personal risk to make sure your fans were firstly safe, and entertained. Thank You.