(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Mon 9 March 2026 0:00, UK
Guns N’ Roses isn’t the kind of band known to be very apologetic for their behaviour.
They were known as the ‘Most Dangerous Band’ for a reason, and whenever they hit a city near you in the 1990s, most people knew to batten down the hatches before they let any of their children go to one of their shows. But even though every city in America tried to accommodate the rock legends, there were more than a few times when Axl Rose held a little more than a grudge towards his audience when he walked off the stage.
Because by the time they had hit the road for Use Your Illusion, you couldn’t find a better candidate for a pompous rock star than Rose. He may have had a few traditions that he needed to make in order to get his songs absolutely right, but when the singer keeps showing up late to shows, doesn’t bother showing up at all on some nights, and ends up cutting his short set after only a few songs, he’s not exactly going to be making friends with every single person that came to see them.
So it should come as no surprise that more than a few people were upset by the time the band cut the cord on some of their shows back in the day. It’s one thing for Metallica to end their shows once James Hetfield lights himself on fire, but when Rose had no other excuse other than his voice was giving him trouble, even the most kindhearted people in Montreal were going to be turning the arena into a warzone when both bands played there.
But a few months before they teamed up with the heavy metal heavyweights, Rose was already starting to have problems with what was going on in front of him onstage. He was a wild animal every single time he performed, and while there are more than a few shots from around that time where he looks like one of the fiercest rock and roll stars anyone had ever seen, the good people of St Louis were in for a surprise when Rose called out a fan in the audience who was taking pictures.
After telling the security to grab the photographer, Rose decided to take matters into his own hands and go fully rabid on the guy, jumping into the crowd and beating the man with his own camera. As it turns out, it’s commonly frowned upon for the singer of a band to attack a member of the crowd, and by the time that Rose got offstage after the incident, he wasn’t going to go back up there, saying that he was going home after being dealt with by the “lame-ass security”.
These things happen in rock and roll, but after going through a riot in the middle of the show and the rest of the band having to hide underneath blankets as their crew drove them outside the state lines so they wouldn’t get arrested, Rose did have a little surprise when they made their next record. “The Spaghetti Incident?” might be known as one of the least necessary albums in the band’s discography, but if you look at the liner notes, you can clearly see that the band said ‘F*** St Louis’ amid their thank-yous for the album.
That might have been a bit of cheeky fun, but you have to remember how long it had been. The band had gone around the world twice for the tour for Use Your Illusion, and since the band was still dusting the cobwebs out on those first few shows, it took an extra level of pettiness for Rose to hold onto a grudge for this long and thought about it enough to include a little Easter Egg for the fans.
Then again, this is the same guy who ended up writing the song ‘Get in the Ring’ about news magazines talking bad about him, so maybe it’s not completely out of character for him to do. So many people would have loved the idea of seeing Guns N’ Roses in their prime, but when Rose was in the headspace to deliver a fantastic show, you were normally better off staying the hell out of his way.