Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose has issued a statement aimed squarely at the promoters of the U.K.’s Reading and Leeds Festivals, which the band headlined on Friday (August 27th) and Sunday (August 29th) respectively. Guns N’ Roses came onstage an hour late on Friday and 30 minutes late on Sunday, with both shows cut short due to venue curfews.

Rose wrote at Twitlonger.com, “We allegedly had a deal in place pre-show with the city at least at Leeds to do a bit longer performance that was either miscommunication, someone wasn’t informed, changed their mind, didn’t care or was a con. Regardless, the nonsense just seems so unnecessary but without real management or industry presence is unfortunately beyond our control.”

Rose’s statement seems at odds with comments made by festival organizer Melvin Benn before the shows, in which he said that the band’s set would be cut short if they showed up late. The group took the stage more than two hours late when it last played Leeds eight years ago, with Benn saying that any curfew violation this time could threaten the festival’s license.

Rose said from the stage Sunday night as the band’s set was halted, “We would like to play a few more songs for you tonight but someone is telling us the show’s over.” He also launched an f-bomb at the festival’s promoters before leaving.


Meanwhile, on Friday night, Rose staged a sitdown protest when the band’s set was stopped at midnight. The curfew had already been extended half an hour for the group at that point. Many members of the crowd jeered the band when it arrived onstage 60 minutes late, while a number of audience members also left before the set even started. According to Gigwise.com, the crowd continued to disperse throughout the band’s performance

Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland has responded to Internet rumors that he has been either lip-synching or using backing vocal tracks during the band’s concerts. The allegations arose after video surfaced of Weiland falling off the stage at a concert last Wednesday (August 25th) in Cincinnati, during which it appeared that his vocals never wavered despite the fact that he fell headfirst and seemed to land heavily.

At STP’s August 28th gig in Pittsburgh, Weiland addressed the rumors onstage, saying, “I would like to dispel a rumor swirling its way around the Interwebs that I am not singing these songs that I wrote. There has never been a time in the 25-plus years that I have been singing with these guys or a combination of these guys or with other musicians that I have not sang. So whoever started that bulls*** claim, like so many other bulls*** claims, which is the problem with modern technology . . . We are a rock and roll band, (and) rock and roll bands perform live.”

See video of the fall here.

Is this the end of the road for Aerosmith? It just might be, according to Joe Perry. Perry, who’s currently on the road with the band, touched upon the fact that Steven Tyler will be among the judges for the upcoming season of Fox’s American Idol, and hinted that the band’s days might be numbered.

Perry told Cincinnati.com that Tyler’s Idol gig is a done deal: “He told me just a couple of days ago he signed his papers to join the show. As far as he knew, everything (is) set to go. . . I think everybody’s a little worn out. The tour is winding up, and we don’t know when we will work again as a band. That part of it is up in the air, and it’s starting to hit home.”

Ozzy is playing with not one, but two new guitarists on this year’s Ozzfest.

Yuto Miyazawa recently joined Osbourne on the singer’s six-date summer Ozzfest tour, performing the classic “Crazy Train” alongside Ozzy and his band. What makes Yuto special? he’s 10 years old. Blabbermouth tracked down footage from the August 21 show in Hartford, Connecticut, where Miyazawa did a Randy Rhoads impression: He wailed on the same black-with-white polka-dotted flying-V guitar Rhoads was known to use - and Ozzy even hoisted the young guitarist into the air to replicate the cover of the song’s 1987 live single.

On his Twitter account, Miyazawa linked to a snapshot of himself shredding on Ozzy’s shoulder, adding, “I like this photo!”

Check out the video here.

Linkin Park debuted the new video for its latest single, “The Catalyst.” According to Spin.com, “The clip shows the guys in various scenes of smoky, nocturnal chaos, as fellow humans scurry for shelter.” The track will appear on Linkin Park’s fourth album, A Thousand Suns, due out September 14th.

Check out the video here.

Jimmy Page will unveil his career-spanning pictorial autobiography, Zoso, on September 27th, and it’s quite pricey. According to the publisher’s website, the book is retailing for $688 in the U.S. According to Blabbermouth.net, all 350 copies of the deluxe edition reportedly sold out within two days of going on pre-sale in April. But reservations are still being taken for the collector’s edition, which will be signed and numbered. There are only 2,500 books being published in the limited run.

This marks Page’s first officially published work. It will include more than 650 photographs and illustrations on over 500 pages, as well as captions written by Page.
Earlier this year, the Led Zeppelin guitarist told Mojo magazine, “I considered doing a posthumous book. And I’m not joking. I genuinely thought about doing one. As usual it seems like a silly idea, but it wouldn’t have been a silly idea if John Lennon had done one, would it? You know what I mean?”

Jimmy Page will unveil his career-spanning pictorial autobiography, Zoso, on September 27th, and it’s quite pricey. According to the publisher’s website, the book is retailing for $688 in the U.S. According to Blabbermouth.net, all 350 copies of the deluxe edition reportedly sold out within two days of going on pre-sale in April. But reservations are still being taken for the collector’s edition, which will be signed and numbered. There are only 2,500 books being published in the limited run.

This marks Page’s first officially published work. It will include more than 650 photographs and illustrations on over 500 pages, as well as captions written by Page.
Earlier this year, the Led Zeppelin guitarist told Mojo magazine, “I considered doing a posthumous book. And I’m not joking. I genuinely thought about doing one. As usual it seems like a silly idea, but it wouldn’t have been a silly idea if John Lennon had done one, would it? You know what I mean?”

Stone Sour and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor is working on a book about the Seven Deadly Sins, according to an interview with music blog Attention Deficit Delirium. Taylor explained, “I just finished writing it, and it’s being edited right now. We’re hoping to get it out by the spring of next year. It’s about the Seven Deadly Sins and my take on them and how I don’t think they’re sins at all. They’re human characteristics. They’re just human flaws and things that we all experience, yet because we all deal with them we’re all doomed? Screw you.” Taylor added, “To me, it’s just part of being human, and it’s me making the case for that and saying that you can go through all of these things and at the end of the day you can still be a good person. I’m telling stories from my past and balancing humor with serious, dark stuff. I’m really excited about it.”

The singer is currently on the road with Stone Sour as part of the Uproar Festival tour, with the band’s new Audio Secrecy album set to arrive on September 7th. A new Slipknot concert DVD titled (sic)nesses will surface a few weeks later, on September 28th.

It seems more and more like a reunion of the original Black Sabbath, whose members have not performed together since 2005, could be happening sooner rather than later. Singer Ozzy Osbourne is the latest to weigh in on the possibility, telling the Boston Globe, “I never say never. I spoke to (guitarist) Tony Iommi yesterday. I spoke to (bassist) Geezer Butler last week. I speak to (drummer) Bill Ward very frequently, he lives up the road from me. We’re all talking and that’s a good sign.”

Ozzy also added, “To be honest with you, I would love to do a killer Black Sabbath album. It would make my life, my whole thing, round up perfectly for me.” But Ozzy also told us a while back that any new Sabbath project had to live up to the standards of the band’s early, classic records: “If I had an album which blew Master Of Reality off the map, I’d be crazy not to do it. I don’t want to put an album out, just for the sake of us four being on an album.”

The original Sabbath last toured together in 2005 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Their last album together, Never Say Die!, came out in 1978.

Iron Maiden partied at a bar in Norway the other night and their bar tab receipt has made its way onto the internet.

I’m betting their livers look like Eddie’s.