michaelm

The only logical explanation(s) of cancelling the rest of the tour are reasonable ones considering the circumstances.  Some of the venues more than likely started dropping their individual GNR concert for financial/legal reasons.  They propably weren't happy with the odds facing them of the chance of a riot.  2 in 1 months time is not equal to a very stable tour.  Then Clear Channel had to re-evaluate the situation with several missing tour stops and realized that they would probably only make enough money to be able to buy 3 copies of the new album when it comes out.  The second best explanation is Clear Channel was worried and they called it off.  But by the pattern (actually lack of a pattern) that the venues started droping  in, only makes the first reason all the more feasable.  There is no way Axl cancelled the entire tour unless he really is VERY sick or actually is checking into a psychiatric ward like one site posted.  Maybe Buckethead looked in a mirror before the concert and realized how incredibly retarted he looked in that costume of his and when Axl tried to calm him down he hit Rose in the voice box and pulled out his numbchucks and beat him repulsively while doing the robot.  All I know is some people really screwed up what could have been a great thing.  

Sorry for beating you guys down into submission with my novel of a "Cancel Tour 2002" philosophy, but after reading forums for 6 hours straight trying to find out the smallest bit of truth on this, I couldn't take the idiotic comments without atleast addressing some of the questions.

On a Final note.......If you think i'm defending or bashing Axl in any way then you need to consider taking a reading comprehension class.  All I did was state reasonable assumptions and answers to try to bring sanity to the Axl contriversy, and hopefully open the minds of those who just needed to hear something other than hard core Axl bashing, and those with thier head shoved so far up his butt they lose all logical reasoning.  And with all the BS set asside....Axle still is the most uniquely talanted singer/song writer in rock history (There was the prejudice statement everyone was waiting for).   :-X

Take me down to the paradise city where the fans aren't mean and the concerts aren't sh|T*Y

I'm going to be very open minded on this response and try my best not to show any prejudice for Axl.  I've been reading a lot of crap on several forums with most of it dissing Axl hard core, and some defending him blindly.  Both types are retarted, and most had their minds made up way before this tour even started on their opinions toward Axl.  I myself am one of the biggest GNR fans alive, but i'm not going to start defending him and taking gossip B.S. reasons of why the shows were canceled and treating it as a chapter out of the Bible.    The fact is nobody really knows what caused the cancelation in Philly or Vancouver.  Let's look at the closest things to facts as we can get:

1.  In an interview the day after the Vancouver riots he said he was in the air on his way there when the Venue's management cancelled the event.  Other band members weren't even told about it.  I actually listened to the interview and you can find it somewhere in the 2002 archives at mygnr.com.  I'm tired of hearing about the Canada border patrol holding the band back, or he never left L.A because they heard it from their brother's girlfriend's cousin's uncle who was at his barbar and heard from him that his friend saw someone with long red dreads and a sports jersey at LAX at the time of the show cancelling.  If he is lying then oh well.

2.  As far as the question that everyone is asking "If they knew they were going to cancel it before they did then why did "HE" wait so long?"  Just because Axl is Mr. GNR doesn't mean he does everything.  There are several possible people to blame.  Me personally think Axl was in the wrong for pushing time to it's limits, but then again we don't even know why he was in LA and it might be for a good reason.  But the n00bish promotors for this unorganized thrown together tour have been off the ball since before GNR stepped foot on stage in USA/Canada.  They couldn't even orcastrate the tour dates and venues properly.  I had to wait for 2 weeks to get the correct day (if it was going to even happen) they were going to play in Dallas.  Ticketmaster, the individual venues, and different GNR sites all had different dates or didn't even show Dallas as a tour stop.  whoa, got slightly off track there.  Back to why they wait so long to actually announce the cancellation is simple and the ONLY way to do it.  They are REQUIRED to contact local law enforcements to organize an evacuation plan and prepare for the worst. and that doesn't exactly take a couple of minutes.  It is highly overlooked by most people.

3.  As far as it taking them too long to start the show after the 2nd act, there are a couple of things to explain that.  First, Axl is just the fashionably late kinda guy.  Take some notes and pay attention to their concert history (the ones that didn't get cancelled anyway).  But complaining about a 45 min. - 1 hour wait is pathetic.  That is very reasonable considering all the prep work for stage equipment, pyro, and lighting setup that takes place.  I'm not a concert pro, but i've seen enough to know that equipment that you would think should already be setup before anybody got there actually has to wait in a lot of cases.  I went to Lalapalooza in 96' and the minimum wait between acts was 45 minutes, and Snoop took almost 2 hours.  It was a beating but everyone was civilized and didn't start throwing $!@# after 30-45 minutes.  No chants of you suck are anything like that.  We have no way of knowing (not even the slightest bit) of why Philly was really cancelled.  Axl really could have been sick.  Considering his age and the fact he still runs around stage like he's 24 is very concerning.  I was worried this whole time that the tour would stop short because Axl what be exhausted.  A part of me thinks that might be what's happening.  They didn't pace the tour well at all (another smooth move by Clear Channel).  If what several people say is true about what happened at Philly (as far as the amount of wait time before all hell broke loose) then he was probably back stage hiding behind security guards.  There is no way I would go out there even after taking every drug known to man.  That would be retarted especially knowing how rowdy ppl tend to get at his concerts.

If you look long and hard at EVERYTHING and focus on the most feasable and closest to fact info about all this then it's not too hard to put a lot of the blame on Clear Channel for there pathetic organization and stability technics.  I'm not saying that I think it was them 100% and I defenitely am not saying it's not Axl fault.  I do believe without a shadow of a doubt that both Axl and Clear Channel screwed the pooch.  It's just seeing he won the gold medal for it.  Oh, and the Venue management ppl aren't exactly the brightest crayons in the box either.  

If you'll haven't already found out in other forums or news sites....the tour is cancelled after the 2nd no show in a month at the Philadelphia concert on the 6th for "Health Reasons" which caused a minor riot.  Fans sat through the 2 opening acts and 45 minutes later they saw the stage crew packing up the equipment.  No official report from Axl, but Clear Channel released a brief statement that just says the rest of the tour is cancelled  :-[ .  There are soo many rumors going around about this it's pathetic.  Some saying he hasn't even left New York since that concert (which all the reviews said it was one of the best yet, and there was only a 45 minute wait between when the 2nd act finished and GNR started which is odd).  Another saying Axl might be checking him self into a psychiatric clinic.  All I was trying to do was find out when ticketmaster was sending my tickets for the Dallas,TX show and find out that it's cancelled.  I'm seriously going to have to re-evaluate my favorite band list :-/.  Let me know if anyone finds out more details.  I want to see what pathetic excuse they have for this BS!!!

Here is the link http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1459114/2...211/story.jhtml