Watch Guns N’ Roses Have a Spinal Tap Moment in Australia
Guns N' Roses' Not in This Lifetime Tour has gone remarkably smoothly, all things considered, but every concert has the potential to hit a few bumps in the road — as the band discovered when their announcer muffed their introduction before their stop in Melbourne last night.
GNR's announcer, the longtime instrument tech known simply as McBob, has earned a reputation for his trademark tongue-in-cheek introductions — most notably a riff on Kiss' traditional "you wanted the best, you got the best …" lead-in that ends with the twist "they couldn't f---ing make it." From now on in Melbourne, however, he'll be known as the guy who mistakenly said hello to Sydney.
The mix-up, which you can see in the fan-shot footage above, was greeted with boos but was ultimately just one small bump in a well-received performance. As the Herald Sun wrote, "While the band started on the back foot with a chorus of boos after a rookie, Spın̈al Tap-like shout out to Sydney, they recovered quickly with 'It’s So Easy' and 'Mr. Brownstone' forming a killer one-two punch to open the show, soon followed by 'Welcome to the Jungle.'"
Still, the incident rated an apology from the official GNR Twitter account ("Accidentally, after 30 years, McBob made an error, we’re truly sorry. Thank you for coming out to tonight!"), as well as mentions from singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan.
Happily, the Melbourne performance ended up being notable in a few other ways. The band's first stop in the city since 1993 — a period in which, as the Herald Sun's review puts it, "it was just Axl Rose fronting a bunch of ring-ins" — it brought a significant chunk of GNR's classic lineup to area fans after decades of pent-up anticipation. And to top it all off, AC/DC co-founder Angus Young sat in with the band for the third show in a row, joining in for performances of "Whole Lotta Rosie" and "Riff Raff." Watch a portion of Young's appearance below.
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