Mike Browne’s Blog

Police descend on angry, rampaging fans at GM Place after rock band cancels

Nothing like a riot to get the juices flowing here in Vancouver. We have one every few years, usually incited by the loss of the Stanley Cup or an APEC Summit. There was some noise when Creed didn’t play a sold out show, and more when Limp Bizkit and Eminem (we had tickets for that show) didn’t show.

Now, Axl Rose, still calling himself Guns and Roses even though he’s the only original band member, has jammed on Vancouver rock fans who paid a whopping $80 for tickets. GM Place said that the no show was caused by Rose being unable to get out of California due to stormy weather. The promoter said it was “mechanical” problems. Other sources say it was because they only sold 8000 tickets and the big cry baby didn’t want to play. Either way it’s a bust for music fans.

A woman at Carol’s work was working security for the show and she said no one told them that anything was wrong until 9:00 even though the concert was supposed to have started at 7:00pm. They started giving people’s money back around 9:30 and the place went wild. According to Carol’s co-worker The cops were beating people with batons, using pepper spray, drawing their guns and liberally using their dogs on people. Security ended up having to stay locked upstairs until 3 in the morning because the rioters smashed a ton of windows at GM place.

Axl has done this before, in Paris and Montréal. What a dick.

Another mark against Vancouver fans. We’re soooo mature.