Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

It's not known who the mystery music fan was that, for a few short hours today, successfully passed themselves off as Axl Rose, Twitter tweeter. But he (or she) is to be commended for a brave attempt at keeping Guns N Roses out of the country. This morning, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ News carried the earth shattering story that G'N'R were cancelling their UK dates. I heard it on the radio , between the latest on the Pakistani floods and a story about getting rid of mixed wards in England. Yes, it is important that we all keep up to date on the happenings of heavy metal bands from Los Angeles. Speculation was that Axl, the singer who seems to be the only original Gun or Rose still in the band, had thrown his microphone out of the pram and wasn't coming out to play. He was tweeting that the shows were cancelled and fans should claim a refund. That, unfortunately, wasn't the case and he is still intending to perform at the Reading and Leeds Festivals this month. Poor Axl was the victim of a hacker. Like others of the punk generation, I had hoped that such throwbacks as Guns N Roses (can I start calling them Guns And Roses ? I feel slightly 'down with the kids' using the apostrophe - thanks) would be replaced in the hearts of the American public by The Ramones or The Clash. It wasn't to be. The nearest we got was when they recorded an LP of cover versions, which included the Damned's New Rose and Human Being by the New York Dolls. A nice payday for the original songwriters, but still not enough to make me see them as anything other than a band who saw the film and thought it was a public information film about being in a rock band.