Download Festival organisers “gobsmacked” at Guns N’ Roses rider requests
In the late 80s and early 90s, Guns N’ Roses truly lived out what it meant to be debaucherous rock stars. From the seedy stories of Whiskey A Go Go to at times questionable lyrical content, they lived out the hair metal dream to its most extreme.
The band recently headlined the UK’s Download Festival as part of the European leg of their Not In This Lifetime tour. As NME reports, the band had a very specific type of rider request to ensure their comfort for the show.
Now, we know the Gunners have racked up millions from their astronomical album sales and huge tour revenues, but we didn’t realise they’d drifted this far from reality.
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Apparently, a slew of “American” treats were flown over for the band, including Hershey bars and “extra cheesy pizzas”. On top of that, the band also demanded a porcelain toilet and “super silky smooth toilet paper” in their backstage area. Can we blame them – Festival port-a-loos are notoriously awful.
“When organisers of Download got Guns N’ Roses’ requests they were gobsmacked,” a source reportedly The Mirror. “It is the biggest rider the festival has ever seen, they have never seen anything like it. But they made sure it was exactly as they wanted.”
Yesterday a track the band allegedly recorded in the late 90s called ‘Silkworms’ leaked online, only to be taken down from YouTube hours after due to violating copyright law. The band have recently kicked off the European leg of their Not In This Lifetime tour, paying homage to Scott Weiland on the first show of the tour performing a cover of Velvet Revolver’s ‘Slither’.
Watch Guns N’ Roses perform ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ at Download Festival
The article was originally published on Tone Deaf