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I was at the Guns N’ Roses concert at the O2 in Dublin, and I was appauled at the behaviour of so called fans when Guns N’ Roses eventually took to the stage at around 10:30pm. The support act were late finishing and for 1h 30 minutes there was a gap. For the most part it was good humoureed with a few Mexican Waves, cheers and so forth. However once it came near 10:15pm booos started to ring out.
The band took to the stage at 10:30 to a tirade of boos and jeers. Then bottles and cups full of liquid started hitting the stage and for Axl all hell was breaking loose.

For a performer, being on stage, with the lights in your face, you may not see very much – so if a bottle or cup full of beer is thrown you have no way of avoiding it. I think that sort of behaviour from “Fans” was uncalled for. Axl asked for people to stop and said that he would walk if it happened again … only minutes later this is exactly what happened and I don’t blame him. No performer should be attacked in this way.

The start to the show was spectacular, fireworks, pyros, huge intro so it wasn’t a half-baked or poor performace. There was no need for the jeering or throwing. Many people left when the house lights came back up, thinking it was all over. I asked an O2 steward and was told ” There is no chance of him coming back on “. Apparently the promoter, MCD, restrained Axl and prevented him from leaving the venue after walking off stage. The promoters did come on stage twice to ask for calm and patience while technical difficulties were looked at.

I left the O2 once the house lights came back on, and 20 minutes later I got a phone call from my sister (Thanks Elaine) letting me know that the concert was back on. We went back and the atmosphere was less hostile but still not right. Axl was back mid-stage to avoid any missiles, almost at the drum kit. He just stood at the mic and sung, breaking once or twice to play the piano – November Rain was excellent. The band itself were excellent and it good humour despite what happened.

They played until just before 1am to a creshendo of tickertape and pyros.

I think the organisers should have had the stage better perpared, as they seemed to be doing sound checks, stage clearance, wiring and so on for about an hour. Also, having people drinking for 4 hours before Guns N’ Roses appeared on stage was not a good idea. Although Guns N’ Roses have a history of problems and late shows, you know this about the band and its not a reason to run riot and physically attack an artist.

Guns N’ Roses released a statement after the concert which read: “Despite every effort being made by promoters to ensure Guns N’ Roses would go on stage on time, they went on at 22:26hrs having been due to be on stage at 21:45hrs, support artist finished at 21:00hrs.

“During the second song Axl requested members of crowd who were throwing plastic glasses containing unknown substances to immediately stop or he would have no option but to leave the stage. He confirmed band’s wish to perform stating “we want to stay…one more bottle and we go home”. Despite his continued appeals, having tried to continue performing for 22 minutes, people continued throwing unknown substances leaving artist with no choice but to leave the stage.

“From the stage MCD Promoter Denis Desmond again appealed to audience to refrain from throwing items and stated that the band would be back on stage shortly.

“The artist was prevented from leaving the venue by the Promoter and following backstage discussions Guns N’ Roses went back on stage at 23:20 hrs and performed their full set until 00:53 hrs.

“While the artist has a long history for being late on stage (Slane 1992 – crowd waiting 2 hours and last weekend’s UK Reading festival), NO artist should be subjected to missiles and unknown substances being thrown at them. However, despite this the band went back on stage after people stopped throwing items performing their full set of songs in full.

“MCD and The 02 wish to apologise for any inconvenience caused due to late running of the show.”

Video – Guns n’ Roses at the O2

With over 1.8m new iPhones sold there is a flaw coming to light affecting the signal strength of the iPhone. Apple are to fix this within weeks.

Apple is set to release a new update to the latest iPhone within weeks of the release. The iPhone went on sale in five countries, including the US & UK, on June 24th but iPhone fans in Ireland are not happy as the iPhone 4 will not be available in Ireland until July 30th. The official release date for the iPhone release in Ireland and 16 other countries was announced and confirmed by Apple at a press conference on Friday 16th 2010.

Apple have admitted there is a problem with how the iPhone calculates its signal strength. Some iPhone users had complained that holding their iPhone near where the antenna is located caused a reduction in signal strength and sometimes dropped calls. Apple defended this saying “Gripping any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by one or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid and Nokia phones. …. Users observing a drop of several bars of signal when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying four or five bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place”

Apple have released a statement promising a software fix within weeks for the signal strength error. The iPhone seems to misrepresent signal strength and this is not just for the new iPhone 4G but apparently the signal strength error affects the previous iPhone 3GS and 3G models.

Apple said ,”…We were stunned to find that the formula we used to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength…”

The new iPhone software fix is promised within weeks and should make the signal strength calculation more accurate … watch this space!

iPhone OS4.0.1 is now available which fixes some of these issues so download now!

There is now evidence, perhaps from the FIFA camp, (who knows) that the ball did not cross the line during the German match.

As you can see from the photo below, taken from the goal line video, the ball was not fully over the line as the shot came in and beat the keeper.

Really at this stage FIFA need to introduce video footage into games – if they don’t they are stupid and behind the times.

Apart from Englands disallowed goal, In the Mexico game the first goal was clearly offside again, everyone could see it was offside.

Who needs to mention the cheating which was clearly visible on the Thierry Henry “Hand of Frog” incident.

FIFA – Get the finger out and don’t let this crap continue!
It’s embarrassing!

I heard this on the radio and thought it was made up but apparently this Indonesian toddler, only 2 years old, is smoking.

No point in dragging out the suspense – here is the video. (The orginal video was withdrawn by YouTube so I uploaded this video instead)

I think it is terrible – this video of the smoking toddler is sparking outrage on the web. According to the boy’s parents, the smoking toddler goes through two packs a day and throws temper tantrums if he’s not allowed to smoke. (most children get tantrums but we don’t give them cigarettes)

His father apparently got him hooked after letting him take his first puff of a cigarette at 18 months

The French navy has located the immediate area around the flight recorders from Air France flight AF447 which crashed in the Atlantic last year. They are now within a 3 nautical mile area of the black boxes, which is 200 nautical miles north-west of the Brazilian archipelago of Sao Pedro and Sao Paulo.

However retrieving the Air France Airbus black boxes from the ocean floor might be near impossible.

The cause of the crash remains unknown but the aircrafts airspeed had given false readings, but officials believe other factors must also have contributed including blocked pitot probes or rudder failure similar to a crash in New York in November 2001.

Finding the black boxes from AF 447 will reveal flight data and cockpit conversations, allowing investigators to build a computer model of the final moments of the flight.

A French navy spokesman said: ‘It’s like trying to find a shoe-box in an area the size of Paris, at a depth of almost 10,000 feet and in a terrain as rugged as the Alps.’ and this search for AF447 is apparently ‘one of the most complex undersea operations ever’.

It will be interesting to see if any black boxes are found almost 1 year after the disaster.