Guns N’ Roses‘ recent performance at the Glastonbury festival received multiple negative reviews, and now the band has responded to the bad press.
GN’R highlighted two reviews from major UK publications in particular: one by music critic Neil McCormick of The Telegraph subtitled “Welcome to the Mumble” and an even harsher piece by The Independent’s Mark Beaumont that called GN’R “frontrunners for the worst Glasto headline set of all time.”
Beaumont pulled no punches, writing that Axl Rose “flips between a lower register that resembles a clogged lawnmower and a higher one that sounds like Barry Gibb suffering the mother of all wedgies.” Ouch.
The band responded by taking to Twitter to put both writers on blast, tagging each of their Twitter handles and borrowing a line from the song “Chinese Democracy”: “…it would take a lot more hate than you @neil_mccormick @Markbeaumontuk.”
Meanwhile, some viewers who watched the set at home via the BBC also took umbrage with the poor live production and sound. Tweeted one viewer: “The sound Quality for #GunsNRoses at #glastonbury2023 on #BBC is absolutely horrendous, can hardly make out the Vocals or Guitar riff! Sort it out lads!!!”
Guns N’ Roses’ agency has since issued a statement, blaming the BBC for compromising the sound mix that was broadcast to certain TV sets.
“Axl was in top form last night. We have dug deep into the matter, and it appears the broadcast had issues being played on certain TVs like UHDs,” the update read [via Wales Online]. “This was an unfortunate issue that the mix played through these TVs sounded so poorly; however, it was not the band’s fault but the BBC’s.”
Here’s hoping any sound issues were an isolated incident, as GN’R have a lengthy world tour ahead of them and next perform on Friday (June 30th) in London. Get tickets to their upcoming concerts here.
See GN’R performing “Paradise City” with special guest Dave Grohl at Glastonbury, followed by the aforementioned tweet by the band, below.
…it would take a lot more hate than you@neil_mccormick@Markbeaumontuk
— Guns N’ Roses (@gunsnroses) June 27, 2023