well

Hey, Axl!

Here's the interview with Goldstein. Read it for yourself:

2015.04.05 - One On One With Mitch Lafon - Interview with Doug Goldstein

Q: "So we go back a couple of weeks, Axl had taken three or four shows off because of his voice, show up in Montreal, Faith No More does their set, Metallica comes on, fire happens, James gets burned. Now, you suggested in a previous conversation to me that that was somewhat of Metallica's own mistake because they had changed the configuration of the set."

Goldstein: "Yeah, what ended up happening, and, you know, Lars is a great guy, whatever, but the reality is Jake Berry, who was Metallica's production manager, and Lars unbeknownst to the rest of us, they took the set that we were collectively using, which had metal grading so you could see through the stage...So Lars is... I'm told, the reason why he does it is because the first 50 rows, their sight lines are impaired, they can't see Lars. And so instead of the monitors, the wedges that the band uses to hear themselves, instead of them being on top of the deck, he puts some sub deck underneath and in doing so some of the pyro cues for Metallica had to be changed. So I've never heard, now was it explained to James? And he forgot? Or was it just never communicated to him? But in either case, that's why James blew up. He was standing on a pyro cue that before that had not been a pyro cue...

And by the way, what Axl was doing in the off time was seeing a guy named Dr. Hans Von Leden, who was the president of the orencology [?] association internationally. He was like this 92 year old guy, worked out of UCLA, and when everybody else was saying operate on singers, this guy was figuring a way to get them to not operate. So Axl's seeing him because we had canceled some shows and we come back, we agreed to do Montreal primarily because Metallica's saying, you know, "We can't wait anymore and we're just gonna fucking do these shows without you if that's what it takes."

So, under pressure from Metallica, Axl did the show when he really shouldn't have because his throat issues were serious enough that he was consulting a specialist, he struggles through, completes his contractually-obligated time on stage and then the chuds in the audience riot because it just wasn't enough for them and because Lars Ulrich's vanity and carelessness got his bandmate lit up, and somehow Axl's the bad guy? How about blame the assholes in the audience for their temper tantrum, how about blame Lars for not letting his bandmate know that the fucking pyro had changed?! How about some personal responsibility? No, let's just blame Axl. Pathetic.

And then, through Behind the Music, Jason Newsted spreads this canard that Axl's problems were due to his drinking and smoking (as if nearly every other singer in rock doesn't smoke and drink!). How the fuck would Jason Newstead know about Axl's health issues? He's wasn't important enough to be privy to that information. I mean, his own band wiped his bass playing off an entire fucking album!

Yeah, he nailed the ACDC shows and sadly, I think thats what fried his voice.