30 years ago today (8/8/92), a riot broke out during the Guns N’ Roses and Metallica show at Montreal’s Olympic stadium when Metallica’s show ended prematurely after singer James Hetfield was injured by pyrotechnics. Guns N’ Roses took the stage but frontman Axl Rose claimed that his throat hurt, causing the band to call it quits early. The cancellation led to a riot by the audience who overturned cars, smashed windows, looted local stores, and set fires.
Blasted by a column of fire in front of a live audience, Hetfield was in shock: “I’m burnt – all my arm, my hand completely, down to the bone. The side of my face, hair’s gone. Part of my back. … I watched the skin just rising, things going wrong.”
“The PA fed back the entire time, the monitors fed back the entire time, the crowd was like, nonexistent,” Slash later told MTV. Added Axl Rose, “We had just stopped the tour because I had throat problems. Came back, and I realized, ‘I’m gonna hurt myself.’ I told Slash, ‘Two more songs, if we can’t get it fixed, I gotta go.’ We did more than two more songs, and finally, I was just, like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ I looked over and Gilby (Clarke) was like, ‘Dude, I can’t hear. And Duff [McKagan] was like, ‘I can’t hear either.’ We had a little huddle, and we were like, ‘We’re outta here.’”
Watch this classic MTV News recap on the mayhem
