Axl Rose Ending a 30-Year Concert Tradition

As he has done at the end of pretty much every show for 30 years, Axl Rose tossed his mic into the crowd after a recent performance in Australia. Except this time, it bonked Guns N' Roses fan Rebecca Howe square in the face, she tells the Australian Broadcast Network. Howe was good-natured about the incident—warning fans to "duck for cover" at future shows—even though the accompanying photo shows her with two nasty-looking black eyes. (Adding insult to injury: Howe didn't even end up with the mic.) Rose himself caught wind of the incident and announced on Twitter that the mic-throwing tradition would end.

"If true, obviously we don't want anyone getting hurt or to somehow in any way hurt anyone at any of (our) shows anyway," he wrote, per USA Today. "Having tossed the mic at the end of (our) show for over 30 years we always felt it was a known part of the very end of (our) performance that fans wanted and were aware of to have an opportunity to catch the mic." He added that he will "refrain" from mic-tossing going forward. As both media outlets note, this isn't the first time a fan has been injured—a male fan (also in Australia) actually sued Rose back in 2013 after he says he got hit in the mouth with the mic. (More Axl Rose stories.)