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Guns N' Roses have canceled their entire European tour, which was to kick off June 1 at the Rock Im Park festival in Nurnberg, Germany.

Guitarist Buckethead has suffered hemorrhaging and has missed rehearsals, according to Helter Skelter, the band's European management agency. Doctors have been unable to determine the hemorrhaging's cause, though the guitarist is going through extensive testing in California.

With the deadline looming to ship the band's equipment overseas, and given the rehearsal time required for a band that's only performed together twice, the situation was deemed unworkable, according to a source close to the band.

The revamped group — which in addition to singer Axl Rose includes former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson, veteran GN'R keyboardist Dizzy Reed, former Primus drummer Brian "Brain" Mantia and guitarists Robin Finck and Paul Tobias (a.k.a. Paul Huge) — played its first show on New Year's Eve in Las Vegas.

The tour was set to hit 14 cities and wrap at the end of June with an appearance at Denmark's Roskilde Festival. The band is discussing whether or not the tour will be rescheduled, according to Helter Skelter.

During their January performance at Brazil's Rock in Rio festival, Guns N' Roses played new material from the long-awaited Chinese Democracy album, which the band's management company announced late last year would come out in June. But anyone who's followed the saga of this album, which Rose has been working on for years, knows better than to hold his or her breath.

—Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen and Sorelle Saidman

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Now seeking junior Brownstones to adopt

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Axl Hits a Pothole:
Band's Tour Called Off


ore disappointment for Guns N' Roses fans. The band's label has canceled its European tour.

A Guns N' Roses spokeswoman insists that the tour is just being rescheduled, because guitarist Buckethead "is ill and hasn't been able to make rehearsals." But some insiders claim the real reason is that Guns frontman Axl Rose is at odds with the label, Interscope Geffen A&M.

Word is the moody musician has refused to promote the group's long-awaited CD,

"Chinese Democracy," unless he can tweak it some more in the studio.

The LP, the band's first since '93, is said to have cost in the neighborhood of $10 million.

"The album has been finished to everybody else's satisfaction for over a year now," says an insider. "But Axl keeps going back to remix it and add vocals."

The delay also owes something to Rose's split from the band's original members, Slash, Duff McKagan and Izzy Stradlin.

"He sees the album as his vision," says a source. "He treats everybody like an employee. It's either his way or hit the highway."

The reconstituted Guns N' Roses was to open the European tour in Germany on June 1.


Welcome to the jungle of being a rock star, Axl.
The group's spokeswoman, Laurie Earl, denied that the price tag on "Chinese Democracy" was approaching $10 million or that Interscope honcho Jimmy Iovine had hoped to release the album this month.

"There was never a scheduled release date," says Earl. "The tour wasn't meant to support the album.

"Jimmy and Axl are completely in sync on this album. When it's ready, it will come out."

The band's first record, 1985's "Appetite for Destruction," remains the biggest rock album in history.

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AXL Rose may not want to take off his trademark bandana anytime soon. The mercurial Guns N' Roses frontman has secretly undergone a series of hair transplants that left him with "big, scarred patches on the back of his head," a source tells us. Rose has consulted a doctor, and enlisted a hair restoration specialist to thicken his thinning locks with extensions before the band tours Europe. Besides injuring the swaggering rocker's fragile ego, his botched transplants have been "incredibly painful" and "highly damaging to his scalp," says our source.

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Now seeking junior Brownstones to adopt