Guns & Roses - Patience....

In February 2006, demos of the songs "Better", "Catcher In The Rye", "I.R.S.", and "There Was a Time" were leaked on the Internet through a Guns N' Roses fan site. The band's management requested that all links to the MP3 files and all lyrics to the songs be removed from forums and websites. Despite this, radio stations began adding "I.R.S." to playlists, and the song actually reached 49th on trade mag Radio & Records' Active Rock National Airplay chart for the final week of February 2006 - the first time an internet leak had done so. Later that month, the band launched a European tour, headlining both the Download Festival and Rock In Rio-Lisboa. Four warm-up shows preceded the tour at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, and became the band's first live concert dates since the aborted 2002 tour. The shows also marked the debut of virtuoso fusion guitarist and composer Ron Thal (a.k.a Bumblefoot) on lead guitar, replacing Buckethead. During the course of this tour, former bandmate Izzy Stradlin and ex-Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach made frequent guest appearances. Five warm-up shows before a Fall 2006 North American tour were held in September 2006, with two at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas two at Warfield Theatre in San Francisco and one show in Devore for KROQ's Inland Invasion 2006. The tour officially commenced on October 24, 2006 in Miami, FL.