Guns N’ Roses Headline Rock In Rio In Pouring Rain

Guns N' Roses closed out this year's Rock in Rio festival with a headlining set performed in the pouring rain at 2:45 in the morning. Luckily, that's exactly when lead singer Axl Rose prefers to be awake, and thankfully his mother made sure he was all bundled up in a big yellow rain slicker before he went outside to play.

The band was scheduled to go on at the slightly more reasonable hour of 1:10 AM, but some combination of the weather and delays in previous performers' sets seems to have been at least partially responsible for the perpetually tardy band's late start this time. Besides, they were thoughtful enough to tweet their fans: "As you can probably tell that 1:10 set is gonna run a little behind. Stay tuned."

The crowd was in a very forgiving mood, going nuts as Rose and his  bandmates lit into the title track from their most recent album 'Chinese Democracy.' Gosh, what we would have given for Axl to trade his studded fedora for a big yellow fisherman hat and red boots to go with that Paddington Bear rain slicker he was sporting.

After a brief and surprisingly grown-up pep-talk to his band about the dangers of running on a wet stage ("Give us a second here to figure out what to do about not falling on our asses..we want everybody to be careful."), Axl lit the fuse for real by launching 'Welcome to the Jungle' with his trademark 'Do you know where you are?" screech.

In just a few short weeks, Guns N' Roses will bring their tour to a bunch of American cities, as dates and venues continue to roll in for a nationwide fall 2011 tour that kicks off Oct. 28 in Orlando, Fla.

Watch Guns N' Roses Perform 'Chinese Democracy' and 'Welcome to the Jungle' at Rock in Rio