Oslo Denies AC/DC Riot Story

The team behind AC/DC’s Feb. 18 show in Oslo are bewildered by a newswire report saying there was a riot afterward as “alcohol-fueled” fans ran amok.

“It’s news to me. It hasn’t been in the papers here, and the papers haven’t called and asked about it,” said Live Nation Norway chief Rune Lem, seemingly bemused by questions about AC/DC fans throwing bottles at the police.

Robin Goodier, the LN show accountant, said he’s not aware of any trouble outside the Telenor Arena – which was staging its first major rock gig – and he didn’t see any trouble when he drove back to central Oslo at the end of the night.

He said the only problem was that some people had taken nearly an hour to make the usual 20-minute journey to the city centre because of the number of cars and roadworks on the underpass that links to Fornebu.

The Telenor is on the Fornebu peninsular, in the west of Oslo near the old international airport, which joins the rest of the city via a road tunnel under the fjord.

Venue events manager Jørgen Roll, who is also head of the city’s Norwegian Wood Festival, said there was a minor traffic problem but it was a long way from being a riot.

“We had anticipated that there may be problems with so much traffic coming to Telenor and had taken some measures to improve the situation, but the worst snow in 40 years and the roadworks did cause difficulties for a few people.”

The newswire report did say no arrests were made and there has been no comment from AC/DC, which was playing the first show of its European tour.