Concert organisers stopped Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose walking out on a Dublin gig after unruly fans fired plastic glasses at his band.

The notoriously tardy singer was 40 minutes late on stage at The O2 in Dublin on Wednesday night and faced flying containers full of what promoters described as unknown substances.

Rose stopped the band during the intro to the second song, Welcome To The Jungle, and threatened to walk off warning: "We want to stay... one more bottle and we go home."

After a total of 22 minutes on stage, the singer lived up to his word and stormed off to a chorus of boos and whistles after more "unknown substances" were tossed at the band.

Denis Desmond, boss of promoter MCD, came out on stage to plead with some sections of the audience to stop throwing items and promised to have the band back on stage shortly. He also stopped Rose leaving the venue, MCD said.

"The artist was prevented from leaving the venue by the promoter and following backstage discussions, Guns N' Roses went back on stage at 23.20 and performed their full set until 00.53am," MCD said.

"While the artist has a long history for being late on stage - Slane 1992 - crowd waiting two hours and last weekend's UK Reading festival, no artist should be subjected to missiles and unknown substances being thrown at them. However, despite this the band went back on stage after people stopped throwing items performing their full set of songs in full."

It is understood sections of the crowd left The O2 after Rose walked off. The promoter is not considering refunds or rescheduling the concert as Guns N' Roses played the full set but MCD apologised for the late show.

Rose, the only surviving member of the original Guns N' Roses is fronting the band on the European leg of the band's Chinese Democracy tour. The gig at Reading was thrown into disarray when the band was hit with a power cut after going on stage an hour late.

They were late going on stage in Leeds last week and after being taken offstage at around 11.15pm, Rose launched a foul-mouthed tirade on stage.