THE BIGGER THEY ARE: Guns N’ Roses...

THE BIGGER THEY ARE: Guns N’ Roses and Metallica said they were doing their massive North American stadium tour for love (of rock ‘n’ roll), not money--and they may be right.

Profit margins were already slim because of overtime and other factors that resulted from the two bands’ both playing two-hour-plus shows with their normal equipment and staging.

Then came the postponements--due first to GNR singer Axl Rose’s throat problems in July and then burns suffered by Metallica singer-guitarist James Hetfield from an onstage fireworks device during a show in Montreal last month.

A source close to the tour says that the cost of keeping the tour crews--more than 150 people--on payroll during the delays comes to $750,000 each week. That’s $2.25 million for the recent three-week break.

Much of that expense is Metallica’s responsibility, as tour contracts call for the band that caused the postponement to cover the costs. Additionally, the band had to hire a second guitarist, John Marshall, to augment the quartet while Hetfield heals. And Metallica co-manager Peter Mensch said that the band does not carry tour insurance to cover such costs.

Mensch would not discuss the profit/loss breakdown. But Brian Murphy, president of Avalon Attractions, which is promoting the tour’s stops at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Sept. 27 and at the Rose Bowl on Oct. 3 and co-promoting the show Sept. 30 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, says it’s looking like the trek will be in the red.

“It killed them,” he says of the postponements. “It had to have wiped out any profits they would have made. Maybe they can extend the tour or add some shows at the end, but that would be just trying to get even.”