1987.11.10 - Von Braun Civic Center, Huntsville, USA

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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Jay McGinnis had never heard of the opening act: A ratty, heavily tattooed and little-known Los Angeles rock band called Guns N’ Roses.

McGinnis’ older brother Scott brought him to this 1987 Von Braun Center show to see heavy-metal headliners Motley Crue, and their drummer Tommy Lee, who performed a solo that night strapped into a spinning drum riser while suspended above the crowd of 8,480.

Within a year, Guns would be the biggest band in the world.

But when McGinnis, now a 35-year-old Charleston entrepreneur, saw them, their now-classic debut album “Appetite for Destruction” had yet to blow up. That autumn night from his smoky VBC nosebleed seats, McGinnis thought Guns, “were going to be just another band, like Faster Pussycat or something. But I was only in the fifth grade and didn’t know who I was seeing.”

Yet, McGinnis remembers Guns frontman Axl Rose’s white leather jacket and slithery stage moves. “And I remember them playing ‘Out Ta Get Me,’ and thinking, ‘This is a really crazy song,’ ” McGinnis says.

Matt Wake wrote:30 years ago Guns N' Roses had an 'Appetite' for Alabama

Opening act Guns N' Roses wasn't even listed on tickets for Motley Crue's November 1987 concerts in Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile. Less than a year later, GNR became the biggest band in the world after their dynamic, tuneful single "Sweet Child O'Mine" took off.

In November 1987, Guns N' Roses was touring behind blazing debut album "Appetite for Destruction." But the record hadn't really connected yet beyond the band's Los Angeles hometown, where they were the city's hottest and most notorious young act. Some Alabama fans at Guns N' Roses' '87 shows here knew they were seeing something special. Others, not much. Either way, the band played Alabama thrice before becoming famous. It's a fascinating period for a group whose debut LP eventually sold more than 18 million copies and current reunion tour has grossed over $339 million. With the 30th anniversary of "Appetite" on July 21, it's time to look back.

Stacey Ogle Courson and friend Shelley Cox talked Shelley's grandmother into letting them camp-outto buy Motley Crue tickets at the Von Braun Civic Center. Courson was seventh-grader at Stone Middle School. At first her mom wasn't going to let her go to the concert. "She saw a Motley Crue video and was like, 'You're not going to see that,'" Courson says. "And I was like, 'Mom, it's like your Beatles.' So she let us go."

Like many fans who saw GNR's three '87 Alabama shows, Courson had no idea the band was opening for Motley, who were touring behind sleazy hit LP "Girls, Girls, Girls." She and Cox had seen a photo of Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose in Metal Edge magazine, wearing pants emblazoned with the slogan "GLAM SUCKS." Motley Crue were the ruling kings of L.A.'s Sunset Strip.

Inside the VBCC arena at the Nov. 10 show, the two girls befriended a Motley Crue roadie. Courson recalls the roadie "looked like Joe Piscopo, from 'Saturday Night Live'" and was "not creepy or gross" towards them. He hooked them up with some of Crue drummer Tommy Lee's drumsticks and bassist Nikki Sixx's picks. The roadie also told the girls, "Ya'll are going to love this first band." The Huntsville concert, like many of its time, was general admission so when doors opened Courson and Cox rushed to the front of the stage. But once things got too "hot and smooshy" they relocated to the side, near their roadie friend.

Courson recalls the redheaded Rose wearing lavender leather pants and "a pink cutoff shirt" onstage at the VBC. The band opened the show with their sinister rocker "It's So Easy." Drummer Steven Adler pretty much smiled throughout GNR's entire set though, Courson says. "We were like, 'That is the happiest drummer I've ever seen.'" Both she and Cox thought punk-ish, blond bassist Duff McKagan "was really cute."

But she wasn't sure what to make of Guns N' Roses' music. "I remember thinking, 'I don't know if I like this or not. This is really different,'" Courson says. "Shelly was like, 'Oh my God I love this' and she's always way ahead of me on music stuff. The nice roadie guy was like, 'these guys are going to be really big.' And I was like, 'You think so?'" Courson thought Motley's later headlining set, stocked with glam-metal hits like "Wildside" and "Home Sweet Home," was "amazing" though. "But then the joke was on me," says Courson, who currently works as a nurse. "Because like a couple of weeks later, we went to Record Bar and got the (GNR) cassette, and I was like, 'I can't believe I got to see this band live and totally left the front row because I was hot.' [Laughs]"

Thirteen-year-old Kendal Wood took in Guns N' Roses' VBCC opening set from above, in section Purple 19, known for where local "heads" sat for concerts. He was having a blast just hanging-out as the band opened their set. But once Wood heard GNR's songs he started paying attention. He'd recently begun playing guitar and thought guitarists Izzy Stradlin and Slash looked incredibly cool. He recalls Slash wearing leather pants, no shirt and black and blue Air Jordans, his long curly hair unruly.

"These guys are just so cool and the songs were so good and they were aggressive," Wood says. "It was something I had really never seen before. I was into thrash metal and a lot of stuff like that but these guys were just so different. They were raw. They had the songs. Everything about them was just really cool."

A few days after the show, Wood was talking with his older next-door neighbor Pat Johnson, who'd also seen the show. An avid record collector, Johnson gave Wood a copy of "Appetite" featuring the original, soon-banned "robot rape scene" cover art. Years later another friend borrowed the LP, now a prized collectible, and severely damaged it. Interestingly, an Alabama-born photographer, Robert John, shot the now-iconic "Appetite" back-cover photo of GNR chilling on an Asian rug.

Around this time, Wood, then a Whitesburg Middle School student, started getting serious about guitar. Although Kiss' Ace Frehley was his biggest influence, seeing GNR live "really kicked me into gear. Once I really started to dissect how Slash played, that really influenced me in the way you could play fast blues, and it could be kind of metal. And I knew I kind of wanted to play like that and be that versatile. And not be stuck in a box." Wood grew up to become guitarist for touring surf-rock band Daikaiju.

Westlawn Middle School seventh-grader Larry Marsili was such a big Motley Crue fan he not only purchased one of the band's tour shirts at the VBCC, he immediately put it on and wore it during the show. He recalls Rose doing his now-signature snake dance across the stage throughout GNR's set. And also that Slash had a neck brace on, the result of dislocating four vertebrae during a recent drunken romp with Sixx.

During the show, Guns N' Roses played their walloping cover of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Rose often dedicated that song to the band's friend Todd Crew, a musician who'd recently died in Slash's arms after a New York bender. But the dedications didn't stop there, Marsili recalls. "I remember Axl, it seemed like every song was dedicated to someone who had died, was dying, was going to die. Which was pretty weird."

Marsili, now an attorney, also recalls the sound being horrible for Guns N' Roses. "I remember there was a lot of feedback. And there were points in the show you couldn't even understand that Axl was singing much less what he was singing, he was so drowned out by the music."

Combined with the fact most of the 8,480 fans in attendance were unfamiliar with Guns N' Roses songs, the band's set went over poorly with all Marsili's friends there. "And then fast forward a few months after (Guns N' Roses) make it big," Marsili says, "the same people were talking about how awesome it was. I don't know if they were as bad as I remembered because if you watch some of the bootleg footage of them around that time, they actually sounded pretty good."

The one GNR song Marsili can remember sounding strong was the explosive "Welcome to the Jungle." That's the same tune that won over Shaw High School student Lori Wilson Driver, a week earlier during the band's Nov. 3 Mobile Municipal Arena set. "And I thought, 'That's like an anthem for life,'" Driver says.

Now a Gulf Shores resident, Driver still listens to "Welcome to the Jungle" on the regular. The song is on the playlist she listens to while training for half marathons. During her time in Charlotte working a particularly challenging management job, she'd listen to the song driving to work, "because I felt like I was heading into a jungle every day." At GNR's '87 Mobile show, Driver wore an outfit that included white studded cowgirl boots and acid-wash denim skirt.

"I probably used a can of White Rain before I left the house because my bangs were teased up to the top of the Mobile Civic Center," she says. "We all had big hair. That was the order of the day." At the concert, she slipped on the 10,000-capacity arena's stairs, bruising her tailbone. Her date bought her a Motley Crue tee that curiously omits Mobile from the tour dates listed on the shirt's back. She recalls the venue was full of cigarette smoke and many fans were drinking from booze bottles they'd smuggled in. "There was no security back then. Someone might have looked at you but you didn't go through an X-ray or any kind of metal detector."

Although Pelham High ninth grader Jonathan Lucas had seen pop acts like Mr. Mister and The Bangles in concert, the Nov. 18 show at Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center was his first real rock show. Right before GNR took the stage at the 18,000-capacity venue, a fight broke out on the audience floor. From seats a little higher, off stage-right, Lucas had a birds-eye view of the fight. He found out later his uncle was one of the dudes involved in the altercation.

The scene inside the arena was "like being in a Motley Crue video," Lucas recalls. "The debauchery, the obvious drug use and the girls with big hair and short skirts were everywhere."

During GNR's 1987 BJCC set, Lucas found McKagan's "It's So Easy" bassline and Rose's "Welcome to the Jungle" scream particularly impressive. "The sound was just raunchy," Lucas says. "Of course we grew to love that raunchy sound from them, but that stuck out as something I'd never heard before. It was almost like more punk attitude than it was anything." The next day, Lucas went to Sound Shop at Riverchase Galleria mall and purchased "Appetite for Destruction" on cassette.

"At that point in '87, I'm used to seeing hair metal on MTV, lots of makeup and pretty boys. Guns N' Roses looked like they hadn't seen a shower in three weeks. They didn't care about what you thought about them. They just came out there and rocked."