1991.05.24 - Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, USA

First shows on "Use Your Illusion" tour

Tribune critic Greg Kot caught the opening night of the band's two concert stop in southern Wisconsin, which attracted some 40,000 fans. The band's original drummer, Stephen Adler, was replaced with Matt Sorum and Dizzy Reed was added on keyboards. Also, lead singer Axl Rose's left leg was in a cast due to a torn ligament suffered during a show in New York. Here's an excerpt of Kot's review from the May 26, 1991, Tribune:

Throughout the show, the Gunners evoked a host of '60s and '70s rockers —(Paul) McCartney, (Bob) Dylan, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith.

This is the "classic rock" foundation on which Guns N' Roses constructs its music. Melodies build until they're ready to burst from tension, which is invariably released by Slash's long, "guitar hero" solos. Then, as in "Patience," "Dust and Bones" and "Sweet Child O' Mine," the band joins in for a big, anthemic finish.

There's nothing particularly innovative about this approach. In fact, the bands that Rose advertised on his cap and T-shirt-rappers N.W.A. and industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails are, stylistically at least, far more daring.

But even if the Gunners are "old-school," they're also a rock 'n' roll juggernaut. They invest proven formulas with fresh passion and sensuality.

When Rose sways from the hips and rocks his shoulders, he embodies those emotions. And his voice, a develish rasp prone to startling leaps into falsetto, is this band's wickedest instrument.

At show's end, his injured foot throbbing, Rose was grimacing but triumphant.

"It has blisters and it hurts like hell," he said backstage, "but we're still rockin'."

Chris Heim wrote:GUNS N` ROSES FIRST FLOWERS OF THE SUMMER SEASON

In ancient times, the arrival of summer was marked by the appearance of a particular plant or the return of certain migratory animals. In more sophisticated realms, a scholar might follow the path of the sun. But these days, the patterns of nature and the universe need not be observed. We simply look for the start of the outdoor concert season.

Yep, summer is just about here, and that means it`s time to dig out the cooler and the old blanket (oops, looks like a trip to the laundromat might be in order first) and get ready to loll on the lawns, distracted and amused by everything from concerti to country, heavy improvisation to heavy metal. Reports suggest this actually could be a relatively slow summer, with few Really Big Names on the road and a host of package tours and dual-headliners being designed to lure in folks to fill all those seats and all that lawn space.

Alpine Valley opens the season and does so with what is being touted as one of the bigger shows of the summer. Guns N` Roses kicks off its 1991 world tour with performances Friday (sold out) and Saturday (tickets still available at press time). The band could also offer a sneak preview of its forthcoming album or, rather, albums. GN'R's new double-disc set will be released as two separate records entitled "Use Your Illusion Volume 1" and "Use Your Illusion Volume 2".The release date was originally planned to coincide with the start of the tour but has now been pushed back until at least July. Opening act Skid Row is also set to release a new album, "Slave to the Grind",in early June.

Greg Kot wrote: "Where do we go?" wailed Axl Rose during the poignant final seconds of Guns N' Roses' massive 1988 hit "Sweet Child O' Mine".

The question was directed at Rose's lover, but it could well have been addressed to the band itself: Where do we go from here?

On Friday at Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Rose and company provided the answer.

It was the opening night of what's projected to be a two-year world tour, and the band debuted nine songs from its still unreleased, two-years-in-the-making follow-up to their 12-million-copies-sold debut album, "Appetite For Destruction".

Opening with the smoking "Right Next Door to Hell", in which Rose exacts some verbal revenge against a harassing neighbor, the Los Angeles quintet roared through a two-hour set.

On a spectacular spring evening that kicked off the 1991 outdoor concert season, a crowd of 40,000 roared its approval.

In cheering for an encore, many pounded on their chairs like deranged drummers with fists and feet, but the band needed no coaxing.

Guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagen and new drummer Matt Sorum appeared clean, sober and hungry.

Rose referred only once to the band's recent troubles with drugs and drink: "We've been working the last couple of years to get our (expletive) together ... so we could get it right".

Ironically, it was Rose who was hampered, if only slightly, by health problems on this night. His left leg was in a cast, the result of a torn ligament suffered May 17 in New York.

But he showed few ill effects, stumbling only once and frequently pinwheeling around the stage and racing from side to side, microphone stand in hand, like a long-maned javelin thrower.

Musically, the band explored a wider variety of tempos and textures than were apparent on "Appetite".

Anchored by Sorum`s rock-steady beat and Stradlin`s slashing rhythm guitar, Slash played bluesy slide on "You Ain`t the First" and sparkling Spanish guitar accents on "Double-Talkin` Jive".

A searing permutation of "The Godfather" theme, dubbed "Godslaugher", ushered in "Pretty Tied Up", and, with cigarette smoldering, Slash wrenched out a solo based on the melody from Alice Cooper's "Only Woman Bleed" as an introduction to a majestic version of Bob Dylan's "Knockin` on Heaven`s Door".

This was followed by another cover, Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die", in which the keyboards of guest musician Dizzy Reed finally could be heard above the buzzsaw guitars. The song's elaborate structure, tempo changes and dynamics could well have been a blueprint for the Gunners more adventurous new tunes, none more so than the set closer, "Estranged".

Opening with Reed`s keyboards, it exploded into full-blown rock, then McKagan's bass rumbled to the top of the mix for a few bars, keyboards again built and receded, Slash unwound a long, elegaic solo and later another, before the song finally concluded.

Throughout the show, the Gunners evoked a host of '60s and '70s rockers - McCartney, Dylan, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith.

This is the "classic rock" foundation on which Guns N' Roses constructs its music. Melodies build until they`re ready to burst from tension, which is invariably released by Slash`s long, "guitar hero" solos. Then, as in "Patience", "Dust and Bones" and "Sweet Child O' Mine",the band joins in for a big, anthemic finish.

There's nothing particularly innovative about this approach. In fact, the bands that Rose advertised on his cap and T-shirt - rappers N.W.A. and industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails - are, stylistically at least, far more daring.

But even if the Gunners are "old-school", they're also a rock 'n' roll juggernaut. They invest proven formulas with fresh passion and sensuality.

When Rose sways from the hips and rocks his shoulders, he embodies those emotions. And his voice, a develish rasp prone to startling leaps into falsetto, is this band's wickedest instrument.

At show's end, his injured foot throbbing, Rose was grimacing but triumphant.

"It has blisters and it hurts like hell", he said backstage, "but we're still rockin'."

Edna Gundersen wrote:East Troy, Wis. - Guns N' Roses, pop music's cagey but uncageable savage beasts, have returned to rescue the endangered species of rock heroes.

Packing lethal new ammo, the Guns launched their mammoth two-year world tour with spectacularly fierce concerts Friday and Saturday at the packed Alpine Valley Music Theatre.

The 15-song, two-hour show easily establishes the band as the most potent and unstoppable force in hard rock. Its approach is hardly novel - a blues-based primal assault influenced by icons Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. But nobody matched GN'R's armed-and-dangerous delivery, undiminished by scattered opening-night wobbles.

Guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan and new drummer Matt Sorum (formerly of the Cult) form the volcanic rhythm section. Guest keyboardist Dizzy Reed softens the blows, especially on the muscular cover of Paul McCartney's Live And Let Die.

The band's strongest assets are the twin screeches of Axl Rose's vocals and Slash's guitar. Rose, the visual axis, evokes A Clockwork Orange when he bounds on stage in green velour shorts, a catcher's chest protector, bulky boots and a self-designed cast to treat torn ligaments in his left ankle. Unhampered by the injury, he storms through trademark sways, gyrations and stomps.

His steely voice, best when whining such full throttle anthems as Civil War and Estranged , is a facile if scabrous instrument, leaping from a rumbling growl in Mr. Brownstone to a soaring yowl in Sweet Child O' Mine.

Whether plucking killer bars from Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child or serving up The Godfather theme, Slash's solos are coherent, elastic and spellbinding. A surprisingly gentle Spanish guitar coda on Double Talkin' Jive demonstrates a range beyond lucid slide and hell-bent speed runs.

Familiar fare (Patience, Welcome To The Jungle) draws the loudest roars, but blustery newcomers like Dust N' Bones, neighbor trashing Right Next Door To Hell and the kinky-sex anthem are sure-fire hits from a band that has yet to miss its target.

Guns N' Roses: Live

BILL WYMAN
June 14, 1991

Guns N’ Roses’ first headlining tour, bursting off to a start at the scarily large Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Wis., on May 24, was exactly what the L.A. hard-rock outfit needed. In the four years following the runaway success of their 12 million-selling debut, Appetite for Destruction, the band has had little in the way of creativity and much in the way of debilitating controversy — ranging from drug use and charges of racism and sexism to (heavens!) using naughty language on the televised American Music Awards. The Alpine Valley show, to put it bluntly, was a sign of maturity and growth from a band that lately hasn’t displayed much of either, publicly, for several years. Highly professional, articulately staged and performed, and unapologetically loud, the show suggested that the band’s ambitions remain high. If Guns N’ Roses’ two new albums — the much-delayed simultaneous release date now announced, perhaps whimsically, for late July — are similarly impressive, the band will indeed be back, as the slogan on tour T-shirts puts it, ”in the motherf—ing ring.”

Lead singer Axl Rose, resplendent in skin-tight green velvet short shorts and sporting a ring in his pierced left nipple, coursed around the multilevel stage like a racehorse, letting a calf-high plaster cast affect his mobility not a whit. (The cast protected a torn ligament suffered from too-wild jumps at a series of smallish ”rehearsal” shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.) Rose looked a tad overserious — crack a smile, Axl! — but he probably just wanted the most important show of his group’s career to come off right.

It did. Highlights: Rose’s ”Estranged,” clearly the most significant of several new songs, a grandiose romantic epic full of piercing solos from guitarist Slash, powerhouse dynamics from the band, and soaring melodies that put Rose’s supple, protean voice to work; and the band’s concussive assault on another epic, ”Civil War” (Guns N’ Roses’ contribution to the Romanian children’s relief album, Nobody’s Child). They clawed their way through Paul McCartney’s ”Live and Let Die,” complete with blinding strobes, blasts of sound, and the sort of furious ensemble playing many groups spend their careers trying to get right. An encore that included the band’s three biggest hits, ”Welcome to the Jungle,” ”Sweet Child o’ Mine,” and ”Paradise City,” sent 40,000 rhapsodic kids home exhausted. (Good thing — they’d already spent the intermission ripping out the outdoor theater’s grass in a massive sod fight.)

Guns N’ Roses, of course, won’t be home for a long time; they’re at the start of a planned two-year tour. Some bands release a record, then go on tour. Thanks to multiple delays, Guns N’ Roses have ended up doing it in reverse. But then, they’ve never done anything the easy way.