1988.02.12 - Celebrity Theatre, Phoenix, USA

On the night of this gig, promoter Danny Zelisko was attending a roast for a colleague across town when he got a call from the venue. “Man, you better get down here right away,” Zelisko recalls the manager telling him. “This place is going to explode.” Because the show was rocking? Nope. The audience was raging because, Zelisko explains, “the opening act had been on for 90 minutes and Axl wouldn’t come out of his hotel room.” The crowd got so unruly that the city’s riot squad showed up outside the theater.

Inside, Zelisko huddled with Alan Niven, GNR’s then-manager, and asked, “Does Axl do this often?” Niven replied, “Nah, not really, but tonight he’s not going to come.” Zelisko wondered, “How are we going to get out of this building alive?” He turned to Niven: “You have a nice British accent. You make the announcement. I’m not getting torched.” Niven did, saying that Rose had “throat problems.” After some tense moments, the crowd dispersed peacefully. As a make-good, the band agreed to return to play a benefit show later in the year. “I said, ‘You guys have to come the day before the show,’ ” recounts Zelisko, “ ‘and come to my house for a BBQ so I know you’re in town and not acting up.’ ” Everyone appeared, except Axl. (Who, to his credit, did play the rescheduled concert.)