1988.05.09 - Felt Forum, New York, USA

[Soulmonster]

Date:
May 9, 1988.

Venue:
Felt Forum.

Location:
New York, USA.

Setlist:
01. It's So Easy
02. Move to the City
03. Mr. Brownstone
04. Out Ta Get Me
05. Rocket Queen
06. Patience
07. Used to Love Her
08. My Michelle
09. Welcome to the Jungle
10. Sweet Child O'Mine
11. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
12. You're Crazy
13. Nightrain
14. Don't Cry
15. Mama Kin
16. Paradise City

Line-up:
Axl Rose (vocals), Izzy Stradlin (rhythm guitarist), Slash (lead guitarist), Duff McKagan (bass) and Steven Adler (drums).

Quotes:

Interviewer: When I saw you, you were improvising madly, Slash was really working out, Axl was dancing around all while Steven and Duff were plugging away seemingly in their own world. Yet at a certain point, you five stopped on a dime!
Izzy: It's amazing to me. That night at the Felt Forum in New York when you saw us was a particularly good night. I mean, sometimes we make bad mistakes onstage too. I remember in the old days we'd go so nuts we'd fall right off the stage. Sometimes we'd jump off the stage on purpose. You can't stay too tight when you do that!
Interviewer: I saw kids getting crunched up to the foot of the stage and having to be rescued by security guards. I saw kids hurling themselves on top of other people right in front of you. Does that happen at every gig?
Izzy: Oh, that was one of the more mellow gigs. In Europe, it's like a football game. Kids are flying through the air and landing on stage all the time.
Interviewer: How can you keep playing?
Izzy: It's not easy. Many times I'll be playing and some big kid will be hurtling through the air at 100 miles per hour right at me. I can't imagine what that must look like from the audience. But I'm sure it adds an excitement to the show. When these kids go flying past me and I never see it coming, it gives me a rush of adrenalin like you wouldn't believe.
Interviewer: That's downright dangerous!
Izzy: Sure it is. But it's also on the edge and that's what makes good rock 'n' roll.
Interviewer: That's what I like too. You never know what's gonna happen at a Guns N' Roses concert.
Izzy: We don't even know ourselves from one minute to the next. We don't even use a songlist anymore.
Interviewer: When Axl rode that bicycle across the stage, people freaked!
Izzy: I had no idea he would do that. It caught me by surprise [Superstar facts, Interview with Izzy, 1988]

Axl: In New York I was late to the show at the Felt Forum because I'd passed out after drinking Nightrain and doing an MTV interview. I showered, did my vocal exercises and got dressed within 15 minutes and went to the gig. We got out of an $8,000 overtime debt because the barricades that separate the fans from the stage were set up wrong, and by the time they'd fixed it, I'd gotten there and everything was cool [Rip Magazine, April 1989].

Next concert: 1988.05.10.
Previous concert: 1988.05.07.

[Soulmonster]