1988.05.25 - Northlands Arena, Edmonton, Canada

Helen Metella wrote:[...]
Finally , the opening act displayed pluck and commitment that made it a bonus component to the ticket, not an afterthought.

L.A.’s Guns ’N’ Roses played virtually the same set it delivered last year with The Cult, but excited some new admiring observations.

W. Axl Rose is still a raw nerve flailing for the way to relay his anger through profanity.

But once singing, his menace derives not from what he represents but what he describes in a song such as I Used To Love Her But I Had To Kill Her.

Searing tales of cocaine addiction and the mean streets of L.A. unfolded in a ‘‘voice from Hell” while his rigid body jerked like someone caught in the electric chair.

The band’s impact as raw social commentators was perhaps best described during their cover of Bob Dylan’s Knockin' On Heaven's Door, dedicated to a friend dead of heroin abuse.

The melancholy ballad became brittle and harsh but nonetheless evoked a tale of the sad and wounded.

That’s what the band symbolizes.