1991.07.16 - Tacoma Dome, Tacoma, WA

On The Stage And Off, These Guys Are Hot -- Smokin' Guns

By Patrick Macdonald

The first time Guns N' Roses played here, fewer than 20 people showed up. That was in 1985 at the old Gorilla Gardens near Pioneer Square, and it was the band's first show outside its hometown of Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, the band plays the Tacoma Dome and all 15,000 tickets have long been sold out.

A lot has happened to GN'R in the intervening years - like becoming the biggest rock band in the world. It has also become the most controversial, with trouble stalking its every turn.

Not since the early days of the Rolling Stones has a band become more famous for its offstage behavior than its music. Bandmembers' struggles with alcohol and drugs, lead singer Axl Rose's manic depression (controlled by Lithium), in-fighting within the group and legal battles inside and outside the band have been aired publicly time and again.

Typically, the current tour has been marked by controversy, with reports of riots, arrests and increased security.

Little is said about the music, even though the band has sold 15 million copies of its only album, "Appetite for Destruction," and another 5 million of its eight-song EP, "GN'R Lies." The only other pieces of music it has released - a cover of Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" from the "Days of Thunder" soundtrack, and "Civil War" from "Nobody's Child," the Romanian orphan-relief compilation - have also been big hits.

It's new single, the powerful "You Could Be Mine," from its forthcoming release of two albums in one day (set for Aug. 27), "Use Your Illusion" Vols. I and II, also looks like a hit. Featured on the soundtrack of "Terminator 2," the video of the song intercuts performance shots with action scenes from the movie, and includes Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator stalking the band (he concludes they're not worth wasting bullets on.)

GN'R's music is the grittiest, most honest hard rock to hit the airwaves since glam bands and corporate heavy-metal took hold in the 1970s. Rock fans embraced the music long before lurid tales about the band began to surface, even before most people knew what the GN'R reprobates look like. When the savage "Welcome to the Jungle" and the warm rock ballad "Sweet Child O' Mine" hit the airwaves, hard-rockers sat up and took notice. Here was music to sink your teeth into, the kind of stuff that hadn't been heard since the heyday of Aerosmith, the Stones and Led Zeppelin.

What makes Guns N' Roses great is the band's open-throttled, no-holds barred, give-it-all-you've-got approach to every song. Rose is an amazing vocalist who growls, squeals, rasps, warbles and screams (he has more voices than Linda Blair in "The Exorcist"), in order to get his points across. He's fascinating to listen to because of the drama of his delivery, the earthy directness of his lyrics and the extent to which he is willing to take his voice. He also has a distinctive performing style, with his patented side-to-side sway and athletic dance moves.

Slash, the lead guitarist, works perfectly with Rose, much like Keith Richards with Mick Jagger. Like Richards, Slash (whose real name is Saul Hudson) comes up with the perfect solo to complement every song. He has a light touch, playing notes instead of chords, and showing influences ranging from classical to jazz and the whole vocabulary of rock guitar. It's not surprising he has been asked to play on a variety of other artists' albums, including recordings by Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Lenny Kravitz and Les Paul.

The curly-haired, often top-hatted guitarist presents an almost comical picture - Danny Sugarman, author of the forthcoming unauthorized biograpy, "Appetite for Destruction: The Days of Guns N' Roses," put it best when he described Slash as "a dark cross between the Mad Hatter and Cousin It."

Izzy Stradlin is the band's second guitarist, playing rhythm. Duff "Rose" McKagan, a former Seattleite who joined the band only days after he arrived in L.A., after answering an ad Slash placed in a music magazine, plays bass. Both he and Stradlin contribute to the songwriting. Steven Adler, the original drummer of the band, was kicked out because of drug problems and has been replaced by the thoroughly professional Matt Sorum, formerly of the Cult. Keyboardist Dizzy Reed is along for the tour but is not a permanent member.

The show is opened by the very hot Skid Row, whose latest album, "Slave to the Grind," made its debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart two weeks ago. The flamboyant band, fronted by Canadian lead singer Sebastian Bach, is best known for the anthemic rockers "18 and Life" and "Youth Gone Wild."

Energetic Guns N' Roses Leaves Fans With Many Sound Memories

By Patrick Macdonald

Guns N' Roses and Skid Row last night at the Tacoma Dome.

Guns N' Roses' first head-lining stadium tour finally hit its stride last night at the Tacoma Dome. The tour got off to a bad start earlier this month with some troubled shows, including one in St. Louis that ended in a riot in which 75 people were injured.

But last night that seemed far away as the band put on a spectacular 2 1/2-hour show that was one of the best concerts here in years. Axl Rose and his boys were full of energy, sprinting around the huge multileveled stage while delivering spirited, challenging, powerful rock 'n' roll.

Lead singer Rose pulled out all the stops, using the full range of his compelling voice to underscore the stark, sometimes agonizing images in his songs about contemporary life and relationships. He screeched and howled and wailed and rumbled, and sometimes sang tenderly, as in the new love song, apparently called "November Rain," during which he accompanied himself on grand piano.

He whirled around in a red kilt, his ponytail flying, later changed to bicycle shorts, donned an American flag for a show-stopping "Civil War," and at the end of the night jumped off the stage into the audience. It took several minutes, and a half-dozen beefy security men, to extricate him from the crowd. He complained that somebody tried to pull his pants off.

Never before has guitarist Slash seemed so central to the band's sound. He's impressive on the records, but last night he was brilliant, holding the whole thing together with spare, aching, fascinating, varied solos. He had the assurance and ease of masters like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, combined with the crackling raw electricity of youth. He played bottleneck, blues, several snippets of Jimi Hendrix, and the theme from "The Godfather," along with some of the sweetest rock solos ever heard in these parts. The normally taciturn performer, who usually hides behind his mop of tangled curls, actually spoke a few times, saying the show and crowd were by far the best of the tour.

Bassist Duff McKagan, a Seattle native, also demonstrated his worth to the band with solid bass and lots of backup singing. Rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin was most visible in his role as a second lead singer, although his songs tended to be weaker than Axl's. New drummer Matt Sorum was thoroughly professional, and keyboardist Dizzy Reed, who Axl said was now a permanent member, added much to the songs with his rich, bluesy piano solos.

At least half the songs were new, from "Use Your Illusion" Volumes I and II, the two albums due out next month. Judging from last night's songs, the albums have more variety, and are more substantial, than previous releases, while just as powerful and uncompromising. Several of the songs, especially the driving "Double Talkin' Jive," the romantic epic "Estranged" and the dark "Bad Obsession," about addiction, rank with the best of GNR.

The group's biggest hits, "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Sweet Child O' Mine," are at least five years old, but it was obvious the band is not tired of them. They were highlights of the set, along wih "Patience," "Paradise City" and Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Paul McCartney's "Live And Let Die" seemed an odd cover - it was too clean, too pop for GNR.

The St. Louis riot did have its effect last night - at one point Rose stopped the show, and threatened to end it, when a bottle rocket hit the ceiling. He referred to St. Louis several times, blaming the stadium management and police there for the riot, saying he and the band had nothing to do with it. And, of course, security was tight inside and outside the dome, with police everywhere, lots of extra fencing and barriers for crowd control, and thorough searches at the door.

The show was opened with an unusually long set by hard-driving Skid Row. The band, whose new "Slave to the Grind" LP shot to No. 1 its first week out, tried hard to show it was rebellious, but came off more like petulant children.

Steven Sutherland wrote:
[...]
THE BOMB GOES OFF DURING "WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE". Axl's singing, "D'you know where you are baby? You're in the jungle and you're gonna DIE!" when, for a split second, everything's white-then-black. Axl just grimaces, breathes hard, pulls down his NWA cap, skips off stage and lets it pass. Slash dons his top hat, lights a cig and plays the "Godfather" theme, Matt does his drum solo, Duff joins in and everything's cool until Axl re-emerges in a fishnet shirt and launches into "Rocket Queen". Suddenly there's an explosion from somewhere about 15 feet from the stage, a blinding flash and a rocket narrowly misses Izzy. Too close for comfort. Too f***ing close...
Axl flips: "First it's a firecracker, now it's a rocket..." He's furious. "If you saw whoever lit that, we'll give you 10 minutes to turn 'em in and we'll be back... We're not here to get hurt or see anybody else get hurt just because some drunken f***in' pussy can't control. .. F***him! No! F*** YOU! It's up to you. Get him outta here and we'll be back. If not... goodnight. Peace."
The band leave the stage. Uh oh...
There's an ominous silence. The police down the front shuffle uneasily. They'd been expecting something like this but, y'know, hoping it wouldn't happen. According to the local paper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, there are 300 cops here tonight, some 50 more than usual for policing a rock event.
There's some whistling... Everybody's thinking about a few nights ago in St Louis. Axl'd spotted someone in the crowd taking pictures, the security guards had refused to do anything about it so the singer dived in and sorted it out himself before storming off stage. There'd been a terrible riot. According to the Maryland Heights Police Department, some 2,500 fans invaded the stage and smashed the band's gear. Sixty people had been injured. Then there was Dallas when a bottle flew on stage, Axl stopped the show and for a minute there it nearly turned real ugly until the culprit was turned over to the cops. Some of us are even thinking way back to Donington '88 - the mighty crush to see Guns, two kids killed.
Some more whistling... a surge... Will it be tonight? Will it all end here in the Tacoma Dome, Washington State? Will brute violent reality finally engulf the Guns N’ Roses rock ‘n’ roll fantasy, here in this soulless indoor soccer hall? Is this where the dream dies, at the hands of 30,000 kids high on beer and adrenaline?
Axl returns.
“Listen Tacoma," he says and he tells how Lemmy told him when he came offstage at Donington that he shouldn't put up with shit like that because he might get away with it this time but on another night, in another place, maybe to another band, there could be injury or worse. He'd made this speech in Dallas and it had helped calm the crowd. It works again. Slash dips into Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed" and melts it into Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" and everything's calmer. The air's no longer red, palms have ceased to sweat...
I think of the policeman in the corridor during support band Skid Row's set. The Skids' Sebastian Bach had just informed the crowd that backstage there were "10 f**'in' alcoholics looking for some drugs 'n' pussy", and the cop was on his radio to back-up.
"I thought Vietnam was bad," he laughed. "You should see the casualty room. They're piled up in there. Piled up man!"
Next morning's Seattle Post-Intelligencer front page headline reads: "No riot at Tacoma Dome, just Guns N' Roses all the way".

GUNS Ν' Roses, as one of a cluster of tacky books about the group puts it, are "the most dangerous band in the world". According to the papers, that's dangerous as in if you go see 'em you're likely to get hurt. According to the censors, that's dangerous as in pernicious - their songs, their behaviour, the example they set are a menace to the morals of the young. According to legend, that's dangerous as in self-abusing almost to the point of oblivion. According to the kids in Tacoma, that's dangerous as in "F*** yeah! Go for it!"
[...]
[Slash:] “Well, seeing fire... M80s and whatever that bomb was that went off tonight – that’s so dangerous. I mean, that’s so screwed, right? It happened to Aerosmith once a few years ago and it’s so damaging. I mean, why would you wanna do that? I guess people in crowds like to see the band react. It’s like they think you’re bigger than life, y’know, and it’s not really the case. It’s really hard to differentiate between being on stage and working really hard on, like, playing, and then trying to realise that the crowd thinks you’re something altogether different. I guess it’s never gonna change... It’s a drag but it’s something... we’re not gonna change the world so... ha! We just try and learn from experience, y’ know.”
[...]
JUST before "Welcome To The Jungle", the graphic rampage through urban hell which Guns cameoed in a Miami bar scene for Clint Eastwood's "Dead Pool", Axl makes a speech about "the other people who no longer work for us because they got their ass fired".
He accuses them of greed, of scheduling this tour before the new album was completed because they were desperate to make more money off the back of the band and to hell with the consequences artistically. This presumably refers to Alan Niven, the manager who parted ways with Guns back in April after a long, protracted series of fallings out.
At one point Axl and Niven wouldn't even speak - the manager thought the band had gone mad for wanting to include 12-minute songs on the new album and the singer thought it was none of his f***ing business. Niven's ex-partner, Doug Goldstein, now manages Guns.
Slash brings a different perspective to playing material from the "Use Your Illusion" albums before anybody's had a chance to buy them.
"When the band started, when we played The Marquee, we were a club band and we proved ourselves on our own merit without any singles or any of that shit, right? And so now, although we're headlining, we're still going out and playing on our own merit. We do new material that people have never heard and, if they like it, y'know, then it's a real band as opposed to like pushing some gay single and going out and riding on that.
"We have a f***ing good time and if the crowd gets off on it too, then we feel like we've accomplished something. And it's been great because... I dunno... it's an integrity thing. It's like you go out and no one's ever heard it, but you play it and it's like a question: 'D'you like it?' And the crowd reaction's been great which is so cool."

IN Tacoma, Guns N' Roses scatter the set with new songs. There's "Bad Obsession", which Axl informs us was written about a year before "M r Brownstone" and which sounds like "Sticky Fingers"-era Stones on a joyride with Bowie's Ziggy. He gets so many tee-shirts and pairs of knickers chucked at him during this song that he laughs at the end: "I reckon I could open my own used clothes store..."
There's "Estranged", a Zippos-aloft rock ballad, and "Double Talkin' Jive Motherf***er", which is hardly likely to gain heavy rotation on MTV. Nonetheless, it affords Duff the opportunity to sport a Stetson while Slash disentangles himself through some deep, dark blues, delves into Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" and eases himself into a soothing comedown just in time for Axl to return to the stage in a white cowboy hat, a pair of cycling shorts and a Stars 'n' Stripes shirt, whistling the intro to their peace anthem, "Civil War", the song they donated to the Romanian Relief Fund album and which appears on "Illusion" in a reputedly stronger form.
There are also two Izzy-fronted songs - "Dust & Bones", a raunchy rocker which features Slash on vocoder (you sing through a tube and it merges with the guitar), and "14 Years", which could be Quireboys. During "Dust", Axl wears a plastic pig's snout which he says was a present from the Tacoma Police Department. "It’s a message from them to the St Louis Police Department. The message is: 'F*** you St Louis!' Just because they don't know how to have a f***ing rock concert ain't our problem!"
There's also "U Could Be Mine", the disappointing new single featured in "Terminator 2", which Axl proudly informs us is the fastest selling single in the history of Billboard magazine, and the much-heralded ("and much f***ing bootlegged", according to Slash) "November Rain", the song Axl refers to as their "'Layla' thing", and which some who've heard the album version are calling Guns' "Stairway To Heaven".
Certainly it's epic, starting slow and wistful, Axl at the piano, growling tenderness until Slash takes it soaring. More than anything, it's reminiscent of Elton John's "Rocket Man" (Axl's a big Elt fan apparently) and if the rumour's true that Axl said he'd quit if it wasn't a hit, he should be around for a few decades yet, no trouble at all.
Strangely, there's also a barely recognisable, manically mangled version of Wings' Bond theme, "Live And Let Die".
[...]
GUNS N’ Roses are f***ing great in Tacoma and they know it. They're well into the encore, "Paradise City", and Axl's bare-chested, writhing in pained ecstasy, tearing the bracelets from his arms and tossing them to the back of the stage. As the song climaxes, he stands spread-eagled then hurls himself into the crowd. For a moment he's swallowed up in the heaving mass, then I see him punching at the clinging hands, fighting his way back onstage.
I find out later that the bracelets had to go because he once stagedived in New York and some psycho grabbed onto them and wouldn't let go, cutting Axl's wrists to shreds. Tonight he's safe and grinning.
"Some f***ing faggot tried to take my pants off!" he yells to the crowd. They cheer and he's gone.