1992.04.09 - Rosemont Horizon, Rosemont, USA

Last Chicago performance with three original members

The band received a priceless introduction: "Chicago! Of all the bands in the world, this is definitely one of them! From Hollywood -- Guns N' Roses!"

Video from the entire concert is widely available on YouTube. "Now we're going to do a medley of Barry Manilow covers for you," Rose says before the band played "Estranged." Blind Melon lead singer Shannon Hoon, who was also from Rose's hometown of Lafayette, Ind., sits in on "Don't Cry." Slash plays Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" to begin "Patience." The biggest surprise of this show? A pre-"Siamese Dream" Smashing Pumpkins was the opener.

A show the following night was canceled since Rose skipped town -- the Cook County sheriff`s office planned to arrest and extradite him to St. Louis to enforce a bench warrant obtained by the St Louis prosecutor's office.

Rosemont

Concert line
By Chris Heim

This week’s shows: Guns N’ Roses, Sir Douglas and more

Hey, I’ve heard “Get in the Ring” and I’m not about to say anything that will have Axl Rose knocking on my door threatening to punch out my lights. So let’s just say that by now most folks have heanl enough and heard enough about G N’ R to decide for themselves (a) if this is the best hard-rock band around right now or just a bunch of self-indulgent, whining, trouble-making loudmouths, (b) if the two “Use Your Illusion’’ volumes elevated the group into the realm of redeeming social value or were just a clever smokescreen behind which lurked the same dumb, hateful (particularly toward women) noise of before or (c) if the truth is actually in some more difficult and complicated place in between those extremes. In any case, it is a moot point for slow-moving concertgoers. The G N’ R Thursday night show at the Rosemont Horizon is sold out.

An arena full of rock 'n' Roses

Guns seems under control and ready to enjoy its music and itself

by Greg Kot
Rock music critic

In the armpit of an apartment they shared in Los Angeles seven years ago, the five founding members of Guns N' Roses didn't have much use for professionalism as they struggled to remain above the poverty line.

Professionals were the people who played on Toto and Kansas records. Pros were the people who made the last 15 Chicago albums so boring. Professionalism didn't have anything to do with rockin' out, man, and it sure didn't count for much when the rent was due.

No wonder the Gunners' concerts were every bit as loud, greasy and gritty as the Sunset Strip dives in which they parked their amplifiers. The band's slumming charisma soon fetched a following and eventually landed them a recording contract with a major record label.

A couple of billion record sales later, Guns N' Roses arrived Thursday night at the Rosemont Horizon for a sold-out show, and they performed like the professionals few expected they would ever become.

But the Gunners haven't entirely outrun their notorious past, as proven when Friday's sold-out show was canceled because lead singer W. Axl Rose left town rather than be served with an arrest warrant in connection with a riot at a concert outside St. Louis last year.

The group hasn't succumbed to the slickness and drab routine that are professionalism's curse, and most of the credit belongs to Rose.

The singer still acts like-pick one-rock 'n' roll's nastiest 500-pound gorilla or its feistiest 160-pound prima donna. Rose performs only when he feels like it and not a moment sooner, so when he led the troops on stage at exactly 10:50 p.m., well past the announced starting time of "about 9:30," it was both annoying and not particularly surprising.

A litany of "Axl's little moments," from his tempestuous and quickly aborted marriage to the St. Louis blowup, could keep a 900-number in business indefinitely.

But though the singer has become the rock equivalent of a Dan Quayle joke in certain quarters because of his erratic behavior, once on stage Rose goes about his business with a ferocity that few performers have ever matched.

He can't seem to fake his way through a performance, wearing his yearning for a better world and his hatred for the present one like one of his many tattoos.

Hair-trigger temper

Known to have a hair-trigger temper, he has also been diagnosed as manic depressive. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he revealed even more of his private hell: a childhood in which he was sodomized, beaten and turned into an emotional cripple, only to later bury much of the pain in his subconscious.

Bit by bit, Rose said in the interview, he is trying to break open the hidden wounds in his past so he can heal them and get on with his life.

On Thursday, he broke off the concert after two songs to launch into an extraordinary update of this latest chapter in his now public struggle.

First he quieted the raucous crowd by snapping: "You want a cocaine rock 'n' roll party? . . . Well, I ain't here for that."

Then he told of a phone conversation the night before with a friend who admonished him for revealing the family's secret past.

"My past," he said, "is like a car wreck that no one told me about. . . . If we don't deal with this (child abuse) publicly, then we probably won't deal with (it) at all. . . .

"You want a lot of macho man rock 'n' roll? . . . It don't work anymore for me. I can't fake it anymore (because) my life's falling apart."

The crowd stirred restlessly, anxiously wondering just how big of a pall Rose was going to cast over its party.

Then the singer swept his hand out toward the audience and back across the stage.

"If some scrawny 90-pound weakling can get up here and take this . . . on," he said, gesturing at himself, "so can any one of you."

The crowd roared, and the band ripped into a cover of Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die," in which Rose sang one line with particular relish: "When ya got a job to do, ya got to do it well"-a professional attitude if there ever was one, albeit with the bite of a pit bull.

Rose unloaded only one other time, when he bristled because a group of young men in the crowd wasn't quite enthusiastic enough for his taste. "Seems to me you're wasting your time," he sneered, "standing there with your pot, acting cool like you're James Dean."

Oiled and lubricated

The Gunners are more like one of Dean's cars: waxed, oiled and lubricated for maximum efficiency, expanded to a humming 12-piece with horns and backup singers for this leg of their two-year world tour.

Gone is the slap-dash drumming of Steven Adler, fired for drug burnout in 1990, and the bored-silly attitude of guitarist Izzy Stradlin, who quit late last year. In their place is a bull of a drummer, Matt Sorum; a keyboardist, Dizzy Reed, who unlike at last year's tour opening show at Alpine Valley has been fully integrated into the arrangements and can finally be heard above the din of the guitars; and the newest addition, guitarist Gilby Clarke, a pal from the old Sunset Strip days of drugs and decadence.

That neon haze has been replaced by a rigorous discipline of rehearsal and temperance, by the looks of this performance. This new band of Gunners creates the impression of being in full control of its faculties, mental and otherwise, and of seemingly enjoying its music and each other.

For nearly three hours, the group explored a broad palette of musical colors, showing a stylistic audacity that few hard-rock bands possess: from lush ballads ("November Rain") to diesel-powered rock ("Nightrain"), a funked-up "Move to the City" to a bluesy "Bad Obsession."

Although the Gunners still pack a gritty, street-band punch-as evidenced by a pile-driving cover of the Misfits' "Attitude"-the emphasis now has swung more firmly in the direction of epic, 1970s-style rock, with many songs pushed toward 7 or 8 minutes and sometimes beyond.

This was arena rock delivered on a grand scale, with more than a few over-indulgences. There was the obligatory drum solo with synchronized lights: thump-thump, blink-blink, ho-hum.

There was Rose sprinting on and off stage to change into his thrift-store gypsy outfits more often than Cher: red hot pants, fringed cowboy gear, camouflage, a leather coat emblazoned with an image of Madonna, a Confederate flag, an American flag.

And then there was a roadie jumping behind Slash as if on cue to stuff a lit cigarette into the guitarist's mouth in midsolo.

While blowing smoke through his tangle of curls, Slash struck more than a few bare-chested, bend-at-the-hip poses with his double-neck guitar. When he wasn't quoting Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" or torching the "Godfather" movie theme, he was ushering in the slamming "Civil War" with references to Jimi Hendrix's "If 6 was 9" or dueting with Clarke on the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses."

His guitar purred and hummed on a wrenching version of the Gunners' 1988 breakthrough hit, "Sweet Child O' Mine," while Rose turned the word "child" into a desperate three-syllable plea, then a repeated scream.

It was a chilling performance, and a transcendent one. The crowd, already standing on its seats, stomped, hollered and exhorted Rose to keep pushing his voice higher.

Then Slash picked out a few bars of Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed" as a melancholy coda that paved the way for the set-closing "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."

The Bob Dylan tune was beefed up into a gospel epic with a kaleidoscopic arrangement, as Slash spun out one lyrical solo after another, while Sorum kept changing up the tempo and Reed threw in carnival-organ flourishes. By song's end, Rose had no trouble persuading the crowd to join in, turning the Horizon into one big choir loft.

With the grandeur of their music and the intensity of their singer's delivery, the Gunners transcended the doubt of "Sweet Child" and the death that awaits outside "Heaven's Door."

Venting his bile

If in these songs Rose offered some hope, in others he nearly choked on his hostility. When he blasted out "You Could Be Mine," it was difficult to disregard the misogyny. And the sentiments of "Welcome to the Jungle" were prime, circle-the-wagons Guns N' Roses: "You can have anything you want, but you better not take it from me."

There would seem to be only so many ways a songwriter can vent his bile, but as Rose indicated Thursday, he seems in no danger of tapping himself dry.

"I don't care if you're pumping gas or are king of the world," he said to the crowd, "anybody who says you don't amount to (anything) is nothin' but a .. ."

Then he filled in the blanks with the vengeful "Nasty Talkin' Jive."

If Rose is just now discovering the meaning of self-esteem, that doesn't mean he has lost touch with what it felt like to have none.

As long as he holds on to that feeling, Guns N' Roses won't ever be mistaken for Toto.

Guns N' Roses cancels show after lead singer skips town

Michael Kates & Angela Bradbery

It was the perfect wedding gift: two tickets to the young couple's idea of paradise, Friday night's Guns N' Roses concert at the Rosemont Horizon.

But the controversial Los Angeles rock 'n' roll band postponed the sold-out show just 15 minutes before the doors were scheduled to open-lead singer Axl Rose had to skip town ahead of the law, according to the band's record company.

"Can I cry?" Ursula Sandoval asked her new husband Ray as they stood outside the Horizon Friday night. The two 26-year-olds, who married April 1, stood in line for 2 1/2 hours for the tickets.

The Cook County sheriff's office might be upset too. Officials had a warrant for Rose's arrest on four misdemeanor charges stemming from a riot last July during a concert in a St. Louis suburb, according to Geffen Records.

According to a Geffen spokeswoman, the Cook County sheriff's office planned to arrest Rose and extradite him to St. Louis to enforce a bench warrant obtained by the St Louis prosecutor's office.

"Rather than go to jail, Rose left the sheriff's jurisdiction," said Bryn Bridenthal of Geffen.

A Guns N' Roses management representative apologized to fans and blamed "celebrity persecution" by St. Louis authorities.

Neither St. Louis officials nor Cook County sheriff's police could be reached for comment.

The group performed here Thursday night without incident. The Friday show was added several months ago, after the first show sold out quickly.

Hundreds of disappointed and disgusted fans were notified by megaphone at 7:30 p.m. that the show was canceled.

The switchboard at the Horizon headquarters was lit up for hours by fans. Some callers asked for reimbursements for their limousines; others wanted to know if they would be refunded the price they paid scalpers-$125 in one case.

They were told no.

Tickets will be refunded Monday at Ticketmaster outlets for their $25 face value, Bridenthal said.

Rosemont Horizon officials received a phone call from the band's local promoter, Jam Productions, at 7:15 p.m. Doors were to open at 7:30 p.m. and the opening band was in the building, preparing to take the stage at 8:30 p.m.

"The group decided they did not want to perform," said Harry Pappas, executive director of the Horizon. "They gave no reason."

No one at Jam Productions could be reached for comment.

According to Horizon officials, up to 400 fans were outside when the show was canceled. Guards, ushers and other security personnel broke the news to them.

Teenagers who were dropped off by their parents were allowed to make phone calls so they "wouldn't be wandering the street," said a Horizon official.

That was of little good to Steve Stasney, 15, and his three friends from Highland, Ind. The group had been dropped off by one of the boy's fathers at 7 p.m. and told, "see you at midnight."

After the announcement was made, "Everybody was cussing like crazy," Stasney said. "They're good, but not when they do that."

The last Horizon show canceled on short notice was the Madonna show in May 1990. The singer had a sore throat and gave Horizon officials 24 hours' notice.

Tom Nigut, who came from Wilmette with a friend and seven youngsters, said the band's actions were not surprising.

"It's typical of the image they try to give," Nigut said, "punky, cocky, do whatever they want to do."

Guns N' Roses also canceled shows Monday and Tuesday in Auburn Hills, Mich.

Guns N' Roses put on a real showstopper

By MICHAEL GOUGIS
The Associated Press

CHICAGO — Guns N’ Roses canceled a concert Friday night after lead singer W. Axl Rose fled town to avoid arrest on charges filed after a riot at the band’s show last year in St. Louis, his record company said.

“He wasn’t anxious to spend any time in jail without reason,” said Bryn Bridenthal, spokeswoman for Geffen Records, the label for Guns N’ Roses. “To suddenly extradite him over a misdemeanor charge, there’s no cause.”

Friday’s concert was canceled about 30 minutes before the band was scheduled to take the stage at the 18,000-seat Horizon in northwest suburban Rosemont.

Geffen also said the band canceled shows scheduled for April 13 and 14 in Auburn Hills, Mich. Plans for ticket refunds or exchanges are still under consideration.

Rose was charged with assault and property damage over a riot that followed an aborted Guns N’ Roses concert July 2, in which about 40 concertgoers and 25 police officers were hurt.

Cook County Sheriffs spokeswoman Sally Daly said the department was asked to enforce a bench warrant posted by the St. Louis City prosecutor’s office. Daly said officers had contacted the band’s management, told them Rose would face arrest and gave Rose the option of surrendering before or after the show.

“Apparently, they chose not only not to take that option, but not to fulfill their obligations to their fans,” Daly said.

Fans who had gathered before the show dispersed peacefully, the band’s management and Daly said.

Witnesses said the St. Louis melee began when Rose leaped from the stage to snatch a camera from a fan and then stormed off, abruptly ending the show. Rose has said he jumped into the crowd to stop a fight and that the band was willing to go back on but was told to leave. He blamed security for the riot.

Damage to the theater was estimated at up to $300,000. The misdemeanor charges carry a combined penalty of up to 4 1/2 years in jail and $4,500 in fines.

The rock group Guns 'n' Roses canceled a concert here on Friday night because its lead singer, W. Axl Rose, had fled town to avoid arrest on misdemeanor charges stemming from a disturbance at a concert near St. Louis last summer.

The St. Louis County authorities have charged Mr. Rose with assault and property damage because of the disturbance on July 2 in which about 40 concertgoers and 25 police officers were injured. Witnesses said the melee began when he leaped from the stage to snatch a camera from a fan and then stormed off, abruptly ending the show.

Mr. Rose has said that he was trying to stop a fight and that the band was willing to go back on but was told to leave. He has blamed security personnel for the riot.

Band Cancels Show

This week the authorities in St. Louis County asked the Sheriff's Department of Cook County, Ill., to enforce a bench warrant for Mr. Rose's arrest. Officers told the band's managers that Mr. Rose would have the option of surrendering either before or after the show scheduled for Friday night at the 18,000-seat Horizon in suburban Rosemont. Instead, the band canceled the concert about 30 minutes before it was to start, and a spokeswoman for its label, Geffen Records, confirmed that Mr. Rose had fled.

"He wasn't anxious to spend any time in jail without reason," said the spokeswoman, Bryn Bridenthal. "To suddenly extradite him over a misdemeanor charge, there's no cause."

The misdemeanor charges carry a combined penalty of up to four-and-one-half years in jail and $4,500 in fines.

Geffen Records said the band had also canceled shows scheduled for Monday and Tuesday in Auburn Hills, Mich.

Axl Rose a fugitive after show canceled

By Jae-Ha Kim and Scott Fornek
Chicago Sun-Times
April 12, 1992

Rowdy heavy metal rocker Axl Rose cancelled a concert at the Rosemont Horizon and skipped town to escape the long arms of persecuting prosecutors, a representative for the singer says.

Leaving thousands of fans waiting outside the Rosemont Horizon, Rose’s band, Guns N’ Roses, canceled a Friday night show half an hour before doors were to open so that Rose could avoid being served with
misdemeanor arrest warrants for his alleged role in a Missouri riot last year.

“It smacks of celebrity persecution,” said a management representative for the band in a press release. “We understood they planned to arrest Axl imminently, thus preventing the show anyway.”

Not so, says a representative for the Cook County sheriff’s police, who were asked by St. Louis County police to serve the warrants. All Rose needed was a little “Patience.”

“We did not want to cause any riots or disruptions,” said Sally Daly, spokeswoman for the Cook County sheriff’s office. “Our plan was to effect the arrest of Mr. Rose after the concert.”

Sources said St. Louis County prosecutors had issued a $100,000 bond against Rose for four misdemeanor charges stemming from a riot that erupted at the Riverport Performing Arts Center after Rose leapt from the stage and allegedly traded blows with a fan who was snapping photos.

Cook County sheriff’s police officers contacted concert promoter Jam Productions so Rose could either be served before or after the concert. But Rose and the other five band members apparently fled the county early in the evening, Daly said.

Fans turned away from the Horizon apparently had no “Appetite for Destruction,” and police reported no problems.

The Horizon dates were makeup concerts for a July 4 concert that was canceled after the Missouri riot. Guns N’ Roses concerts Monday and Tuesday in Auburn Hills, Mich., also were canceled.

The band is expected to decide in the next few days whether to reschedule the show or refund the $25 tickets.

“Apparently Mr. Rose and the band chose not to fulfill their obligations, not only to the law but to the fans,” Daly said. “He chose to go out in a blaze of glory.”

Oh, Axl, there’s one last thing.

“If he is determined to be in Cook County, he is a fugitive at this point,” Daly said. “These warrants will be outstanding.”

Don’t look for W. Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses in concert again anytime soon.

Those disappointed when Guns N’ Roses canceled its show last Friday at the Rosemont Horizon probably won’t get a chance to see the band anywhere anytime soon.

Only hours before show time, singer W. Axl Rose skipped town when he found that he was about to be arrested by Cook County sheriffs officers and extradited to Missouri in connection with a riot-inducing fight at a concert there last summer.

St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch says he will try to have Rose arrested and extradited wherever the band plays next, which effectively prevents it from playing anywhere until Rose turns himself in. The Gunners canceled two shows this week in Auburn Hills, Mich., and a major summer tour, reportedly with Metallica as an opening act, is now in limbo.

“We’ve given him eight months to turn himself in at his convenience, and he’s ignored us,” McCulloch says.

The charges facing Rose are misdemeanors, involving four counts of battery against three fans and a security guard, and property damage of less than $1,000 to Rose’s dressing room at the Riverport Performing Arts Center near St.
Louis. After Rose jumped into the crowd to thwart an unauthorized photographer, a riot broke out and most of the band’s equipment was destroyed by fans.

Rose would face a maximum one-year prison sentence and $1,000 fine on each of the charges if convicted.

McCulloch says it is not unusual to extradite a “fugitive” on misdemeanor charges. “It doesn’t happen often but it does happen,” he says, adding that all it took was about 15 minutes’ worth of phone calls to Cook County officials.

The officials were on their way to the Horizon when Rose was tipped off by the concert promoter, Jam Productions, and the show was canceled.

A spokeswoman for the band, Bryn Bridenthal of Geffen Records in California, says McCulloch’s actions are “a personal vendetta against what he thinks Axl stands for,” but the prosecutor says Rose’s notoriety has nothing to do with it.

“On the contrary, this is an effort to show him he has to play by the same rules as everyone else," McCulloch says.

McCulloch confirms that the band has offered to play a free show in the St. Louis area and that Rose has volunteered to do community work, but McCulloch said he wouldn’t discuss the case with the band’s attorneys until Rose turns himself in.

“All he needs to do is come in, get booked and bonded, and he’d be out in two to three hours,” McCulloch says.

But Jam President Jerry Mickel-son says the members of Guns N’ Roses “maybe are thinking twice about trusting any law enforcement official.” He recalls that several band members “were arrested and thrown in jail without cause or provocation” after a fight several years ago in a Chicago hotel instigated by some hecklers.

Mickelson also says the band forfeited $1 million in guarantees by canceling the Rosemont show and the two Detroit area performances.

And while the 15,000-plus ticket-holders for the Rosemont date are entitled to refunds of $22.50 each, they stand to lose $3.50 to $4.50 each in Ticketmaster service charges.

At this point, the only winner in this mess appears to be McCulloch, whose name surfaced in major daily newspapers throughout the country this week as well as music-industry publications such as Billboard. The prosecutor is up for re-election in 1994.

Host: Axl Rose, the bad boy of rock ‘n’ roll stirs up trouble wherever he goes in keeping with his image. Most of his antics are part of the act, but now he’s a real-life fugitive from justice, being hunted by the law.

Voice-over: Singer Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses are always out on the edge of rock ‘n’ roll. But now what happened during one of their concerts caused problems that won’t go away. The band cancelled three shows, in Chicago and Detroit in the past week. Bryn Bridenthal of the band’s record company says Axl Rose didn’t want to be arrested.

Bryn Bridenthal: The idea of being disappeared into the jail system for the weekend was a pretty frightening prospect.

Voice-over: The trouble started in St. Louis last July. A riot broke out during a Guns N’ Roses concert after Axl Rose dove into the crowd at the Riverport Amphitheater trying to stop a fan from videotaping him. More than 60 fans and police were injured. Rose is accused of assaulting three fans and with hitting a security guard, as well as with tearing up a dressing room. The man who’s hunting for Axl Rose is County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch.

McCulloch: I consider the charges serious. Obviously he considers the charges serious. He’s gone to such drastic steps to avoid answering the charges.

Voice-over: Rose’s record company blames inadequate security for the riot; and they say the prosecutor is going to an awful lot of trouble when the charges are only misdemeanors.

Bryn Bridenthal: There was no reason to precipitate this kind of drastic move. These are definitely extraordinary measures and they really feel malicious.

Voice-over: There is no love lost between the band and St. Louis. On their new album there’s a greeting to the city in the liner notes. Prosecutor McCulloch says he’s going to keep pursuing Axl Rose and that he’s not that hard to find.

McCulloch: The only difference between Rose and any other fugitive is that Rose publishes his schedule. If every other fugitive did that, we wouldn’t have too many fugitives.

Host: And the latest published schedule is the European tour beginning Monday in London and including stops in Dublin, Prague, Budapest, Vienna and Berlin.