1992.07.18 - Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, USA

Review/Pop; A Battle of 2 Headliner Bands
By JON PARELES,
Published: July 20, 1992

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., July 19— Crank up adolescent frustration to the breaking point, and it can come back three ways: as cynicism, as morbid fantasy and as spite laced with insecurity. Those attitudes, and music to match them, filled Giants Stadium on Saturday when Faith No More, Metallica and Guns 'n' Roses performed at a sold-out concert, the second stop for one of this summer's major tours.

With both Metallica and Guns 'n' Roses playing headliner-length, 140-minute sets, it was a triumphant show that kept much of the audience on its feet until after 2 A.M., when Guns 'n' Roses set off their final flash pots. Inevitably, it was also a battle of the bands, and it may have been the presence of the dependably galvanizing Metallica that goaded Guns 'n' Roses to tear into its songs and top the competition.

Guns 'n' Roses didn't bother with three of its frequent indulgences. Instead of making fans wait, the band ran on stage as soon as its equipment was ready; "I've never been on time anywhere before," said W. Axl Rose, Guns 'n' Roses' singer and leader, as if surprised himself. Instrumental solos, which can drag on, were down to five minutes or less (although the band is still wasting time with a no longer unexpected version of the "Godfather" theme). And where Mr. Rose has often dissipated a show's momentum with tirades about real and imagined enemies, on Saturday he let the songs speak for him with brutal, spiteful eloquence.

"Perfect Crime" opened the set and laid out its strategy, muttering, "Keep the demons down and drag the skeletons out" and snarling, "Just let me be." Guns 'n' Roses' lyrics are by turns tender and threatening, wounded and bullying, while the music dips into every bad-boy style of the last 30 years -- the Rolling Stones, punk, heavy-metal -- along with an occasional ballad. Mr. Rose wailed his rage in a rending screech, hinted at seamy scenes in an ominously controlled baritone or proffered occasional solace in a rasping vibrato croon.

The band has always been reliable, and at Giants Stadium it socked out the songs. It now tours with an added keyboardist, backup singers and a horn section that unobtrusively bolster the music. Slash, one of the best lead guitarists in rock, did sometimes copy his recorded solos instead of improvising. Much further along those lines, and the songs could become routine. But that didn't happen on Saturday, when Guns 'n' Roses was professional but never stale.

Mr. Rose, the rare performer who can be more hyperactive onstage than in his video clips, was in constant motion. He bounded from one end of the stage to another, twirled his microphone stand in an embrace or over his head, hopped on one foot, shimmied his hips. He was the image of a man trying to jump out of his own skin. He restlessly changed costumes, in a succession of T-shirts, jackets and hats -- three jackets in "Civil War" alone. By the time the set ended at 2:10 A.M. -- long past many of the teen-age fans' bedtimes -- Mr. Rose was the most energetic person in the stadium.

Where Guns 'n' Roses offers Mr. Rose's kaleidoscopic torments and imprecations, Metallica is deliberately monochrome: black clothes and single-minded heavy metal. The four band members (including Lars Ulrich on drums, whose platform was mobile) roamed continually over their set, but the music had a fixed tone, almost invariably in minor keys and implacably working its way up from slow stomps to battering speed-metal. As a pioneer of speed-metal, Metallica started out among the fastest bands in rock, but it has lately down-shifted to midtempo songs that seethe like sealed volcanoes.

James Hetfield's lyrics envision dire possibilities, from nightmares to vicious authority figures to apocalypse. The band's first video clip and final encore, "One," is about a soldier who loses his limbs, sight and hearing but does not die. A pit in the middle of Metallica's stage set held fans, an image of the band's emphasis on audience participation. Mr. Hetfield regularly addressed the crowd as "friends," and added, "We ask a lot of our friends." As Mr. Hetfield and the audience sang together, the gloomy words were turned into a shared exorcism.

At Giants Stadium, Metallica's job was to rouse an audience that, unlike its arena crowds, wasn't composed entirely of fans. It succeeded, first with recent songs familiar from MTV exposure and then through the jackhammer momentum of older, unstoppable songs like "Master of Puppets." For some of the band's oldest material, Jason Newsted, on bass, took over lead vocals from Mr. Hetfield. He wasn't in the group when "Whiplash" was recorded; now he sings it as well as any fan: "We are Metallica!"

Faith No More, which opened the show with a 45-minute set that didn't use the headliners' giant video screens, scampered around the stage in T-shirts and shorts like summer campers raiding a rival. Resigned to the inattention that greets most opening acts, the band spent most of its set playing brand-new material from its album "Angel Dust" (Slash/Reprise), pounding and squalling but largely unintelligible. Still, some concertgoers responded to the music's drive by slam-dancing.

Speed-metal occupies the center of Faith No More's music, but the band's style is shifty, using the stop-start meter changes of hard-core, chanted near-rap verses and the foreboding keyboards of progressive rock. Mike Patton, its lead singer, toys with tone -- now ghoulish, now quasi-operatic, now nasal -- to undercut any pretensions, and his stage postures are antiheroic. He hunches along or rolls on his back; at one point he emoted to the empty bleachers behind the stage, then flopped down to the floor and slithered along.

Partway through the set, Mr. Patton announced that the songs were from the band's new record. "How many people want to buy it now?" he asked, to cheers, and then he asked how many were liars. He's a rock star whose cynicism even extends to rock stars.

The triple bill returns to Giants Stadium on June 29.

Tom Sinclair wrote:
Midway through Guns N' Roses' two-and-a-half-hour Giants Stadium set, a frustrated Axl Rose tried to goad the capacity crowd into showing more enthusiasm. "It's not that fuckin' hot," he chided them. Rose was talking about the weather, but he could well have been offering a capsule review of GN'R's show.

If anyone had any doubts, Guns N' Roses New Jersey performance made clear that the group is a bona fide arena-rock act- complete with the bombast, ego-tripping silliness and musical indulgences that go with the territory. Between the scantily clad female horn section and Rose's innumerable costume changes, the show took on the air of Las Vegas chintz at odds with the Gunners' hard rockin' aura. When fireballs were detonated at strategic points during "Live And Let Die," the effect was more Spinal Tap than spine tingling. Still, when the band got down to brass tracks and pummeled out it's Appetite For Destruction-era classics like "It's So Easy" or "Mr. Brownstone," one could almost believe that GN'R were worthy of wrestling the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band title from the Stones.

Slash managed to contribute his share of molten blues riffing, especially when "Double Talkin' Jive" (dedicated by Rose to "our two presidential candidates") stretched into a long, fluid jam. But the set's erratic pacing undercut its momentum. Things bogged down badly with the ballad "November Rain," on which Axl played piano, and degenerated rapidly: Rose took several potshots at departed guitarist Izzy Stradlin; the crowd was forced to endure a Matt Sorum drum solo and was then treated to Slash's interpretation of the Godfather theme. The encore - bracing versions of "Estranged," "Don't Cry" and "Paradise City" - served to reinvigorate the crowd, but if truth be told, even if GN'R had been in top form all night, they couldn't have topped Metallica's galvanizing set.

As evidenced by the thousands who ignited lighters during "The Unforgiven" and pumped fists in the air while singing along to "Master Of Puppets," the night belonged to Metallica. "You guys like that shit, don't ya?" asked guitarist and lead singer James Hetfield after "The Shortest Straw" elicited a torrent of applause and cheers.

On song after anthemic song, Metallica achieved a pristine brutality that was riveting. Even when the band got loose - bassist Jason Newsted took a solo turn, quoting "The Star-Spangled Banner" and Led Zeppelin's Dazed And Confused" before he was joined by guitarist Kirk Hammet for the Alfred Hitchcock Presents theme - the audience was rapt. To paraphrase the group's recent hit, after Metallica, nothing else mattered.

Guns N’ Roses at Giants Stadium

Welcome to the jungle, baby.

Undoubtedly, the Guns N’ Roses/Metallica/Faith No More tour is the loudest, biggest rock ’n’ roll show of the summer. And it stops for two dates at Giants Stadium, Saturday as well as July 29.

Despite the arrest of Guns N’ Roses lead singer Axl Rose Sunday at Kennedy International Airport on year-old charges stemming from a riot at a St. Louis concert, the Giants Stadium shows will go on.

Rose has been charged with four misdemeanor assault counts and one count of property damage. He-pleaded innocent Tuesday in St. Louis County Court and has been released on bail.

On the other hand, the members of Metallica are comparative angels. After winning their second Grammy this year as Best Hard Rock Group, Metallica has finally gained newfound respect and popularity through their 1991 self-titled album. The album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's album chart last year, as did as well throughout the world.

Metallica’s first single, “Enter Sandman", carved a niche in album-oriented rock radio and soared to the top of MTV’s Most Wanted Videos for months.

So how did these superstar rock bands get together?

“We’ve been talking about doing this for at least three years,” said Slash, Guns N’ Roses’ guitarist, during a press conference in May.

“We wanted to put together a heavy duty rock show from beginning to end.”

Last September, Guns N' Roses simultaneously released the albums “Use Your Illusion 1 and 2”, which debuted at the top two positions on Billboard’s album chart.

The group was the first band to release two albums simultaneously. For the Gunners, it was a risk worth taking.

“In addition to the new songs, we wanted to do some of the songs we couldn’t do on the first album because of time and finances,” said Slash in a press release. “We wanted to clean the slate so on the next album we can start fresh.”

Currently, the albums have sold more than 17 million units worldwide.

Their latest single and video, “November Rain”, is a fan favorite as well. The big-budget production also features Rose’s girlfriend, model Stephanie Seymour, in a simulated wedding and funeral storyline.

New faces to the Gunners lineup include keyboardist Dizzy Reed, guitarist Gilby Clarke — replacing Izzy Stradlin — and drummer Matt Sorum.

With Metallica and Guns N’ Roses expected to play two hour sets each, the show is worth it, according to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the two bands at the forefront of the hard rock scene together,” he said at the press conference. “The vibe and enthusiasm we all feel for this tour will make it something we and the (audience) will never forget.”

By Lisa Ippolito
Courier-News Writer

Who, What, Where
Who: Guns Ν’ Roses and Metallica with Faith No More
When: Saturday and July 29
Where: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford
Tickets: Seats available for July 29. All seats are $27.50. Ticket-Master: (201) 507-8900.

Guns fail to come up smelling like Roses

Rockers’ show marred by heat, delays, pacing

By MATTY KARAS
PRESS MUSIC WRITER

EAST RUTHERFORD — Guns N’ Roses, who a lot of people consider a good pop band masquerading as a great rock’n’ roll band, faced the kind of challenge Saturday night that separates the latter from the former.

Topping a triple bill on a muggy summer night at Giants Stadium, the Gunners met a sold-out crowd of about 52,000 people warmed up by the funk-metal band Faith No More, drained by a more than two-hour show by martial speed-metallers Metallica, enervated by the weather and tired out by the clock.
It was 11:40 p.m. by the time Guns N’ Roses, late as usual, started playing (This time, singer Axl Rose refused to take the blame. “Sorry,” he said; “this is the first time I’ve ever had the problem of sitting backstage waiting to go on”).

And Guns N’ Roses never really activated them.

Their 2 1/2-hour concert, their first in New Jersey in years and one of their first anywhere since Rose’s much publicized arrest for allegedly starting a riot at a show a year ago in Missouri, couldn’t have started a riot in Attica.

The music was fine, a surprisingly hit-packed show for a band that’s recorded only three albums, but not energizing, despite Rose running endlessly around the stage, sometimes singing (well, we should add, such as his singing is) while in full stride. It reached a high point before the band even started playing: The intro music — Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and "We Are the Champions,” and then, after the lights went out, Sid Vicious singing “My Way” — promised an epic performance the Gunners didn’t have in them Saturday.

The emotional high point came not during a song, but during the introduction of the players, when Rose answered a call from the audience for fired guitarist-songwriter Izzy Stradlin’ by going into a rage.

THAT elicited a reaction. When the Gunners finished playing “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” the ballad that launched their career five years ago, they were greeted with polite, at best, cheers. And when they tore into their hardest, grittiest hit, “Welcome to the Jungle,” around 1:30 in the morning with Rose literally screaming “WAKE UP!!!,” large sections of fans remained in their seats, too tired (or bored) to stand. Then again, a good deal did, no doubt, come to see Metallica.

Although their sound is firmly rooted in classic rock ’n’roll — from the folk-rock of Bob Dylan to the orchestral pop of Elton John to punk-rock of the Sex Pistols — Guns N' Roses have an outward disdain of convention.

They work at their own pace, and march to an odd drummer — thus the simultaneous release last September, after a five-year wait, of two double-length albums.

In a day, Guns N’ Roses released more music than most bands do in a career.

Saturday’s concert displayed a similar lack of pacing and flow, as if any such idea was to be avoided. Toward the beginning of the show, a carefully orchestrated (and choreographed, with fireworks) cover of Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” was immediately followed by a cover of a two-minute anti-all-that nugget from the punk years, the Misfits’ “Attitude.”

Later, Guns N’ Roses played, in a row, a multiple-part anti-war opus, “Civil War,” followed by a gently sung love song, “Patience,” and then, turning another 90 degrees, a heavy tomtom beat and screech of guitar feedback led into the hard rocking “You Could Be Mine.”

Ambitions high and pacing already tossed out the window, guitarist Slash then told the crowd, “We’re gonna take some time to set the next song up ... so just bear with us.” (Imagine, if you can, Led Zeppelin saying that before playing “Stairway to Heaven”).

The song was Guns N’ Roses’ current epic hit, “November Rain,” for which the six-piece band brought on stage a third keyboardist (along with Rose, who played piano for just that song, and Guns keyboardist Dizzy Reed), a flutist and two back-up singers. The performance was more or less fine, featuring a pair of melodic solos by Slash, a genuine guitar hero who continues to avoid the super-fast, watch-me playing of most other guitar heroes. But it didn’t have the energy of, say, the band introductions that followed.

That was when someone had the gall to invoke the name of Stradlin’, one of the Gunners’ chief songwriters, who was reportedly booted out because of an unwillingness to tour.

“Izzy who?,” answered Rose. “Oh, I understand. You want someone in the band who would hate us if we were here.” In a girlish voice, he went on: “I don’t WANT to make videos. Why do we have to tour with this, Axl?”

The Gunners apparently need some sort of confrontation to make things go. Perhaps a spin in jail (and the 11 hours Rose spent there last week doesn’t count) would help.

Or maybe Axl’s thinking of quitting anyway and going into the movies: Besides three movie theme songs in Saturday’s set — the Gunners’ own “You Could Be Mine” (from "Terminator 2”), “Live and Let Die” and the “Godfather” theme (as part of a Slash solo) — there was Rose, among a dozen or so other costumes, wearing a “Mean Machine” football jersey, which Burt Reynolds fans will recognize as belonging not to a real team but the fictional one in the prison movie “The Longest Yard.” Speaking of prison.

Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and Faith No More return to Giants Stadium at 7 p.m. July 29. Promoters erroneously reported last week that that show was sold out, too; in fact, several thousand tickets remain.

Guns N' Roses misfires

CONCERT REVIEW
GUNS N’ ROSES and METALLICA: With opening act Faith No More. At Giants Stadium on Saturday.
The bands return for a 7 p.m. performance on July 29. Tickets, $27.50, may be purchased at the Byrne Arena box office; Crossroads Tickets, Route 4 east, Paramus, and TIcketMaster outlets, or by calling TIcketMaster Charge, 507-8900 or 1(212)307-7171.

By Barbara Jaeger
Record Music Critic

Perhaps, it’s time for Guns N’ Roses to get off the road and get into the studio to work on some new material. Or, maybe the group just needs to take a long hard look at Metallica, the band Guns N’ Roses is sharing the bill with on its current concert trek.

Both groups, along with opener Faith No More, were at Giants Stadium on Saturday night for a hard-rocking marathon. While Metallica, which preceded Guns Ν’ Roses on stage, easily went the distance during its high-energy 2 1/2-hour set, Guns Ν’ Roses had trouble keeping the pace.

Both bands have been on lengthy concert tours. Metallica’s odyssey began in October, while Guns N’ Roses’ started in May 1991. When artists are out on the road this long, they bear a twofold responsibility. They must find ways to keep the material fresh and exciting for themselves, as well as for those fans who’ve already seen their shows. They must also perform with passion and conviction, so that those seeing the concert for the first time are compelled to return.

Metallica — which had the harder job since the band’s April show at Byrne Arena was still probably fresh in a lot of fans’ minds — performed both tasks with aplomb.

Metallica varied its set list to sprinkle “Whiplash,” from its first album, and “The Shortest Straw,” from the “... And Justice For All” collection, amid such familiar songs as “Enter Sandman” and “Seek & Destroy.” Its solos and instrumental segments — particularly bassist Jason Newsted’s take on the Jimi Hendrix-inspired rendition of the national anthem and Newsted and guitarist Kirk Hammett’s teaming for Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” — were imaginative and well-placed within the briskly paced set. And the energy Newsted, Hammett, lead singer and guitarist James Hetfield, and drummer Lars Ulrich generated could have lit the bright lights of Manhattan for a month.

The Guns N’ Roses members — who performed at Nassau Coliseum in June and at Madison
Square Garden in December — couldn’t have powered a 9-volt battery. Failing to reinvigorate its songs and performing them as if by rote, the result was a 2 1/2-hour performance that was boring — a “b” adjective that probably has never been used to describe the bold, brash, bad boys of Guns N’ Roses.

The only change the group undertook — and definitely not one for the better — was to flesh out songs such as “Patience,” “Bad Obsession,” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” with lengthy instrumental passages and solos. The bloated arrangements, however, only sapped the songs of their life.

Guns N’ Roses is a band that makes its most powerful musical statement when vocalist Axl Rose, guitarists Slash and Gilby Clarke, bassist Duff McKagan, drummer Matt Sorum, and keyboardist Dizzy Reed are blistering their way through songs and setting off rock-and-roll tremors. To do that, it needs all its members — notably Rose — on stage, all the time. Rose, however, spent more time off stage changing clothes than on stage singing.

The mercurial lead vocalist didn’t even let loose with one of his trademark on-stage tirades. And one would have thought the 30-year-old singer’s arrest July 12, for his alleged involvement in a riot that erupted during the band’s show in St. Louis last year, would have been fodder for some Rose commentary. But no. Rose even apologized and joked about the notoriously late-arriving band’s delay in coming on stage.

All day, all night, metal fans (53,000 plus)

Cooking with metal, the stadium tailgaters

Guests of honor Guns Ν’Roses didn’t show till midnight, but no matter. The parties went on strong, and long, and loud, at the Giants Stadium concert marathon.

By Lou Ferrara
INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT

EAST RUTHERFORD. N J — James Dusenbery stroked his gray-streaked beard, placing his other hand on the shoulder of his 9-year-old son, Jesse. They stood at the entrance to Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands; behind them streaks of smoke rose from charcoal grills, occasional sparks signaled a launched firework, speakers blared competing music, empty beer bottles clinked as they rolled on the pavement. All over, rallying cries emanated from people anticipating An Event.

With the New York City skyline in a hazy silhouette in the background, the Dusenberys eagerly stood in one of the lines at Giants Stadium, along with all the other people who went to see Saturday’s main event: a nearly nine-hour heavy-metal concert marathon featuring the likes of Guns N’ Roses and Metallica.

“This is really calm and cool compared to the football games you can go to here,” the 39-year-old school maintenance worker from New Milford, N.J., said as the massive beer and barbecue tailgate stretching over acres of blacktop parking lots went on behind him.

"I grew up on stuff like this, so I don’t see what’s really wrong with it for my kids now.”

The two stood a few feet from Dusenbery’s wife, Barbara, and their 13-year-old daughter,

Annie. They all waited patiently about 20 minutes before being allowed to enter the stadium at 4:30 p.m., two hours before the spectacle.

All four clad in black T-shirts, the Dusenberys entered after getting through security guards who patted them down with a light police frisking.

Guns N’ Roses headlined the double bill that included a two-hour set from the hardcore band Metallica and an abbreviated show by heavy-funk band Faith No More. For the Dusenberys and the more than 53,000 other fans, Saturday night would be a long one.

Guns N’ Roses did not hit the stage until midnight, wrapping up just after 2 a m. The show was the second on the six-man heavy-metal band’s 25-city North American tour — they head to the Silverdome in Pontiac,

Mich., tomorrow — and the group went on just as late opening night in Washington’s RFK Stadium on Friday.

“These are once-in-a-lifetime shows they’re doing,” said Steve Colavito, who drove about 90 minutes to the show from his North Jersey home in Old Bridge. “When they go on late like that, it really doesn’t mean that much when you consider what you're getting."

Guns N’ Roses will not be playing Philadelphia this leg of the tour — the group played the Spectrum last year in June — but will return to Giants Stadium July 29 for a second show. Though Saturday's show was sold out, upper-level seats remain for the second show.

Colavito, stripped down to cutoff jeans and a pair of Nikes, partied with hundreds of others outside in a thick humidity before the show, lie blared heavy metal out of two huge speakers he had carried in the trunk of his white Buick.

“We're pumping about 150 watts per speaker with this baby," yelled the Middlesex County Board of Elections worker, as he popped open another Budweiser. "This kicks. A party like this, there’s nothing else like it."

Tony Morreira could not have agreed more. He is the Meadowlands’ scheduling officer, who had to deal with many of the concert’s problems that kept popping up. For him, the event was more like Guns N’ Roses n’ absolute chaos.

As he sat at his desk in a tunnel underneath the bleachers of screaming fans, the lines on his telephone lighted up; guards spread through the stadium were calling with everything from simple questions to possible problems. Morreira tried to help a man who came into his office to find friends in the crowd, but was unsuccessful. “You say your friends are somewhere in Row 20 but you don't have the exact location,” a puzzled Morreira said. "Every section in here has a Row 20. There’s no way we can find somebody like that.”

The man left and Morreira breathed a deep sigh, only to quickly turn his attention to the phones. There would be a steady run of loose ends to tie up before the night was over

Richard Ryan, assistant director of Meadowlands security, said that there had been no major incidents, but that about a dozen arrests had been made for minor violations such as possession of alcohol and ticket scalping. Scalpers in the parking lot hacked the $27.50 tickets for as much as $75, though some sold the seats at face value to get rid of them before show time.

“If tickets ran me a hundred bucks a pop, I’d go,” said Chris Adair, 20, a tailgater who looked around from the roof of his 1969 Chevrolet Ca-maro at the scene below.

At an adjoining stadium parking lot, a woman stood atop a white stretch limo and accepted money to do a little flashing. In minutes, a crowd of nearly 100 men had gathered, dollar bills and containers of beer in hand.

The metalfest tailgate started about 1:30 p.m. Tracy Cassara, 21, who rented a Dodge Caravan with six of her friends and made the trek up from Middlesex Township, scuffed her knee-high black boots along the beer bottle-ridden parking lot. "I’m not exactly a metalhead in the strict sense of the word,” the assistant graphic designer said, sipping on a wine cooler. "I just like coming to something like this and hearing the music as loud as it possibly can be."

For Huw Rose, the concert had much more meaning than music and partying. This was a chance to see his idol, Guns N’ Roses lead singer Axl Rose. Huw Rose, a University of Connecticut freshman, shaved most of his head except for certain parts of the back to form the name Axl.

Axl Rose was able to participate in the band’s tour despite an arrest earlier this month over an incident at a concert in St. Louis last year, when he jumped, allegedly swinging, into a crowd. He was angry because he had spotted someone taking pictures without permission. On Oct. 13, Rose will face four assault counts and a count of damage to property in St. Louis.

“Guns N’ Roses is such a different band, you never know what to expect," said Dara Singer, a telecommunications sales representative from Edison. “An event like this is incredible."

Singer, 23, sat with her friend Amy Suter on the trunk of Singer's Buick Century, sipping beers before the night’s show. As people began to file into the stadium, the two waited for a friend to finish changing the flat tire they got when entering the grounds.

Most days Suter, 23, is in front of a class of elementary school youngsters, putting them through their third-grade paces. Saturday at the tailgate, she was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. She said she "got psyched up” for the head-banging night that lay ahead.

“Just because I teach in an elementary school doesn’t mean I can’t listen to this music,” Suter said, “you have to go out and cut loose sometimes. This seems to be a good place to do it."