1992.09.19 - Mile High Stadium, Denver, USA

Justin Mitchell wrote:GUNS 'N' ROSES VANISHING ACT STEALS MAGIC OF METAL SHOW AT MILE HIGH
There were more thorns than Roses at the once-delayed, long-anticipated Guns N' Roses blowout for about 42,000 at Mile High Stadium Saturday night.

After two seamless sets by Ice-T and Body Count and Metallica, Axl Rose and Co. got off to a shaky start.

Rose already has the turf to himself as rock 'n' roll's reigning bad boy. Link him up on a bill with Ice-T, late of Cop Killer infamy, and you've got the anti-Christ and Satan on the same bill, in some people's minds.

The reality, however, wasn't quite as menacing - at least for Ice-T's portion of the bill.

Guns N' Roses, closing the night after a napalm-fueled two hours-plus by Metallica, were another matter.

Getting onstage at 10 p.m., the band ripped into Welcome to the Jungle, while a mammoth, inflated crab-like monster (no, not Axl) rose in an empty area of the lower southwest stadium stands. Not a bad opener, but what followed for three more songs simply upped the anxiety level.

Rose skipped offstage, leaving the rest of the crew to play without a net. Bassist Duff McKagan took over temporary vocal duties for two obscure songs, one a ballad and another Ramones-flavored, quick-tempo number called Attitude. The remaining band members then worked out a slow blues instrumental. Still, no Axl.

Slash went into a solo guitar spot until he was interrupted by a returning Axl, who told him to "shut up." Live and Let Die with Axl followed.

Then the band finally seemed to work its way into something resembling a groove for the blues-flavored Bad Obsession. Slash's slide guitar, and the inspired harmonica work of Ted Andreadis, were other bonuses.

Indeed, it was Slash who carried great loads of the show on his tattooed shoulders. Songs such as Double Talking Jive, Mr. Brownstone, Civil War and You Could Be Mine owed less to Rose's vocals and more to Slash's creative embellishments - flamenco stylings, blues, snatches of a Jimi Hendrix riff (Voodoo Child surfaced more than once) and even some Beatles and Rolling Stones when he and new guitarist Gilby Clarke worked out instrumental arrangements of Lucy in the Sky and Wild Horses.

By 11:20 p.m., when Rose sat down at a grand piano in his umpteenth costume change for a ballad and pop-classical solo, there were noticeable clumps and lines of fans filing out. Meanwhile, many of those who stayed hefted their Bics, points of light for a flickering talent pounding the keys in the spotlight.

It took the familiar siren call intro of Sweet Child O' Mine to put the force back into a show that seemed to have otherwise wandered off to a place only Rose could comprehend. After an extended version of Knockin' on Heaven's Door, the band left the stage and returned for an encore of Paradise City at midnight.

Seven hours earlier, Ice-T and Body Count were full of aural fire, bluster and bravado, but when it was all said and done, what you got was a lot of swaggering showmanship, some bargain-basement speed metal and a few laughs.

Watching and applauding from the side of the stage was Guns bassist Duff McKagan, who seemed especially taken with the hockey mask and sunglasses sported by Body Count rhythm guitarist D-Roc.

Ice-T and his four cohorts boasted about the fears that people with the mindsets of, say, Dan Quayle or Tipper Gore might have with him and his music unleashed.

"They said if Body Count plays they're gonna need more security . . . maybe they thought I was gonna tell you guys to overthrow the government . . . kill your mother or kill the police!

"Nah, I came to Denver to find myself a KKK Bitch!" That song (a satirical, salacious thrash excursion) and others from Body Count's controversial debut album have, of course, been overshadowed by the controversy over Cop Killer. He saved that for last, and no casualties, cops or otherwise, were apparent when he strutted offstage having primed the crowd's adrenaline prior to Metallica' s fearsome 2-hour-and-25-minute set.

The band, using temporary guitarist John Marshall (on loan from Metal Church) to compensate for injured singer / rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, performed around a smaller version of the mosh pit featured on the band's solo tour earlier this year.

Most of the moshing, however, went on beyond the pit. While the band's range isn't spectacular, power and precision are its main currencies, with subtlety definitely in the small-change department.

The band's power comes from an ensemble blitzkrieg approach, a cohesive sonic assault that doesn't so much vary tempos as burn rubber and pop gears with a perpetual power.

Metallica is no stranger to stadiums, having cut its teeth on the Monsters of Rock tour years ago, and this Mile High date showed them to be one of the leanest, meanest acts in the end zone in some time. (Maybe the Broncos could use a trick or two to punch up the running game . . .)

Metallica's portion of the night whiplashed from intensely brooding melancholia (Harvester of Sorrow, Nothing Else Matters, Unforgiven, Fade to Black) to the breakneck jouncing of Whiplash and The Shortest Straw, among others.

Hetfield, who seemed none the worse for the burns he received last month when a flash pot went off in front of him, sounded at times like the hoarse- man of the apocalypse, urging the crowd along for unifying sing-alongs such as Wherever I Roam, Evol and Seek and Destroy. In fact, he picked up a guitar for the final song of the set, Enter Sand Man.

It was Seek and Destroy that found Hetfield in the audience, shoving his microphone into eager faces, seemingly auditioning Dante's choir.

Twin giant video screens captured audience and band action in a compelling visual mix that added a lot of momentum to the show.

THE NIGHT GUNS N ROSES ALMOST STARTED A RIOT IN DENVER

RICK RODDAM
December 5, 2016

September 19, 1992, is a day that I'll never forget.
Instead of attending the homecoming dance that night, I went to see the concert of the year, Guns N' Roses and Metallica at Mile High Stadium in Denver.

Little did we know at the time, it would be the last time GnR would perform in Denver for nearly 25 years.

In fact, Axl Rose was lucky to make it out of Denver alive.

Nearly 50,000 headbangers packed into Mile High to see the show, which had been rescheduled after Metallica singer James Hetfield was burned during a concert several weeks earlier.

After a rousing opening set from Body Count, Metallica came out and proved their status among the greatest bands of the era.

Even with Hetfield wearing bandages on his arms and unable to play guitar, they delivered a powerful two hour set as the crowd roared on in approval.

Would Guns N' Roses be able to follow them? Sadly, on this night, the answer was no.

After a 45 intermission between bands, GnR finally came on.

Halfway through their first song, "Welcome to the Jungle," Axl Rose threw his microphone down and stormed off the stage.

Struggling to fill time, Slash led the rest of the band through an extended jam session.

The crowd began to grow restless and, as the minutes passed, started to boo.

Finally, over 30 minutes later, Axl Rose re-emerged and immediately scolded the audience, yelling "shut the (bleep) up," which was received by an even bigger chorus of boos.

Through the remainder of the show, Rose complained several times about the sound, the security and his road crew.

By the time they had finally finished their uninspired set, more than half the crowd had already left.
It was eery silence, especially in comparison to Metallica, who whipped the entire stadium into a frenzy only two hours earlier.

Even die-hard GnR fans, myself included, admitted that the band was outclassed by their opening acts.

Then, the following Monday, legendary Denver concert promoter Barry Fey called a local radio station to deliver his account of the evening.

According to Fey, Axl Rose was already headed back to the hotel room after leaving the stage during the first song.

Fearful that disgruntled fans would start a riot similar to previous GnR shows in Montreal and St. Louis, Fey instructed the limo driver to bring Rose back to the venue.

When Rose arrived, Fey met him in the parking lot and threatened to file a lawsuit if he didn't get back on stage and finish the show.

According to some accounts, Fey also pulled out a loaded handgun during the "negotiations."

We'll probably never know exactly what happened that night in the parking lot at the old Mile High, but somehow Fey convinced Axl that the show must go on.

Hopefully, when Guns N' Roses return to Denver in August, for the first time in nearly 25 years, Axl won't have a temper tantrum and storm off the stage again.

Barry Fey on that time that he held a gun to Axl Rose's head and how the business has changed
 
DAVE HERRERA | NOVEMBER 18, 2011 
 
For years, Barry Fey says, music fans have been needling him to write a book. "You know, people have been saying 'When's the book? When's the book?' for fifteen years," Fey notes. "It was daily, wherever I would go out... 'When's the book? Come on, you've got to write a book!'" Well, he finally did -- and it's quite a read. In the appropriately titled Backstage Past, Fey dishes freely on his years in the music business.
 
There's the story about how he almost passed on booking Led Zeppelin, until the manager of Spirit offered to give up part of his band's guarantee in exchange for adding Plant and company to the bill of a show that had already sold-out in which Spirit was headlining. And then there's the one about how he supposedly held a gun to Axl Rose's head when the Guns N' Roses frontman mysteriously disappeared from a gig at Mile High Stadium that Barry had booked with Guns and Metallica (spoiler alert: didn't happen, even if Lars Ulrich remembers it differently).

[...]

So what's your favorite story?
 
I guess my favorite story... oh, God, that's hard. Dave, that's really hard -- and I'm not being cool - but the one I had most fun with is debunking the story that's not true.
 
What's that?
 
The Axl Rose story, as told by Lars Ulrich. You've heard about that one, right? That story is, I guess, the most famous of the stories. We had Guns and Metallica at Mile High. And there was 48-49,000 people there. It was a big tour, and they alternated closing. One night, one band would close, and the other night the other one.
 
This one, Metallica opened, and... the whole story's in the book, but I'll tell you... Metallica opened, and I went out - it was a great set - I went backstage for the opening number of Guns. I went out, and they played "Welcome to the Jungle." I'm walking out - I'm going to give you the language, and you clean it up however you want; I'm just telling you how it happened - I'm walking backstage, and this guy comes running out and says, "Barry, Axl just left."
 
I said, "'The fuck are you talking about, 'Axl left'?" So I ran backstage, and I found out that he had come down off the stage, got into the limousine and left the site. So I said to... I went up to - his name was Big John; he was the guy who ran the limo company - and I said, 'You don't work for him; you work for me.' I said, 'You ever want to see another fucking dime of this company's money, you get that car back here.' And he said, "What?" I said, "Yeah. The only way he gets out of that car is if he jumps out. And if he jumps out, you leave him in the street. But you get that car back here."
 
So he gets on his little telephone. People are getting a little pissed by this time. Guns is up there just jamming, right? They played "Welcome to the Jungle," and then they didn't do anything; they were just jamming, and people were getting a little pissed off. In fact, I found out that they were taking their Guns N' Roses T-shirts back to the concession stand and throwing them at them and saying, "Give me a Metallica shirt."
 
So I went into the Guns and Metallica dressing room. So Guns sends down an emissary -- and this I know for sure because I was standing there within three feet - and he tells Lars, "Would you guys consider coming back up and jamming with us, because the crowd's going to get out of line?" So Lars tells him, word for word, "You bozos don't have enough money in your collective bank accounts for me to get back on that stage."
 
So at that point, I left the dressing room, went back out to the parking lot and got my .357 out of my glove box and put it in my back pocket. So I go out there, and I don't know what I'm going to do, because, you know, he had caused a riot in Montreal, I believe, by leaving and not coming back. Well, a few minutes later, the car comes back, and Axl gets out and talks to his manager - his name was Doug Goldstein; he was a glorified security guy; he use to do their security, and he took over their management. But how do you manage, manic depressive heroin addicts? That's a pretty good trick. I don't know how you do that.

So he [Axl] comes and talks to his manager and goes right up on the stage and gets back into it. So I put three of my, what do you want to call 'em, security, goons, thugs -- the toughest ones I have - at the top of the stairs and three Denver cops at the bottom. My instructions are: "The only way he gets out, if he leaves again, is that way," and I point to the crowd. Doug Goldstein says, "Barry, you can't do that. Axl will get so pissed." I said, "I don't give a fuck about him, and I don't give the same about you. I care about them," and I pointed to the people.
 
So that, basically, is what happened. But Lars tends to tell a different story, and Lars has far more credibility out in the industry than I have. He swears I put the gun up to Axl's temple and said, "Get on that fucking stage or you're going to die." It [his .357] never left my pocket. But every time he sees me today, he says, "Barry, are you packing today?" So that was that story.
 
Of course, that also was Slash's bachelor party that night. It was downtown at the Embassy Suites, which is no longer there. They were handing out little tickets - a blue ticket, like if you wanted a blow job, a yellow ticket if you wanted to get laid, a red ticket if you wanted to do both. It was a crazy night. And it turns out, I found out later, the reason Axl left was because he had a fight with Slash on the stage. But you know, I didn't really care. I just... I wasn't going to let him get away with that. 

And Lars says to me, "Don't tell me you wouldn't have shot him." I said, 'Oh if he's not going to go on, he's going to get shot." But it didn't have to happen. So that's a great story, but it's true. That's the way it is. If you hang up with me and call Lars, he'll tell you the story, "Yeah, Barry put this fucking gun to his head." Didn't happen.

[...]

CONCERT REVIEWS
Big Bash at Mile High Stadium
 
by Jennifer Susich
Staff Reporter
 
On Saturday, Sep­tember 19 at Mile High Sta­dium, three bad boy, bad reputation bands visited to rock the house. Ice-T's new thrash band, Body Count, the newly popularized Met­allica, and Tipper Gore's nightmare Guns N Roses all came to rock Denver.
 
Starting with Body Count, Ice-T began the eve­ning with a rather boring set. Nothing he did made the crowd react. Even the con­troversial song "Cop Killer" couldn't get any life from the crowd. Most everyone was saving their energy for the later bands.
 
What else was wrong with Ice-T? Being that he is such an original at his show, he repeated everything he said to the T (no pun in­tended) from 1991's Lolla­palooza tour.
 
Quite frankly, Ice-T's Body Count just did not fit on this tour. Most people were expecting either Faith No More or Skid Row, not some weird rap dude trying his best at metal. Luckily they only had a fifty minute set.
 
The highlight of the night, of course, was the San Franciscan band Metallica. Metallica left their older fans in a daze as they opened with "Creeping Death" and played more of their older songs. It was a headbanging, mosh­ing frenzy.
 
Even with a tempo­rary added addition to the band (John Marshall of Metal Church), Metallica kicked some serious butt. From their explosive use of flash pots, to singer/rhythm guitarist James Hetfield's interaction with the crowd, to the sing- a-long to "Seek And De­stroy", everything was a headbangers dream come true.
 
But the highlight of some people's nights was the song "Nothing Else Matters." Couples were hugging and kissing, which was reminis­cent of a Poison concert rather than Metallica, but just the same even the slow 'ballad' type songs kicked seriously.
 
The best part of the night was their closing song "Enter Sandman." For the first time since the explosive accident [which engulfed James Hetfield into flames a few weeks back in Montreal], James got to play the guitar again. He was really excited about that, and needless to say, so were the fans.
 
Everything was per­fect for the Metallidudes. Bassist Jason Newsted had his fun singing part of "Seek And Destroy." Lead guitar­ist Kirk Hammett played the theme to the Munsters and drummer Lars Ulrich had his fun running from end to end of the stage tossing his drum sticks to the crowd. Metallica definitely left the stage as champions of the night.
 
Guns N Roses left a lot to be desired for their set. Singer Axl Rose stomped off the stage during their open­ing song "Welcome To The Jungle," only to come back on in about twenty minutes later to do the same thing on "Bad Obsession."
 
Bassist Duff McKagen had his fill of singing to the crowd with "Attitude" and "Why Are You So Blind?" while Axl was off stage pouting.
 
In between around seven clothes changes from Axl, there were the never-­ending solo's from hell. Lead guitarist Slash had his guitar on so loud, it overpowered Axl's voice, Matt Sorum's drum set and even Duff's bass.
 
Slash's solo (which lasted around half an hour) included "Voodoo Child," "The Godfather," and many more interesting things. Everyone in the band had a solo, including Denverite pianist Dizzy Reed.
 
Drummer Matt Sorum's solo was excellent, but his ego seemed to get into the way of his act. In­stead of playing, he kept standing up to receive grati­fication from the crowd.
 
The solo's got so long and so dull, many people either left to go home or were sitting in their seats sleep­ing. It was more like watch­ing pay-per-view or MTV instead of a live Guns N Roses concert.
 
Guns N Roses had little to none interaction with the crowd. When guitarist Gilby Clarke's solo was through, Axl came back out on stage again to sing "Mr. Brownstone," "Sweet Child O' Mine," and "Paradise City." Those three songs seemed to be the only rocking tunes in their set.
 
Since the solo's dragged on and wasted over an hour of Guns N Roses' time, they only played around eight songs total, most of which were slow.
 
From part of their cover of Alice Cooper's "Only Woman Bleed" to their song "November Rain," the set was really somber and depress­ing. Denver got a lousy show from Guns N Roses.
 
Metallica definitely should have headlined the show, but time can't be changed. Well, look at the good side of it, at least there was no riot!!

Bassist Duff McKagen had his fill of singing to the crowd with "Attitude" and "Why Are You So Blind?" while Axl was off stage pouting.

Blackstar wrote:From the Highlander review:

Bassist Duff McKagen had his fill of singing to the crowd with "Attitude" and "Why Are You So Blind?" while Axl was off stage pouting.

I guess that would be So Fine