1993.03.30 - British Columbia Place, Vancouver, Canada

Guns N' Roses for Vancouver

The Canadian Press

Vancouver

Guns N' Roses, the band whose name can be found on both the record charts and the police blotter, will perform in Vancouver on March 30.

“They are it right now,” says Tammi Bryant of promoter Perry-scope Concerts. “They are the super group.”

Tickets, at $32.50 plus service charge, go on sale Saturday for the show at the 24,500-seat B.C. Place Amphitheatre.

About 40,000 tickets were sold for a Guns N’ Roses show cancelled last August.

Earlier that month, angry Montreal fans went on a rampage after lead singer Axl Rose left the stage complaining of a sore throat after 40 minutes. Vandals caused more than $300,000 in damage.

Rose and company were up to their old tricks Wednesday night in Santiago, Chile.

The allegedly drunk band showed up two hours late, and an angry disturbance resulted in 20 injuries and 157 arrests.

HOT TICKET

Tickets go on sale Saturday, finally, for a March 30 concert featuring Guns N’ Roses. Their earlier date back in August was cancelled after a fan rampage in Montreal and an injury in the co-billed band, Metallica.

This time, GNR is booked in with The Brian May Band (May was in Queen), and the seating is slated for 24,000 at the B.C. Place Amphitheatre (Perryscope calls in a "unique set-up"). Tickets go on sale at Ticketmaster outlets (wristband priority in effect), or charge by phone, 280-4444.

Those who buy tickets from outlets are asked to bring a non-perishable item to donate to the Vancouver Pood Bank, marked with name and phone number. One winner will be chosen from each outlet to have their tickets upgraded to front row.

[...]
The weather was better for those few who lined up in Vancouver for tickets to a March 30 B.C. Place date for Guns N’ Roses. Just more than half of 24,000 tickets moved over the weekend, with about 10,000 tickets still loft on level four, and about another 1,000 scattered at lower levels.

AT EATON’S, 200 Guns N’ Roses fans who are wearing numbered wrist bands begin to inch forward as tickets for the rock show next March go on sale.

A security guard remarks that (surprise!) fans of heavy metal trash-meisters like Guns N’ Roses are well-behaved while followers of Michael Jackson or New Kids On The Block can be quite rowdy.

Most teenagers will not begin to prowl through the mall until the afternoon, but Tasha Knowlton, Denise Kendrick and Devon King, all age 13, are all up early to comb through music and clothing stores and, of course, watch guys.

The Port Coquitlam teens do this every Saturday. They say the mall is the one place their parents will permit them to go alone.

“Most parents wouldn’t want their kids to just go roam around on the street,’’ Knowlton says. “I wouldn’t be allowed to.’’

And because it is Christmas, they have more money to spend — $100 each to buy gifts for family and friends.

Holy smokes, it’s the busiest night of the week. At BC Place Stadium, Guns N’ Roses will be trying to live up to their bad boy reputation by smoking onstage, or perhaps chugging from a beer or wine bottle. In between costume changes from Axl Rose, the band should also launch into the trashy brand of hard rock that have made them all millionaires.

Former Queen guitarist Brian May is the opening act.

Guns N’ Roses n’ sex n’ violence

THE MOST highly watched rock group in the world is coming to Vancouver.

Undoubtedly, Guns N’ Roses will be bringing with them their themes of hate, violent sex, suicide and drugs.

Must we allow such messages to be promoted in public, tax-funded facilities? What impact will their visit have on our battle against violence to women and minority groups?

How sad that these “musicians” are our children’s heroes.

RUTH NORTON
North Vancouver

GUNS N' ROSES

The baddest bad boy of rock offers up a spectacle

JOHN MACKIE
Vancouver Son

Guns N’ Roses aren't a rock band, they’re a phenomenon. And a G’N’R gig isn’t a mere concert, it's an out and out spectacle.

Tuesday night, the phenomenon rolled into B.C. Place Stadium. Twenty thousand plus turned out to watch hard rock’s version of a three-ring circus wrap up a cross-Canada tour — the first Vancouver show since the band ascended from opening act to mega-stardom.

The ringmaster is Axl Rose, he of the unpredictable temper and cat-whose-tail-is-caught-in-a-blender vocal screech. Axl may just be the baddest bad boy in rock history — the threat of a riot looms in the air most every time he opens his yap, or decides he’s not into the gig and stomps off stage. (Hence, there were twice as many cops and 50 percent more general security than usual at Tuesday night’s show.)

Jumping up and down on stage in his bandana and shorts, Axl looked more like a high school kid than the devil incarnate. But this is a school kid with a Charles Man-son T-shirt, with shorts so tight you would have to pry them off with the jaws of life.

Axl fronts a troupe that is more like a gang than a band. A gang that revels in unseemly tattoos and looks like they sleep in Smithrites, and concocts one of the loudest, trashiest rackets you’ll ever hear. With record sales of 23 million, they’re one of the most successful acts in history. But one of the endearing aspects of the Gunners is that they play more like inspired amateurs rather than "professionals” who click into concert mode, pop on the backing tapes and reel off the hits. They’re a real band, one that goes out on the edge and walks a tightrope between being really loose and rockin’ and being all (bleeped) up and falling apart. When they suck they really suck, and when they’re great they’re really great.

The band mines the same vein of Ston-esy hard rock as a million other groups, but they just push it a little farther, play with more conviction, with genuine fire. When Guns N’ Roses lock into a fast tune, they’re just plain lethal, a hard rockin’ monster truck spinning out of control as it careers down a mountainside.

The heart of the sound is Slash, the hairy guitarist with the burning fingers. Slash plays Keith to Axl’s Mick, leading Duff n' Matt n’ new guy Gilby through a non-stop onslaught of rhythms that drive the masses wild. At times, it seems like Guns N' Roses is the house band to the lease-breaking party of the century: people just go mental. Welcome to the Jungle, indeed.

Review band’s hateful lyrics

I WAS MORE than a little disgusted with John Mackie’s review of the recent Guns N’ Roses concert (The baddest bad boy of rock offers up a spectacle, March 31).

While he did an adequate job of describing Axl Rose’s shorts and the band’s performance, he did not touch upon the pervasive theme of much of the band’s music — misogyny.

As a Grade 7 teacher, I have spent a lot of time discussing issues like violence against women, sexism, violence in the media, racism and homophobia. The lyrics of songs such as Guns N’ Roses’ “Back off Bitch” depict women as objects worthy of only degradation and abuse.

What effect does the constant barrage of these lyrics have on my class? Earlier this year, 12-year-old girls were being called “bitches” and “whores” on the playground. After the concert, a student arrived at school wearing a Guns N' Roses medallion — a naked female torso.

I am not a prude, but I do find the violent and abusive imagery of Guns N’ Roses’ lyrics repellent They are reaching an audience of pre-teen and teenage kids with their messages of hate, intolerance and sexism.

Don’t give us half the review. There are parents out there who need to know the whole story.

ROBIN MASTERS
Delta

Hired gun expenses no bouquet of roses for rock promoter

JOHN MACKIE
Vancouver Sun

WHEN GUNS N’ ROSES played Saskatoon last week, there were no police in attendance. When they played Winnipeg, there were 20 police. In Edmonton, 28.

But when Guns N’ Roses rolled into B.C. Place Stadium March 30, there were 97 police on hand — at a cost to the promoter of $65,000. And Mark Norman of Perryscope Concerts is livid.

It's just insane,” he says. "These guys (the police) are killing events in this city.”

But Vancouver police Det. Bob Cooper says the police provide a level of security “commensurate” with the type of event.

“We cannot decide a policing level solely on the cost to the promoter,” says Cooper. “Our chief concern is the safety of people at the event, the safety of officers who cover the event, and the safety of the general public at large after the event.” Guns N’ Roses is one of rocks most controversial bands. Fans rioted in Montreal and St. Louis after the band left the stage in mid-performance. Norman says he expected to pay for some extra police at BC Place, but argues it was “absolutely ludicrous” to have so many.

Norman also promoted the shows in Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. He says that about 45,000 fans attended the three Prairie shows, “and the total cops were 48.I did one show (at BC Place), total attendance 21,000, and they demand 97 police.”

This isn’t the first time heavy police costs at major events have been criticized. Police costs (of $94,000) were cited when Bryan Adams cancelled a proposed free concert in Stanley Park last August, and were also partly blamed when the First Night New Year’s celebration was cancelled last year.

Norman says the ticket price in Vancouver was three dollars higher than his other Guns N’ Roses dates “mostly to cover police costs.” But he said Vancouver police “won’t negotiate” when it comes to policing events: “They just come up with some harebrained figure.”

Cooper says that Norman attended a meeting before the show with the police and BC Place officials, and “was aware of the costs going in.”

Ironically, the Guns N’ Roses crowd wasn’t nearly as unruly as most big hard rock/heavy metal crowds."This was not a drunk, wild crowd,” says Norman.

But Cooper says “if we had gone with less than adequate security going in, we would be getting criticized by others. We can’t compromise on safety.”