1993.04.04 - Lawler Events Center, Reno, USA

Ticket scalping bill won't provide remedy

Nobody really likes the idea of having to deal with a ticket scalper. When you're faced with paying many times the face amount of a ticket, you can get mighty upset.

Still, should the practice be regulated? Maybe. But not the way Assembly Bill 141 is written.

The legislation, which recently cleared the Judiciary Committee, is flawed because it would not stop ticket scalping.

Under provisions of the bill, anyone scalping tickets would have to stand at least 100 feet from the building where the event is held.

This might slow down sales temporarily. But those who truly want a ticket wouldn't have any problem getting one.

If the objective is to provide a fairer system of ticket distribution, why not encourage those who sell the
tickets to a popular event to limit the number of purchases? In fact, that's what most event sponsors do now. And for an event that's expected to be very heavily attended, such as the upcoming Guns N' Roses concert, promoters can announce well in advance when ticket sales will begin. If fans want to camp out for a few days in freezing rain to get a shot at the best seats, as they did last week, more power to them.

Someone who later wants a ticket and didn't make that sacrifice has only himself to blame. It takes some advance planning, but most people who really want a fair chance at a ticket have the opportunity.

The bottom line: Government should only try to legally protect people from matters of critical importance. That doesn't include sporting events and concerts.

CORRECTION

About 3,000 seats are left for the April 4 Guns N’ Roses concert. Due to a reporter’s error, the concert was listed as sold out in Best Bets.

Guns N’ Roses

One of the top hard-rock bands, Guns N' Roses, rocks into Lawlor Events Center for an April 4 concert. The Bill Graham concert is part of a national tour that focuses on the band’s most recent albums, “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II.”

The 1991 album has sold a combined 7 million copies and included such singles as “Live and Let Die,” “Garden of Eden,” “November Rain” and "Don’t Cry.”

W. Axl Rose heads the band. The Brian May Band, led by the former Queen guitarist, will open the Reno show at 8:30 p.m. The Brian May Band, including drummer Cozy Powell and Neil Murray on bass, just completed a successful tour of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

Tickets are available at Sierra Select-A-Seat outlets: Lawlor Ticket Office: Western Boot World in Sparks; Scolari’s on Holman Road in Sparks, Lakeside Court in Reno and on Highway 50 in Carson City; and JJ’s Ear Candy in Carson. Call 784-4444. Tickets also are available at Bass Outlets. (800) 225-2277.

Guns N’ Roses classic band on the rise

By Michael Sion
GAZETTE-JOURNAL

W. Axl Rose is the most exciting live performer in rock 'n' roll today. Hands down.

Make that hands up.

Tattooed arms waving. Body twirling in trademark Axl style. Dancing with his microphone stand. Prancing around the stage in black shorts and T-shirt bearing the glaring face of Charles Manson...

And even leaping off the grand piano where he'd plunked the pretty notes of “November Rain," onto the sofa set near stagefront and bounding in red bandanna to the front-most monitor, where he cocks his black motorcycle boot and grins at the jam-packed concert floor... before shutting eyes tight and bleating a shrill, vibratto-extended, back-in-the-throat-and-up-into-the-cranium Axl bleat-wail.

The 31-year-old frontman of Guns N' Roses kept the spotlight 75 percent of the time during the sextet's brilliant two-hour barrage of hard-rock, soft ballads and acoustic material Sunday night before 9.400 fist-shaking fans at Lawlor Events Center.

But lead guitarist Slash proved a rock treasure, too, face half-masked by kinky cascade of African curls, switching between six- and 12-string electric guitars, acoustic guitars and a banjo, cigarette clenched in teeth, shirtless, lost in solos at stage edge.

The Gunners hit the stage late at 11:30 p.m., blazed through “Night Train," the manic salute to nihilism off the 1987 debut album “Appetite for Destruction." GNR played a slew of older material during the 17-song set, mixing in the most popular songs off its '91 “Use Your Illusion" I and II CDs.

The tour is dubbed “Guns and Bones" because of the minimal set. A beautiful touch came 10 songs in when the band moved chairs, sofa, piano and acoustic drum set up front. A spate of acoustic-oriented numbers followed, beginning with the misogynistic, Appalachian-tinged “You Ain't the First." GNR also played three acoustic songs from the '88 EP “GN'R Lies" (skipping the racist “One in a Million"), and a definitive “Knockin' on Heaven's Door" with dramatic rhythm shifts, turning the dirge into a celebration, stealing the song from Bob Dylan.

Other highlights included the full-tilt attack of “You Could Be Mine" and songs that drew audience response. The crowd spat back “chugga-nugga-nugga knees!" during “Welcome to the Jungle," responded “don't play rock 'n' roll!" to Axl's “Nice boys!" during the song of that name and shouted the chorus to “Knockin' on Heaven's Door."

If anyone yet believes the Gunners are a ticking bomb to be kept on the road as long as possible before the inevitable kablooic! — purge your cynicism. This is a band evolving musically the way the Rolling Stones did in the late-'60s. A bunch of nice guys in love with music and playing live.

It may be politically incorrect to praise GNR given its nasty songs about women. (The words are too mean to reprint.) But then, Axl & Co. also deliver tender ballads — “Patience," “November Rain," “Sweet Child O' Mine," the last sweetly capping Sunday's show.

Besides, there's something about raucous hard-rock that brings out the bimbo in many young women — a phenomenon related to the way fast-paced Vegas causes necklines to plunge and morals to become negotiable.

During intermission, a videocam flashed live shots of the crowd on the big screens, seeking out young beauties. One flashed her breasts.

The downside to GNR’s vulgarianism is that certain character-types lose control.

In Sacramento the night before, someone tossed a urine-filled bottle at the stage, smacking bassist Duff McKagan, who required medical aid.

Sunday night, Axl paused after “You Ain't the First" to advise the crowd to “beat the f-— out" of anyone hurling anything. “No one's going to see ya," he promised.

Everyone listened. No incidents. Mick couldn't have done better.

■■■

Opening act Brian May, axman of the late, great Queen, was backed by a rock quartet plus two kittenish blond singers. They played hard-driving, un-Queenlike numbers but also worked in an indulgent 10-minute solo plus Queen's “Tie Your Mother Down," a snatch of “Bohemian Rhapsody" and (to end the hourlong set) “We Will Rock You." In his foppish, shaggy hair and tight jeans, May, trim at 45, enjoyed the applause immensely.