1993.04.07 - Delta Center, Salt Lake City, USA

Guns N' Roses then and now

World's longest tour returns to S.L.

By Lori Buttars
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

There was a time when it seemed that Guns N' Roses, considered one of the rock industry's premier bands, wouldn't survive another day, let alone the two years since it last played Salt Lake City.

The performance came just a few short weeks after a riot broke out at a St Louis arena, and anxiety in Utah was high.

The riot in Missouri, however, is only one in a string of notable incidents that have occurred in the eight years since Guns N' Roses’ break from the California club scene. Frontman W. Axl Rose and his band of angry rockers have generated as many headlines for controversial antics as creative efforts.

The band debuted on the rock scene in 1987 with the album "Appetite for Destruction" and has been going great guns ever since — playing to sold-out halls and earning a host of Grammy, MTV and other industry accolades for their fiery brand of entertainment.

Rose was hailed for his police-siren vocals and streetwise appeal, yet his public temper tantrums brought him equal notoriety. Guitarist Slash, though known for his virtuosic playing, is also celebrated for his Cousin It hairdo. Indeed, all the band members' self-destructive lifestyles seemed to serve as a complement to their belligerent approach to rock 'n' roll.

Things came to a full boil with the Missouri brawl, which injured 40 fans and 20 police officers and caused thousands of dollars in damage to the venue and the band's equipment.

To avoid a repeat of the incident in Salt Lake City, some 200 worried security guards tenaciously patrolled the aisles while a seemingly bored Axl Rose sang. In short, the Salt Lake concert before a sell out Salt Palace crowd, really didn't live up to the hype.

But what have Axl, Slash. Duff, Dizzy, Matt and newcomer Gilby been up to lately? Though headlines featuring the colorful band members are becoming increasingly few and far between, it doesn't mean the band has not been busy. Before the rock 'n' roll supergroup returns to Salt Lake City for a performance Wednesday night at the Delta Center, here's a chance to brush up on your Guns N‘ Roses lore.
● Guns N' Roses is on what has been called the longest road trip in rock 'n' roll history. The group played
MTV's "Rock in Rio" concert Jan. 16, 1991 (the day the Persian Gulf War broke out), and has been touring ever since.

• After fleeing for more than a year from charges of assault and damage to property stemming from the Missouri riot, Rose turned himself in to federal agents at New York's Kennedy Airport in July 1992.

• After viewing tapes of the concert, a St. Louis judge found Rose guilty of starting the riot. The singer was put on two years’ probation and ordered to pay $50,000 to five St. Louis-area charities.

• Rose had to get a special dispensation allowing him to associate with known felons, because bandmates Slash and Duff also have felony convictions.

• In October 1992, Mr. Rose sat down with Rolling Stone writer Kim Neely and revealed that, through therapy, he realized his volatile nature was most likely due to the fact his father abused him as a child.

• In August 1991, "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II," the band's simultaneously released albums, became the first such set to debut at No. 1 in the Billboard ranking.

• Founding guitarist Izzy Stradlin, who wrote many of the songs on the albums, left Guns N' Roses in November 1991, after months traveling in a separate tour bus from the rest of the band. A childhood friend of Axl Rose, he went into head-to-head competition with Guns N' Roses by forming his own band, Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds.

• Gilby Clarke, a rhythm guitarist from the L.A. band Kill for Thrills, was named as Stradlin's replacement.

• Once regarded as homophobic for its lyrics, Guns N' Roses made a highly debated appearance last year at the "Freddie Mercury Tribute: Concert for AIDS Awareness” to dispel the reputation.

• In the United Kingdom, royalties from the group's cover of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" were pledged to AIDS organizations.

• The group astonished the music industry by teaming with Metallica — perhaps its chief commercial rival in the hard-rock genre — for a sucessful stadium tour in the summer of 1992.

• After the "Megatour,” Guns N' Roses scaled back its current stage show to showcase the individual members' skills, with lots of solos from the fleet-fingered guitarist Slash and Axl holding forth from the grand piano.

• Slash took time out from touring to play with Michael Jack-son on the song "Give In to Me.” He also appeared on the video, which was featured prominently on Jackson's much-ballyhooed television interview with Oprah Winfrey.

• Slash also recently purchased a Beverly Hills home from actress-singer Nell Carter.

• Bassist Duff McKagan and his model/wife, Linda, were most recently featured on the cover of an upscale men's magazine.

• Rumors abounded that the wedding scene in the band's "November Rain" video, featuring Rose and model/former companion Stephanie Seymour, was footage of the couple's real ceremony.

• Rose quelled those rumors last month by publicly announcing that the relationship is over and that "I think I've found somebody I can be happy with." The latest rumors say the new woman hails from a small Southern town and (surprise) is not a model.

• After finishing up the Skin N’ Bones tour later this month, both the Guns N' Roses and Ice-T camps have hinted at a doubling up for a rock 'n' rap bill.

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IF YOU GO

What: Guns N' Roses and Blind Melon
When: Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Delta Center, 301 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City
Tickets: $22 in advance at all Smith's Tix outlets and $24 at the Delta Center box of-fice on the day of show.

GUNS ON TARGET THIS TIME AROUND

By Lori Buttars
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

You gotta tip your hat, or in this case your red-bandanna headband, to Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose.

If Wednesday's concert at Salt Lake City's Delta Center is any indication, the 30-year-old singer has pulled the group together to live up to its reputation as one of the finest, most exciting bands in rock 'n' roll.

His kamikaze headband and his black tank top depicting Charles Manson served as a reminder of the temperamental Axl, who left the Salt Palace stage in a pout two years ago. Therefore, it was nothing less than a shock to hear him say he was sorry for the way he acted.

True story.

His official apology came shortly after 12:30 a.m., just as the band was returning to encore with "Paradise City." But the group members had been making up for it all evening long in a 2-1/2 hour professional display of musical showmanship.

They did keep fans waiting for an hour between the time opening act Blind Melon left the stage and when Axl, Slash, Duff, Dizzy and Gilby burst onstage playing "It's So Easy." But by the time they got to their 1987 breakthrough hit, "Welcome to the Jungle," the Delta Center arena became a sea of rocking bodies and all was forgiven. The crowd didn't even mind when Axl gave them the finger, done more out of defiance of authority than as an act of hostility.

The 15,000-plus fans were rewarded with a memorable show that found the Guns playing far better than they did two years ago, anyway.

The group charged through powerhouse jams of "Double Talkin' Jive" and Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" like a well-oiled machine, with Axl's screaming vocals leading the way. A wall of lights at the back of the stage helped the group capture a supersonic effect.

Stage crews then brought out a couch and coffee table, signifying that a change of pace was in store.

Axl, who had been running about the stage like a charged atom, parked himself on the couch while his bandmates pulled up chairs beside him to participate in a semi-acoustic set. Slash, the traditionally somber guitarist, even joined in the fun, parting his hair and smiling at the crowd between his passionate solos.

Things heated up again for "Sweet Child O' Mine," and the group and audience partied as friends.

Because of the band's wild reputation, tight security follows Guns N' Roses wherever they go. But Axl and the boys behaved. The only outrageous incident at Wednesday’s concert occurred before the show when officials escorted out a young fan who, playing up to the cameramen scanning the crowd, removed her bra and performed a little striptease.

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Caption: Axl Rose improved his band's image in Wednesday's show.

CROWD CONTROL SERVES BANDS AND UTAH FANS

By Lori Buttars
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

"Stay in front of your assigned seat. Do not stand on chairs. No alcohol, controlled substances or weapons will be allowed inside the building," says a voice over the loudspeaker outside Salt Lake City’s Delta Center before every show. The voice is cheery, yet the message is clear: There is little tolerance for those who don't want to obey the rules. The term "crowd control" has become as important as "security" at Utah concert venues since the 1991 deaths of three fans who were smothered in a pack of concert-goers at a Salt Palace performance by AC/DC. Since that time, officials have banned indoor festival seating, left on a few more lights and hired more security guards to avoid trouble.

"When people pay the price they do to come to an event, we treat it as though they pay for a specific spot in which they are our guests while they enjoy the show," says Delta Center general manager Scott Williams. "That does not give them the right to infringe on another person's experience or to deface the building."

Other major Utah concert venues hold similar policies, but the people who provide "crowd control" are governed by fairly loose regulations.

The Utah Department of Public Safety, the same agency that oversees all police services in the state, issues licenses to security firms in the state. "The only real guideline they (Department of Publlc Safety) give us is the catch phrase 'reasonable force," says Dennis Rowley, whose Independent Security Corporation is employed by the Utah State Fairpark and Club Starzz. "Usually it's the actions of the individual we are dealing with that dictates how much force we use."

Should a confrontational situation arise, Delta Center and Utah State Fairpark officials ask security workers to first use a “hands-off" approach by asking for the patron's cooperation. However, they do conduct pat-down searches of fans coming into the venues.

The decision to search, employ metal detectors and take other precautions is based on past experience, the reputation of the artists and the type of crowd they draw. Mr. Williams says he relies on his network of venue managers. Before a band comes to Salt Lake City, he asks colleagues in cities where that band has played to give him tips on things they wished they had done differently. In the case of Guns N’ Roses, Mr. Williams and four of his staff members traveled to Sacramento, Calif., to watch for themselves how the band conducted business.

Axl Rose: A role model for the 90’s

Chris Cannon
Chronicle Columnist

Wednesday nights Guns n’ Roses concert was the first of its kind for me. From rumors I knew that wardrobe was a key factor to not getting beat up, so selection of effin’ concert attire was itself an event. Being a non-rocker by birth, I had no black tee shirts. I called two friends who both said they could swing something, for a price. But even for an occasion like this, the tickets were pricey enough. Dark-green corduroys and a Banana Republic tee suited me fine.

I thought I saw Axl walk into Denny's while we were eating before the concert, but it wasn’t him. My friends started making fun of me. ‘‘Like effin’ Axl Rose would ever effin’ eat at effin’ Denny’s, dork.” That was when it occurred to me that Utah’s youth, my friends not excluded, really needed a good role model to wash their mouths out with soap.

When we arrived at the Delta Center, this became all the more obvious. Thousands of rockers roamed the halls, including herds of chicks dressed scantily enough to be called ‘chicks’ without sounding offensive. Actually the skimpy outfits did serve one purpose—confirmation of gender.

As we waited in front to be searched for illegal substances, divided into male and female lines, two officers approached a slender brunette in front of me and said, “Miss, you need to be in the other line.” The brunette looked shocked. “Dude, I’m a guy!”

After the Blind Melons there was a healthy intermission for all the hallway roamers to buy Gn’R products, like tee shirts for $25. I heard one guy say, “Twenty-five bucks? That’s a bargain! That’s a bargain at twice the price!”

The intermission wore on and people began filtering into the main arena. With nothing to do but wait, all eyes turned to the four large-screen TV monitors posted above the stage. The cameras picked out the least-dressed women and zoomed in, and instantly they appeared on-screen. The men whistled and yelled and nudged each other and the women on-screen sensed attention and writhed sensually before the camera. This went back and forth like ‘truth or dare’, and it wasn’t long before things escalated to a who-can-bare-the-best-pair competition.

After that, even I needed a good role model, and what better names to choose from than Axl, Slash, and Duff? Really, they’re misunderstood. Wherever they go people start riots and one of these guys gets blamed. Axl, after that St. Louis incident last year, had to get special permission to hang with the other two because they're all convicted felons.

So even though they’re fairly decent people, I wasn’t surprised when Rose took the stage in a black tee shirt with Charles Manson’s face engraved on it. And I wasn’t surprised when he introduced one song with
the words, “This is a pretty, beautiful, sweet song that I want to dedicate to Stephanie. It’s called ‘Double-talking Jive Mother Effer’!”

But that was when the concert changed pace. I always knew Axl was an okay guy, but it never occurred to me that he really cared. Most of these big artists just want to storm through town and take people’s money away, or make them squish each other. But not Gn’R, no way! Axl left a message for our youth. He knew the kids didn’t come there to get preached to, so he put his message—get this—into the songs!

First, he sang about avoiding violence. “Momma, put my guns in the ground,” he sang with spirit to the crowd. “I don’t need them anymore.” By the fans’ reaction he was really connecting. He sang on and said if they were good they could be “knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door!” The response was effin’ overwhelming.

The crowd reacted well all night, and really seemed to sense the spirit of Gn’R’s message. But the climax came when Axl began discussing the afterlife.

“Take me down to the paradise city, where the grass is green...” he sang rhythmically to the crowd, and all 10,000 fans thrust their fists into the air in praise.

When the dust cleared, and the 10th final drumbeat stopped echoing throughout the arena, our Role Model stepped forward and addressed his captive audience.

“Salt Lake City, it’s been effin’ real!”