1993.05.30 - National Bowl, Milton Keynes, England

by **Soulmonster** Thu Oct 18, 2012 8:36 am

Date:
May 30, 1993.

Venue:
National Bowl.

Location:
Milton Keynes, England.

Setlist:
01. It's So Easy
02. Mr. Brownstone
03. Welcome to the Jungle
04. Live and Let Die
05. Attitude
06. Nightrain
07. Double Talkin' Jive
08. You Ain't the First
09. You're Crazy
10. Used to Love Her
11. Patience
12. Dead Flowers [with Gilby on vocals]
13. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
14. November Rain
15. Dead Horse
16. You Could Be Mine
17. Sweet Child O'Mine
18. Honky Tonk Women
19. Paradise City

Line-up:
Axl Rose (vocals), Izzy Stradlin (rhythm guitarist), Slash (lead guitarist), Duff McKagan (bass), Dizzy Reed (keyboards) and Matt Sorum (drums).

Quotes:

Part of the reason [for doing these five shows] was that I had time off in Indiana, I wasn't really doing anything important, just working on bikes, motorcycles, and, yeah, "maybe it's fun". They played Turkey, they played Greece, they played Israel, so maybe it's cool to go see those places since I've never been there. And I knew all the music so it wasn't like I had to study or practise much, just take a guitar and go over. But the main reason was that for a year and a half since I left them they had never paid me all the money that I was owed, because there was a dispute about what was. So I told them, "look, tell your people to call my people and write up some paperwork and pay me my fucking money, and I'll gladly come over and help you guys out". Because they were kinda in a position where they didn't do these shows they would have lost, like, a lot of money[Interview with Izzy in Japan, September 22, 1993]

I came to Izzy's last gig in Milton Keynes in England and I sat by the side of the stage. I thought "but what's happening here. This is my part!". Even though it was Izzy's from the beginning. He used all my old equipment too, so it felt very weird. Then I went on-stage and sang a song with the band. I didn't notice I sang it on my own! We never rehearse and Axl came to me and said, "we do a cover of Rolling Stones. Izzy knows everything with Stones" and so we played "Dead Flowers". Axl said, "hit it!" and I thought we were gonna sing together. There I was in front of 50,000 people and sang [laughs][Heavy Mental, June 1994]

1993.05.30 - National Bowl, Milton Keynes, England Rightarrow

Next concert: 1993.06.02.
1993.05.30 - National Bowl, Milton Keynes, England Leftarrow

Previous concert: 1993.05.29.

by **Soulmonster** Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:24 am

Review in The Guardian on May 31:

Caroline Sullvan wrote:Guns N' Roses, high on attitude, bring their macho moves to Milton Keynes
ASKED her favourite member of Guns N' Roses, nine-year-old Joanna Holland from Northampton didn't hesitate. "Axl, because my mum says he sticks a cucumber down his shorts". Then a song started with a terrible crash, and she screamed its first words — "Hey, fuckerrrr!" — and twisted her face into a Barbie Doll version of the Axl sneer.
Her hard-living, hard-loving, liver-destroying hero was an ant-figure on the distant stage at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes, his cucumber region covered by a baggy red T-shirt. Magnified to the size of an airship on three video screens, he cut a splendid dash: the rain-soaked wind whipped his hair out behind him and the stage lights (900 of 'em, according to the tour press release) sharpened the angles of his generic Midwestern features. As he sang a loud pub-rock song, he epitomised the simultaneous grandeur and idiocy of heavy metal.
What is surprising about Guns N' Roses is how spectacular they really are. From their separate helicopter arrivals to their stage, so large that it takes three days to construct, they embody a rock lifestyle that barely exists now outside This Is Spinal Tap. Even their names are purpose-built: W. Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin (briefly back in place of the ailing Gilby Clarke), Duff McKagan, Dizzy Reed and Matt Sorum. Axl summarised the whole thing in a song introduction: "This is called 'Attitood'".
The music is almost the least of it. The songs are 12-bar blues, mostly, screeched by Axl in one of the least mellifluous voices in hard rock. The most interesting were a jolly boogie-woogie bounce-along called 'I Used To Love Her' and a sombre go at John Lennon's 'Imagine'. During 'Knocking On Heaven's Door', the audience sang the chorus, pronouncing the last word, Axl-fashlon, "Doe-woe-woe". The 60,000 or so fans in a sell-out crowd were divided into males and vixens, the latter of the big-haired, small mini-skirted, variety. Tattoos were obligatory for both sexes.
The truly impressive thing was, as Rose said, the attitood, without which GN'R would be six nondescript hairies with some lumpenly macho tunes and cucumbers in their shorts.

1993.05.30 - National Bowl, Milton Keynes, England

1993.05.30 - National Bowl, Milton Keynes, England

Re: 1993.05.30 - National Bowl, Milton Keynes, England