1993.06.16 - Fussballstadion St. Jakob, Basel, Switzerland

Craig Duswalt wrote:In June 1993, Blind Melon and The Quireboys opened for Guns N’ Roses at St. Jakob Stadium in Basel, Switzerland. Shannon decided to stick around after his set to watch Guns N’ Roses play that night. Halfway through the Guns N’ Roses set, Shannon walked to where I stood on the side of the stage, enjoying the show with a few other members of the entourage. He was wearing a Viking helmet and carrying a large pizza box. If you knew Shannon, this wasn’t out of character, so we thought nothing of it.

However, without warning or notice, Shannon put the pizza box on a road case and began to take off his clothing. All of his clothing.

He was now completely naked.

“Shannon?” I said, trying to question what he was about to do.

He just smiled at all of us, calmly grabbed the box of pizza, and headed out onto the stage in front of 80,000 screaming fans. It was awesome. We knew he would be arrested, but it was still awesome. In fact, it was so Shannon Hoon.

He walked directly over to Axl, who was is in the middle of a song during the acoustic part of the show, and shook Axl’s hand. The band continued to play, even though they were all laughing hysterically.

Without a beat, Shannon walked over to the congas and joined in on the song (without the Domino’s Pizza shirt).

He played the rest of the song completely naked.

When the song finished, the crowd went nuts. Axl just shook his head, probably thinking to himself that the press would have a field day with this one. Shannon got up, waved to the crowd, took a well-deserved bow, and calmly walked off the stage with both wrists placed in front of him, straight into the handcuffs of two awaiting police officers.

It was the easiest arrest I had ever witnessed. We all figured Shannon had done this before.

One of the police officers grabbed Shannon’s clothes, and they took him straight into their police car, to the local station, without incident. I assume he was booked on either poor playing of the congas, or indecent exposure, one of the two. I also assume he got out of jail either that night or the next day, but I never found out because we were on to the next city, and we had a lot of work to do.

We all knew that Shannon was going to be okay.

How wrong we were.

Two years later, Shannon was found dead on his tour bus from a heart attack due to a drug overdose, just three months after his baby girl was born. He was only twenty-eight. Very sad.