2006.12.15 - Oracle Arena, Oakland, USA

Guns for Guns N' Roses

Band donates concert tickets to firearms exchange

By Bernadette Harris / Daily News Staff Writer

People willing to surrender their firearms will be granted amnesty on Saturday, as well as tickets to a Guns N' Roses concert later this month.

Guns N' Roses has donated 400 tickets to Oakland for a firearm exchange program taking place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Oracle Arena parking lot. Each gun is good for two concert tickets, which are estimated at a $100 value.

"We hope this is a beginning," said Joe DeVries, a violence prevention program manager for Oakland. He anticipates that other artists, such as Jamie Foxx or Chris Brown, who appeal to a younger audience, may come through Oakland and follow Guns N' Roses' lead.

Similar programs have been successful in cities nationwide. More than 400 firearms were handed over to police in Boston during an exchange this summer.

Oakland was in the early stages of planning a firearm exchange to follow 1999's successful program when concert promoter Live Nation contacted them.

"It turned out that the city was already discussing the possibility of setting up a program such as this," said Aaron Siuda, director of promotions and publicity for Live Nation. "Given the timing of the concert and the timing of the gun exchange program, there was a natural fit between the two entities."

In addition to concert tickets, computers and gift cards will also be handed out. Local vendors such as Sears, Quikstop and the Koreana Market have donated gifts for the program.

"Every gun removed from the street is potentially a life saved," said DeVries. "That kind of tragedy only happens with a gun in the house."

Participants must bring unloaded firearms to the site in a duffel bag that does not reveal the bag's contents. For people traveling by car, the gun must be transported in the trunk. Ammunition will also be accepted, and must be in a separate bag.

The exchange will continue next weekend on Dec. 9 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at deFremery Park, 1651 Adeline St. in Oakland.

Exchange weapons for much cooler items Saturday at McAfee

OAKLAND — In an effort to raise awareness and make Oakland safer, the city sponsors the first of two gun exchanges Saturday.

Those turning in firearms will have a choice of a variety of gifts, including tickets to the Dec. 15 Guns N' Roses concert, turbo ovens and gift certificates for different stores.

Saturday's exchange will be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at parking lot K at the Hegenberger Road side of the McAfee Coliseum-Oracle Arena complex.

The second will be at the same times Dec. 9 at deFremery Park, 1651 Adeline St. City spokesman Joe DeVries said there are enough gifts to receive 250 guns, but the overall goal is 300 for the two days and he believes enough gifts will be available to meet that number.

DeVries said raising awareness and "making our streets safer" are the primary reasons for the exchange program.

He said too many guns stolen from homes are used in violent crimes, and too many accidental shootings are by children who find a gun in their residences.

"Even if you don't mean to hurt someone, it can still happen," he said.

DeVries knows many people keep guns for protection, but he said a national study shows residents are 26 times more likely to be shot with their own weapons trying to defend themselves.

Those turning in guns should follow some procedures, he said.

The gun should be unloaded, and contained in a duffel bag or backpack that is put in the trunk of the vehicle driven to the exchange.

Once at the exchange site, the gun should not be removed from the trunk. Rather, people bringing in guns should wait for a city worker to greet them. A police officer will remove the weapon from the trunk and check it in.

Truly lame idea for gun exchange

By Chip Johnson

Oakland's latest pitch for violence prevention, a gun-exchange program in two of the city's toughest neighborhoods, would work well as a comedy skit.

This Saturday in Sobrante Park and next week in DeFremery Park, city officials will reward anyone who turns in a gun with two tickets to the Dec. 15 concert by hard-rock band Guns N' Roses at Oracle Arena.
Offering Guns N' Roses tickets in the northwest Oakland neighborhood known as "Ghostown" and Sobrante Park on the east side of town is like giving cats free tickets to the dog show.

What's next, a free pass to Michael Richards stand-up act? There is surely a disconnect between the city's promotional plan and the marketplace.

"Guns N' Roses -- the band?" asked Mike Magardo, a 34-year-old Oakland resident. "I think that's a little off the mark. In general, the folks who would show up for a gun exchange in those neighborhoods either don't know or care who Guns N' Roses are."

When I asked the question of more than half a dozen people on the street, both white and black, their responses were pretty much the same.

"Why would any youngsters want to go see Guns N' Roses," Andrew Smith, 32, asked.

Mark Lipsett, a 45-year-old banker, said, "That seems crazy to me. How about Raiders tickets, Warriors tickets, a pizza coupon, just about anything," he said.

Etah Allah, 31, who grew up in West Oakland, summed it up nicely.

"I wouldn't give them a sling shot," he said. "In fact, given some of the things that (Axl) Rose has said about black folks, I think I should get a gun for just going to the concert," he said, bringing a laugh from his friends.

Joe DeVries, who runs Oakland's violence-prevention program with tax funds from voter-approved Measure Y, says the Guns N' Roses promotion is admittedly not a great match. But he hopes it's the start of a program that will expand to include acts that speak to younger black audiences.

"I recognize that Guns N' Roses isn't a band that a lot of Oakland kids listen to, but there are so many stolen guns used in crimes in this city we'll take any guns we can get," he said.

The latest gun exchange project was inspired by DeVries' experience with a half-dozen AmeriCorps workers employed in his office. Oakland's most successful attempt at a gun exchange was in October 1996, when officials offered computers for firearms. Authorities received more than 200 guns that day.
After a couple of recent killings in the city, DeVries asked his workers, most of them between the ages of 19 and 22, if they could get a gun if they thought they needed one.

"They laughed and then rattled off the names of nearly a half-dozen people who had them," he said.
A few months later, when a group of workers were confronted at a store at 32nd and Market streets by a man who flashed a weapon, the workers drove off and returned 20 minutes later. Two of them were now armed, DeVries said.

It was a prime example of how quickly a perceived slight on the street can escalate to violence, he said.
DeVries said he is focusing on corporate sponsorship to fund more gun exchanges, and he welcomed the gracious offer from the band, which is donating tickets valued at $25,000 -- a truly generous offer.
The only problem with Saturday's promotion is that if scores of African Americans were to take the bank up on its offer, the result could incite violence rather than abate it if the band plays some of its greatest hits.

In "One in a Million," released during the band's heyday in 1988, Rose sings: "Police and n -- , that's right, get out of my way. Don't need to buy none of your Goldchains today."

I don't want to stereotype too much, but verses like those aren't going to go over very well with a young Oakland crowd.

Linking good causes like gun exchanges with popular promotions has merit, but the message and the audience must be somewhere close to on the same wavelength.

Kudos to the rock 'n' roll band, but DeVries and the city would have been wiser to aim their push at the upcoming Jamie Foxx New Year's Eve Celebration at the Oracle Arena, formerly known as the Oakland Arena.

Foxx is one of the hottest, perhaps the hottest, young black male actors and musicians in entertainment today. His comedy and music resonate with young black men and his voice carries a weight and authority that comes from shared experiences.

That's a promotion that could gain traction in neighborhoods where gun violence threatens everyone's safety, and provide an on-point message to an audience that is ready and willing to listen.
And DeVries is right about one thing: The mere suggestion of gun-exchange programs has already led to a few brainstorming ideas.

"How about a job offer that paid real money to live on, so I don't need a gun?" said Allah, a tow-truck driver.

Guns for Guns N' Roses

By Michael Mechanic

Remember Measure Y? That was Oakland's touchy-feely 2004 violence-prevention initiative -- and how well it's working! -- wherein voters agreed to fund 63 more cops and provide a heap of additional tax money to an array of unspecified nonprofits to help suppress inner-city violence and steer young people away from crime. Well, in a scheme first publicly ridiculed by Chip Johnson in today's Chronicle, Joe DeVries, who heads the city's Measure Y-funded prevention efforts, intends to try and swap Guns N' Roses tickets for firearms in some of the city's highest-crime neighborhoods. The ridicule deserves to be taken a lot further...

How is this idea idiotic? Let us count the ways.

Gun exchanges are all about providing the right incentive: You give the people something they want more than what they've got. Given the choice of incentives, you have to wonder how much time DeVries, who is tight with County Supervisor Nate Miley, has spent around Sobrante Park, a neighborhood in the East Oakland flats near 105th Avenue and East 12th Street. By day, the place doesn't appear half bad, but at night, as longtime resident Bobby Hall once told me, "get your gun." (Hall, whose son Jesse was killed in drive-by shooting during the 1990s, has his own personal collection.)

The gun problem, in short, is profound in neighborhoods like this, but the proposed exchange is a farce in the extreme. Sobrante Park is almost entirely black, and it's a good bet nobody's gonna show up for that exchange, except maybe to use it as a second bulky trash day. Why? Because the few black kids in Oakland that are into Guns N' Roses are probably not gun-carrying types, and even if they were, they'd need those weapons to keep their peers from kicking their ass. (Ever try cruising down 105th bumpin' "Welcome to the Jungle," Mr. DeVries? Didn't think so.) Now if this were an exchange for meth-making gear out in Concord, hey, you might get a decent response.
DeVries told Johnson: "I recognize that Guns N' Roses isn't a band that a lot of Oakland kids listen to, but there are so many stolen guns used in crimes in this city we'll take any guns we can get." Trouble is, DeVries is not gonna take any guns, because he's damn sure not gonna get any. DeVries explained that the band had graciously donated $25,000 worth of tickets. And that's admirable, so consider this alternative market strategy, which any half-intelligent grade school kid could have devised: eBay!

How could the people in charge of our tax dollars miss something so obvious? Earth to bureaucrats: Sell the damn GNR tickets at top dollar to people who actually want them, buy something substantial that a young ghetto tough might want (hint, hint), and then organize a gun trade. Of course, some gun-toters might think of the eBay strategy themselves, trade a gun for tickets, then sell 'em online or scalp 'em at Oracle Arena.

But in truth, all of this overlooks perhaps the biggest obstacle to the success of this ill-concieved swap: Gun exchanges don't appear to thwart the sort of violent crime that plagues these neighborhoods. Maybe cities have always provided the wrong incentives. Cash is problematic on its face, since if you offer a kid less than he paid for an illegal gun, he won't want to turn it in. If you offer more, he can afford to buy another street gun and pocket the difference. Oakland's most successful exchange to date, numerically speaking, was for computers, but c'mon, how many street thugs would trade their street cred for a cheap PC?

A 1998 study of a Sacramento exchange in which 141 guns were turned in demonstrates some of the problems with the exchange approach. Led by Jon Vernick, co-director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University, the researchers conducted a mail-in survey that was completed by 79 percent of the gun-exchange participants, a high response rate. Among their findings:

* 40 percent of respondents were older than 55; none was younger than 25.
* 62 percent of respondents were men.
* 28 percent of the guns were not handguns.
* 23 percent of respondents indicated the guns they turned in weren't working.

Translation: 1) The first finding alone suggests that gun-exchange programs aren't so valuable. Much of the killing in cities like Oakland is perpetrated by people under 25, and rarely is a killer in his middle age. 2) Since nearly all the killers are male, but less than two-thirds of those turning in guns are men, the second finding also suggests these exchanges aren't attracting the right people. 3) Handguns are used in the vast majority of gun crimes, yet more than a quarter of those turned in were not handguns. 4) Roughly a quarter of the forfeited guns weren't dangerous to begin with.

"There is no evidence that gun exchanges or buybacks have an impact on gun violence," Daniel Webster, who co-directs the Johns Hopkins gun policy program with Vernick, told us in an e-mail. "The types of guns turned in are different from the ones used in crime (they're older and more likely to be long guns or revolvers rather than semi-automatic pistols commonly used in crime) and it's unlikely that the ones turning them in are the ones committing a lot of the violence. They may, however, be good for community safety because access to firearms in the home increases the risk of suicide, domestic homicide, and unintentional shootings. If there is follow-up with other community programs to try to change social norms regarding guns and gun violence, gun exchanges might be worth doing."

That last bit is encouraging. However, it falls outside Mr. DeVries' mission. To quote from the Measure Y program's stated goals: "Interventions will reach out to those youth and young adults most at risk for committing and/or become victims of violence." It also states that the program's $6 million in funding "is allocated toward specific best practice strategies that intervene with target populations most at risk for being perpetrators or victims of violence." (That's their bold text, not ours.)

For heaven's sake, would someone send this DeVries fellow a copy of Freakonomics already?

LARS ULRICH JOINS GN'R ON STAGE

By Doug Miller / GunsNRoses.com

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Guns N’ Roses fans were given a rare treat during Friday night’s show at Oracle Arena when Metallica drummer and Bay Area resident Lars Ulrich joined the band on stage for a raucous performance of the classic rocker "Out Ta Get Me."

Ulrich was greeted with a standing ovation from the packed house and got right to work, bashing the drum kit in trademark Ulrich style.

When the song ended, a smiling Ulrich leapt off the elevated drum riser and hugged his old buddy W. Axl Rose in the middle of the stage before bowing to his frenzied local brethren.

It was a monster rock reunion of sorts for Ulrich and Rose, whose legendary bands toured together in 1992 when GN’R was enjoying the success of their Use Your Illusion albums.

Guns N' Roses great... if you stayed awake

By Jim Harrington
STAFF WRITER

IT'S NOT EASY being a Guns N' Roses fan.

That was made clear at Friday night's show at the Oracle Arena in Oakland. Actually, it wasn't Friday night that was bad — Saturday morning was the real killer.

After making fans wait for more than four hours, and sit through three opening acts, Guns N' Roses finally took the stage at 12:30 a.m. Some fans will have to take my word on that, given that many could be seen leaving the building well before the last opener, Sebastian Bach, finished his set.

You might say we were lucky the band took the stage at all in Oakland. Things didn't start off so hot in the GNR world on Friday, as vocalist Axl Rose announced earlier in the day that the group was canceling its shows next month, including a Jan. 10 date in Sacramento.

"Lucky" is an odd term to describe the situation fans found themselves in after GNR finally finished around 2:45 a.m. Indeed, many of these concert-goers, who could be seen yawning early in the set, were lucky just to get home safely.

That's business as usual in the wacky, mixed-up world of Axl Rose. Despite his overwhelming talent, both as a performer and songwriter, the 44-year-old rock star has managed to hold the heavily contested title of Most Messed Up Rock Star for more than a decade. Truly, he makes Courtney Love look like she's got her act together.

All of that would be fine, and we could just close the book on Mr. Rose if he didn't show occasional signs of brilliance.

Even leading a cast of replacement players — Rose is the only original member left in the group — the vocalist was still able to wow the crowd on multiple occasions during this late-night outing.

In fact, there were times when all of the hassle associated with the Oakland show — as well as the years of drama leading up to it — felt worth it. One such moment came as the band performed the traditional opener, "Welcome to the Jungle," the lead track from 1987's stellar "Appetite for Destruction."

Rose didn't hold anything back as he scratched and clawed through the number, and the rest of the band matched the front man's passion. In particular, the three-guitar attack — Robin Finck, Richard Fortus and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal — did a great job re-creating original GNR lead guitarist Slash's memorable riffs.
Attempting to satisfy fans' appetite for "Destruction" material, the group then performed solid, though unspectacular, versions of "It's So Easy" and "Mr. Brownstone."

From that point, the band — which features GNR vet/keyboardist Dizzy Reed, keyboardist Chris Pitman, drummer Frank Ferrer and bassist Tommy Stinson (of the Replacements fame) — mixed old favorites such as "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "November Rain" with new tunes that will likely be on the next album.
Of course, that's assuming there will be a next album.

One of the most infamously delayed works in rock history, "Chinese Democracy" was originally scheduled for a 1998 release date. Rose was aiming to release it by the end of 2006 but is now saying March. Want to wager on whether that will happen?

Judging by the strength of the Oakland show, "Chinese Democracy" should be a good album when — or if — it comes out. And that's what's so frustrating about this band.

In some ways, GNR sounds better than it did back in its commercial heyday. The new band is strong in concert. Rose has still got it. And, most amazingly, these fans still care — even at 2:30 a.m.

GNR should be competing for greatest hard rock band in the world. Instead, most of its energy seems directed toward winning most annoying act in the business.

And that's why being a Guns N' Roses fan is so hard.

Axl's Back: Guns N' Roses at the Oracle Arena

By Nate Seltenrich

Brawls, leather, and $35 T-shirts: What more could you expect from a Guns N' Roses show at the Oracle Arena? Certainly not that the resurrected group would rock as hard as it did. The band has done nothing but plant itself firmly on the butt of a giant joke through the interminably delayed release of Chinese Democracy. And Axl Rose, the only remaining original member, made headlines recently for the rude move of booting the talented Eagles of Death Metal from the current tour. Even diehard fans must've admitted expectations were modest going into the night.

Six hours and 45 minutes later, when the packed concert finally let out at 2:45 a.m., it was a different story. Axl and his new crew of seven musicians -- including one guy on bongos and three lead guitarists needed to take Slash's place -- worked the Roses catalogue from every angle. Skeptics at 8 p.m. were surely singing "Live and Let Die," "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," and "November Rain" as they emerged into the cold and dark Oakland night after GN'R's two-plus hours onstage. Any lingering tension from a series of fights on the floor during the break between Guns N' Roses and opener Sebastian Bach had long since evolved to joy.

Axl's voice may not be as strong as it was at the band's peak fifteen years ago, but he can still dance, and all his trademark moves came out to play. Wearing jeans and a black leather shirt, his red hair tied back in tight cornrows, he disguised his age well. Let's not mince words: Backed by a stable of able musicians, including bassist Tommy Stinson of the Replacements and drummer Lars Ulrich of Metallica, who made a one-song guest appearance, all Axl had to do was sell Guns N' Roses' many hits. And that he did. Three video screens, pyrotechnics (whose heat blasts could be felt a hundred feet away), and an impressive lights display added to the arena rock spectacle. Instrumental covers of Jimi Hendrix' "Angel" and the Rolling Stones' "Angie" rounded off the set with a touch of old-fashioned integrity.

The same points that illustrate GN'R's success highlight Sebastian Bach's shortcomings. The former lead singer of early-'90s hair-metal group Skid Row couldn't help but appear nostalgic for his former glory. Decked out in leather pants with a lace-up fly and a leather vest with a plunging neckline, and still rocking the long, blonde hair he wore in the early '90s, Bach looked far older than Axl Rose (though to his credit, he's managed to put out a new album this decade). Lead guitarist Metal Mike Chlasciak only made the aging rocker image worse with his long, thinning brown hair, monster goatee, faded snake tattoos, and fondness for Flying-V guitars.

But nothing could change the fact that Bach's material just wasn't that strong. While old-school Skid Row songs like "Monkey Business," "I Remember You," and "Youth Gone Wild" (which had Bach pointing to a tattoo of the same words on his forearm) stirred the crowd, nothing else left even a temporary impression. Bach's over-the-top vocal delivery, persistent mic-swirling, and one-foot-on-a-stage-monitor posturing doesn't carry the weight it once did. The set smacked of shtick and faded to irrelevance once it was over. Guns N' Roses, on the other hand, managed to remind us all of the timelessness of rock 'n' roll.