Here Today... Gone To Hell!

In Europe at least.

The 17th of September 1991 in the USA.



Did you buy them on their release date? Or maybe later? What format? Initial thoughts that you remember?

Feel free to share all related stories here. :)

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I remember going to a record store to get the vinyls after school. I already got a taste of some of the songs at the show I went to a month earlier as well as having bought the You Could Be Mine 7" as well as Nobody's Child the previous summer.

I do remember listening to both albums back to back in one listening and remembering hearing some of those songs at the show I went to.




/jarmo

I was only 10, and there were no record shops within range of my bike, ehem, Huffy Stalker, so my father picked them up on his way home from work.
I remember seeing the CDs in long boxes waiting for me. The only problem was we didn?t have a CD player at the time! My father was, and still is a bit technologically challenged.
Had to wait until the next day to return them for cassettes. For whatever reason, I only came home with UYI that day.
I remember my childhood friend and I being so excited to check out the inside booklet, and he grabbed it away from me. The pages were pretty flimsy, almost perforated, and he ripped a few pages away.
We both looked at each other like we had just lost a family member. Like a real tragedy had just occurred before our very eyes. I think I wanted to cry for second. If the music playing in the background wasn?t so fucking badass I probably would have.
I?ve still got that cassette, and scotch taped booklet.
Still to this day probably the GN?R record I listen to the most. Think I picked up UYI II a week or so later.
Those were the days.

I remember skipping class so that I could be the first person in my town to own them!

Take that high school!


Looking back, it seems silly to do that for TAPES! But still, I was the first in my town to hear these albums!

I was in diapers. Bought them on the internet about 3 or 4 years ago. I think the only record I've bought in an actual record store is Chinese Democracy.

My cousin bought me the UYI I in Casette format at that day and after two weeks I got the II on same mode.
Only after a year I bought the both CD's and until that day , the UYI II cd got problems with the lyrics on it (fuzzy letters)

Can we move this to dead horse???   ;D
Sorry, I'm being cheeky.... I bought them on vinyl. Spent all night when I got in from school listening. Lying on the floor reading the lyrics, checking the pictures etc. still remember the start of right next door and thinking how awesome it was.

I was very obsessed with the release of UYI.  I wasted so much time and energy obsessing over it, so that experience has helped me take (or forced me to take) a more laid-back approach since then to waiting for new albums from my favorite bands. 

I would go to Tower Records in downtown NY (now long since closed down) just about every day and pour through every music magazine on the rack looking for even the smallest mention of UYI. 

When the Sept 17th release date was announced, I would still go to Tower every day checking the cassette racks and very other square inch of the store just in case it was delivered early.  As it happened, on Sept 16th, I found an opened box on the floor of one of the aisles containing the tapes for UYI I and II.  A few were already taken, so I was not the only weirdo scrounging around in desperation for this.  I grabbed them, paid for them, then immediately played them in my walkman.  Over and over again.  It was really something, could never forget that. 

Still my two fav albums ever released.

It's been that way since i discovered my sisters illusion cassettes, this is around 99-00 then i forced her to make copies for me,  she didnt record alt. don't cry and my world for me, so right after i noticed that i stole the original tapes, which lead to a great compromise, me giving the cassettes back in exchange i would get CD versions 8) I got the cassettes soon after to myself when my sister moved to cds aswell
 
A few years ago a bought the Illusions on vinyl (originals from 1991 not the reissues)  from a recordstore near where i live, the owner was a about 30 year old blind man, running the shop mostly himself, (the shop went bankrupt a coulpe years ago :( ).


Listening to those tapes back to back all night and day, at home or family vacation, on the way to a funeral you name it. as a young child made me understand music the way i do today. Its kinda my music bible. I remember listening to Locomotive as a 5-6 year old and just being mindblowed in a really intense way. (still havent recovered :-\)

I still listen to Illusions regularly, live versions included.

23 years ago, man, time flies. I was 18 back then. I remember skipping first class that day, friday 13th at 9am here in Norway, when the record store opened. Bought them on cassette (!) and cd. Sweet memories listening through the cassettes that entire afternoon  :)

-Eirik

So I'm 14, just started my freshman year of high school, and me and my buddy couldn't wait to get off the bus to hop on our bikes and pick up UYI I & II on cd from Sam Goody at this shitty dilapidated mini mall in NJ.  We had preordered them a couple months earlier, think the preorder came with a button or patch. Went straight home and carefully listened to each disc consecutively on my stereo, just floored at how epic it was. 

23 years later and I still feel the same way.

I got mine that Friday from an independently owned music store (Record Stop).. My friends had to drag me out of the house that weekend (to see the most recent Nightmare on Elm Street movie)..It was fun already having UYI and watching MTV news covering music stores opening at midnight to accommodate the lines of people waiting to purchase the twin set.. Still live 'em and glad that a few more of the songs have made it onto recent set lists..

I was only 14.  When I got home from school that day, my parents had both CDs waiting for me.  I was ecstatic.

2nd and 3rd CDs I ever owned.  First one was 'Hey Stoopid' by Alice Cooper.

Was on holiday in San Francisco at the time.  Trekked all over town to find a record shop and bought the tapes to listen to on my walkman on the bus down to LA.  Seems like a lifetime ago.

I preordered it as well. After school ended the next day, I went to the store. Loved it ever since! I still think "Don't Damn Me" is the most underrated songGNR has. I always wondered why they never performed it live.

We were stationed on San vito air station in Italy, albums were back ordered and I had to wait.  I did hear both albums prior to getting my CDs around the 24th of sept 91.  Long boxes, god I miss those.  Funny part they had to call my parents when I went to get them because of the parental advisory stickers lol

I also got mine from record stop except I got them 2 weeks early, I pre ordered from them a few weeks earlier, and they called me when they got them in. :)

I think its the best song on that album.  Great lyrics, great guitar work.

However, my longtime suspicion why it was never performed live was that some of lyrics would be a bitch to spit out.  Even try singing along in your car.  It ain't easy.

Now picture trying to do it sprinting across the stage at 100MPH, like Axl did in his prime. 

Still to this day,I can stare at the covers for a long time.Seems like there's a lot going on,and there is....
such diverse music styles and amount of songs,I grew up with these records.
I had copied them around 92 from a local record store,and bought the original cassettes in 94.vinyl and cd
s came later.
Imo,the greatest guitar work Slash ever recorded lies within these records.On Axl's piano-driven songs especially.

I was in the sixth grade, my dad went to Flip Side Records at midnight for me to buy them at the Midnight Sale. He bought them on cassette. I waited up for him to make sure he got them and he did but wasn't very happy that I was still up. LOL

Next day, I wake up and II is not on my desk. I then realized that he took it to work with him so he could listen to it in the car. He gets home and goes "It's good, but you need to skip over Number 5" LOL. That lasted a few months. The following Christmas, when I got my CD player, my Nonna got me II on CD.

I do recall have the tape version of the You Could Be Mine Single. Was so excited when he got that for me as well. Best Dad ever!!!!

I was still young to go to the shows back then and buy the albums. I do remember watching the videos on MTV.  8)

These were my first albums that I bought on cassete in my life. Obviously a huge impact of my personality ever since. I bought them a year after more or less as I watched The Freddie Mercury tribute and was impressed by the band and all the videos on MTV back then. I was leaving in Israel by the time so I had a cable TV and MTV. Ironically, Paradise City was the fist song that I've heard by the band but it was Knockin On Heaven's Door that really got me loving them from the very same concert. As people say, the rest is history. Great times. :)

I wasn't able to get them the day they came out, but I think it was the following weekend when I bought them both on cassette tape.  CDs existed back then, but they were more expensive and cassettes were still damn popular!   ;D

As far as I remember, back then all record stores around here still carried both LPs and tapes as well as CDs. CDs were still kinda considered "the future" by many....


On that note, do you guys still have those original tapes, vinyls or CDs?




/jarmo

I have the original cd's (1991 press,germany made),original records and cassettes with the F@$& off sticker.
Also,the original usa longbox cd's,the 1998 "clean" version cd,Greek pressing cassettes,a couple box sets that include the cd's and recently i bought the 180 gram releases on vinyl.
I think I'm full for now... :)
Let's see if Troccoli posts his Use Your Illusion collection  ;D

I still have everything on not bad condition.
Singles too and few days ago found something rare in my room.
that thing on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Since-Dont-Have-Special-Limited/dp/B0049Z3UU4

Btw,does anyone know what happened to the 2 large use your illusion colored curtains that were on each side of the stage ? ::) Yes,during the Illusion world tour...
That would be the ultimate memorabilia from that era.
I'd love to have one of them,if not both !
I'm just joking,but woukldn't it be damn cool to have them ? I'm guessing they were all torn up and thrown away after the tour.

Many possibilities. They could've been thrown away. Or they could be in some storage somewhere...


As you might remember, some of the road cases used by the band were sold on eBay a few years ago. Those were from a more recent time period though...



/jarmo

Yep, brand new LPs could still be purchased in my area in 1991.  And yes, CDs still hadn't quite caught on yet as "the" format to purchase music.  That didn't start happening until the mid 90s as I recall.



I purchased the original CDs eventually and I still have them both.  After purchasing the CDs, I sold the tapes to a pawn shop I think.  That was back when pawn shops would still buy cassettes.  I now have the LPs, but they are the recent reissues.

I also got the CDs later on. By the time "TSI?" was released I was buying all my new music on CDs.





/jarmo

Still have the originals.