Warning - this is pretty long, so I hope you're sitting comfortably...
The date: May Bank Holiday Weekend.
Weather report (courtesy of Slash): ?Fucking rain. Fucking holiday weekend in Britain, always fucking rains. It was fucking lovely this morning. What fucking happened?!?
The venue: Milton Keynes - a great place for pedestrians with a death wish, being that it possesses an abundance of roads, trees and roundabouts, but little in the way of pavements. Described thusly by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in their book, ?Good Omens?:
Neither [good nor evil] claimed any responsibility for Milton Keynes, but both reported it a success.?
It was to The National Bowl (a grassy crater with all the charm of a 1960?s holiday camp), that a friend and I went on Saturday 29 May 1993 to witness Guns N? Roses on the Skin ?N? Bones leg of the Illusion tour. As it turned out, the tour?s title had a prophetic ring about it, being that we were about to become soaked to the skin and frozen to the bone by the end of the evening.
However, as we sat on the grass outside the entrance gates that morning, the sun was shining, UYI 1 and 2 were being blasted from someone?s car stereo, and all was right with the world. We?d seen GNR in various European cities throughout 1991 and 1992 and had high expectations for the evening?s entertainment.
Blind Melon, Soul Asylum and The Cult were the openers that day and did their job admirably. After the last band departed the stage, the audience continued to amuse themselves with a spot of naked pyramid building. By 8.30 pm even the most hardy had knocked that on the head because the rain was lashing down, the audience resembled drowned rats, and the price of plastic rainhats had increased from ?2 to ?3. The pyromaniacs in the crowd were setting fire to anything and everything, and small groups of people were huddling around the makeshift bonfires trying to stop hypothermia setting in.
But even a flood of biblical proportions wouldn?t have been able to dampen the anticipation we felt. Axl?s helicopter had landed in an adjacent field; the wait was almost over. A few minutes later and the lads hit the stage and launched straight into ?Nightrain?, ?Mr Brownstone? and ?Live And Let Die?. The audience went crazy, their cold, wet limbs suddenly animated as thousands of fists punched the evening air ? defying the man in charge of the weather controls to give it his best shot ? and we all bounced our way into ?Welcome To The Jungle?. Duff stepped forward next to give us the snarling menace of ?Attitude?, followed by a ferocious rendition of ?It?s So Easy? and ?Double Talkin? Jive?.
As we all caught our breath and wondered how we were going to maintain this frantic pace, a huge couch, lamp, coffee table and small drum kit were brought on stage, announcing the arrival of the acoustic set. A pizza delivery guy wandered on and Axl began skimming pizzas over the heads of the bemused, but very appreciative, crowd. Looking for all the world as if they were on the set of the Val Doonican Holiday Special, GNR nevertheless launched in a superb rendition of ?You Ain?t The First? ? perhaps not the kind of lyrics I can picture dear ol? Val singing! - Axl?s and Izzy?s vocals giving the song an intimacy that belied the vast open space around them. ?You?re Crazy? and ?Used To Love Her? followed next and then the beguilingly seductive ?Patience?, seguing into a few bars of John Lennon?s ?Imagine?, rounded off this part of the set. [Gilby joined the band on the couch on the second night, but I can?t remember if he was there for the first night as well.]
After this it was time to for the crowd to exercise their vocal chords on ?Knockin? On Heaven?s Door? ? an opportunity not to be missed by anyone. Then it was time for Axl?s epic masterpiece, ?November Rain? ? the lack of extra musicians and backing singers this time around leaving the lyrical and melodic beauty of the song starkly apparent. Slash?s guitar weaving an emotional thread among Axl?s haunting vocals, echoing the thousands of lighter flames that flickered and danced in the night.
The lyrical theme of doomed relationships continued as Axl strapped on a guitar and the band launched into the straight talking ?Dead Horse?. Matt kept the momentum going with a shorter than usual drum solo, and followed this immediately by the spine-jolting power that is ?You Could Be Mine?. The crowd ignored protesting limbs and, following the band?s lead, threw themselves into action once more. Then it was time for what must surely be one of, if not the, most recognisable intros in rock, ?Sweet Child O? Mine? and then the final track of the evening, ?Paradise City?. The irony of this title not being lost on those of us merrily sploshing around in enough mud to keep a family of hippos happy for a year.
As the last strains of music died away, we began the slow, sodden walk away from the Bowl and back to the hotel. All around were people just like us; outwardly moving along as a wet, tired mass, but inside hugging our memories, buoyed up by a state of post-show euphoria. Arriving at the hotel we peeled the bin liners from our clothes and found that instead of useful radiators in the room, there were some kind of economy heaters installed that definitely weren?t up to the job of drying out jeans and boots.
Thus it was that come the next morning, we set off again for the Bowl in still damp clothes and very squelchy boots, but in true Brit style, keeping a stiff upper lip about it all and continuing to act as though it was a balmy summer day! By now the Bowl resembled a typical festival site, i.e. mud up to your eyeballs and overflowing portaloos. However, GNR had a couple of rather more pleasant surprises that they were about to spring on us that evening ? namely two very special guests were going to join the party.
First to arrive was ex-Hanoi Rocks vocalist, Mike Monroe. Mike joined the band during ?Knockin? On Heaven?s Door?, wrapping his lips around a mean burst of harmonica.
Then, after ?Sweet Child O? Mine?, it was Ronnie Wood?s turn. He joined the Gunners for a romp through the Stones? classic, ?Honky Tonk Women?, with Gilby and Mike Monroe re-emerging to join in too.
As ?Paradise City? once again brought the show to a close, I felt an overwhelming mixture of emotions. Elation at what I had just experienced, but mingling with this was the sad realisation that there was only one more show remaining on my personal tour itinerary: Mungersdorfer Stadion, Koln, Germany ? due to take place a couple of weeks later. Since my first show in Mannheim, Germany in August 1991, I had had the time of my life getting to see as many shows as possible and now, with the Illusion tour finally coming to an end, I knew it would be a good few years before I got the chance to experience another GNR show. Little did I know how many years I would actually have to wait and that the band would undergo a radical transformation before that event could take place once again.
Well, I hope anyone who has waded this far through the sea of my memories of that weekend has enjoyed reading at least some of it. If you get the chance to experience GNR live yourself, take it! Forget the setlist whingers and those who are living in the past, the selection of songs is only a fraction of what it means to see this band live and the GNR of 2006 generate as much, if not more, energy, excitement and passion as the band I saw in the ?90s did. Axl may have aged a few years, (haven?t we all) but time has done nothing to diminish his ability to sear your brain with a red-hot vocal performance and the charismatic stage presence that propelled him to the upper echelons of rock stardom all that time ago, is still present by the bucketload. Tommy may be ?The General? but Axl remains the ringmaster.
Finally, here?s an amusing aside from a newspaper of the day:
?Disappointment of the year ? the behaviour of the Guns N? Rose fans after Saturday?s Milton Keynes gig. Never have I seen such a clean-cut, sober, polite bunch. One even opened a train door for me.?
Soddin? journalists, it seems as though not only the band, but fans as well, are damned if they do and damned if they don?t. Nevertheless, I wouldn?t swap being a GNR fan for all the tea in China. Thank you and goodnight.
cyllan
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