Array Slash - Slash

IN LATE NOVEMBER, WE SET OFF TO PLAY South America and found ourselves in the middle of sudden political unrest when we did a show in Caracas, Venezuela. Corrupt law enforcement, abundant drugs, and the world’s most dedicated and zealous crowds are the status quo across that continent, so I can’t say that I was surprised. We were scheduled to play the biggest concert in the history of the country, and since there wasn’t a venue large enough to hold the forty-five thousand ticket holders, the promoter created one in a huge parking lot. It was an amazing show, and all went off well… until the next night, when the country experienced a sudden military coup just after we left for Colombia. We made it out, but a few of our crew, and over half our gear, did not—they got held up in the chaos at the airport.

We were supposed to play two nights in Bogotá, Colombia, after that, but without that huge cargo crate of equipment, it wasn’t really an option. The promoter decided to roll both nights into one show, to take place the next night, so we had a day off to relax in our hotel. The hotel was pretty huge, it was part of some kind of complex with a big movie theater downstairs, and I remember coming up the escalator and watching a Jurassic Park pinball machine emerge on the horizon as I got to the top. I’d just seen the movie and I had to play that thing; it combined two of my favorite interests, dinosaurs and pinball. When I got to my room I arranged to have it brought up and spent the entire day being the ball.

During our stay, word got out to the authorities that we had drugs, so, in another move typical of South America, the authorities got “warrants” to search our rooms, in hopes of finding something that might require us to buy them off, I imagine. The day of the show, the cops barged in on all of us. I had nothing; they came in, guns drawn, and found me, freshly showered, in a towel playing pinball.

“Oh, hey,” I said. “Hi!”

They showed me the warrant and started searching my room. I was pretty jovial as they tore through my stuff.

“Señor, is it okay if I keep playing?” I asked.

The show that night—November 29, 1992—was pretty magical; it was one of those moments that you can’t believe is happening even as you watch it all unfold, even as you’re a part of it. There was a torrential rainstorm the entire day before as our crew set up; the weight of the water buckled the stage roof (which wasn’t ours), sending a lighting rig crashing to the ground. Luckily, no one was hurt. The whole stage had to be redesigned. Then the day of the show, a sudden storm damaged some of our equipment. Despite more rain, people filled the arena and were lined up outside, where fights broke out, a few cars were burned, and the police had to use tear gas to calm everyone down.

When we took the stage sometime around eleven p.m., the place went crazy. We were playing really well, and the rain had held off throughout the first hour of our set until we played “November Rain.” As we started that song, literally on cue, the sky opened and it poured once again. It was one of those massive tropical downpours where one drop can fill a coffee cup. It was coming down in a black mist that mixed with the steam rising off of the audience. I could barely see through the clouds that formed in the arena; the people were a sea of silhouettes. It was very dramatic and very beautiful; it felt as if they and the band were one. The audience was as moved as we were—they were into it, truly passionate. It rained so hard that we finished the song then we had to break until the storm passed, and once it did, we came back on and gave it everything we had.

We had every obstacle possible befall us between our show in Venezuela and the shows in Colombia, and considering the band’s chemistry in the recent past, you would expect that we’d have fallen apart under such duress. But that was the thing about Guns: we’d self-destruct when everything was easy , but in those instances when every single factor seemed to be against us, everyone, Axl included, pulled together to make it happen. The extreme lows might have left me feeling like there was no tomorrow, but when we’d pull off these valiant rock-and-roll productions in the face of adversity, I’d feel like we were invincible; I’d think we were the strongest band around. Those moments renewed our collective faith and boosted morale like nothing else. Rather than be frustrated by what befell us in South America, we let the audiences at all of those gigs sustain us with their passion and drive us to be our best. Our playing was elevated; it was as intense as the fans were—we were carried away along with them. We reached that point that musicians talk about where you are immersed in what you are doing to the degree that you don’t even know who you are—you are part of the performance so fully that you aren’t thinking anymore. Those moments are magical and that whole tour was like that, every single night. It was the band at its best; it was something that anybody would have given their left arm to be a part of… if it occurred consistently. But it wasn’t ever that simple: when we weren’t being transcendent we specialized in self-inflicted disaster.

IN JANUARY 1993, WE SET OFF ON A tour of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, with an eighty-person crew and entourage in tow. We ran into Ronnie Wood in Japan, which was great. He and I had been friends for years by then, so he joined us onstage at the Tokyo Dome for “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and Duff and Matt and I hung out with him after the show. That was a really good night. The rest of that tour was just more of the same—great shows, some drama—plus a lot of expensive go-karting, yachting, and dining. The theme parties might have been eliminated but the wasteful days off were not.

We returned to the States in early February and had a month off before we started the next leg, an American tour we called Skin and Bones . This jaunt in particular was aimed at making us money, because the production was stripped back to the bare essentials: we kept Dizzy Reed, but Teddy and the horn section were gone, as were the backup singers. This tour featured an acoustic section in the middle of the set that showcased the hits off of Lies as well as a few cover songs, such as “Dead Flowers.” I couldn’t have been happier: finally we were touring as a bare-bones rock-and-roll band again.

This leg, in my mind, was our chance to show the world the Use Your Illusion records as I’d always heard them. The day that I’d finished recording my last guitar part for those records I left the studio with a mix of them that was simple and raw, before any synths or horns or backup vocal tracks were layered on. I’ve never forgotten how cool they sounded in that stripped-down, simple, powerful state. I wish that I still had a copy of them; or that they were floating around the Internet somewhere. Believe me, they sounded so cool; they were entirely different beasts altogether from the versions that got released. I’m not going to get into hindsight about what could have been, but all in all they were two wholly different bodies of work. In any case, we got a chance to do the songs scaled back and straight up with the band reduced to its normal size… I was elated.

The tour started in Austin, Texas, in late February and that first show went fine, but we immediately ran into trouble. Over the first few weeks we had to cancel four shows due to inclement weather. In Sacramento in early April, someone in the audience throw a bottle of Jack and hit Duff square in the head, knocking him unconscious. That was so ridiculous, not to mention dangerous. Anytime people throw shit onstage to get a reaction—I assume because rock bands seem larger than life—is just insane. I’m never sure what they’re after when they throw something that can do actual bodily harm. We’d done about ninety minutes at that point, but that was the end of the show because Duff was really hurt.