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I volunteered to be the one to tell the audience that they’d fucked up. They cheered when I came back onstage, but they weren’t happy about what I had to say.

“That bottle of piss knocked Duff unconscious and now he’s on his way to the hospital,” I said. “There is no way that we’re coming back out. The show is over . Please leave peacefully and don’t fuck with anyone. Don’t fuck with the building.”

We canceled a show in Atlanta both to let Duff recover and because Axl had been arrested there during the Appetite tour for kicking in the head a security guard whom he’d supposedly seen roughing up audience members. Doug didn’t trust either Axl or the venue’s security and he was probably right on both counts.

Then at the end of April, when we were back in L.A., Gilby broke his wrist in a motorcycle accident. We weren’t sure how bad it was until he showed up at a band meeting in a very serious-looking cast.

“Wow,” I said. “That looks pretty bad.”

“How long is that gonna take to heal?” Axl asked him.

Gilby looked truly depressed. “Two or three weeks.”

“Aw, fuck!”

“I know, man,” Gilby said. “This fucking sucks.”

We had a European tour booked, starting with two dates in Russia—our first ever—two weeks later.

“Fuck it,” Axl said. “Let’s call Izzy.”

I was surprised and happy to hear that Izzy went for it… though I was completely confused to hear that Izzy didn’t want to rehearse at all—not that we had much time to anyway. As it turns out, the political situation in Russia in May 1993 was too unstable for us to play Moscow, so we flew to Tel Aviv, Israel, to rehearse with Izzy before we launched the tour there at the Hayarkon Park Arena. We booked a rehearsal space studio in Tel Aviv and it was a trip: this place was a recording studio as well and I think that the engineers didn’t believe the band booked was actually us until we walked through the door. We got together in this cheap old spot that was homey—in a foreign way—and run by these old people who were really cool. It was an average rehearsal space with midrange recording equipment and they’d clearly never had anyone like us in there, so we totally blew them away and for that reason alone it was worth it. Izzy showed up… with dreadlocks… and hadn’t practiced one song. So we did what we could.

We played to fifty thousand people in Israel for the first time two days later, which was the biggest concert that the country had ever seen. Sadly, it was a pretty loose set, because Izzy wasn’t up to speed and hadn’t been conscientious about practicing. The press criticized us pretty harshly, saying we had used the opportunity as a warm-up date, which was not true at all; we wanted it to be great, but with a rhythm guitarist who was still unfamiliar with the material, there was only so much we could do. We did the gig, we hung out there for a couple of days; we saw all of the sights.

Izzy, Duff, and I saw where Jesus was born, and we went to eat in the square around the Wailing Wall, and while we were sitting at this outdoor café near the zoo I watched a busload of school kids get off for a field trip. At either end of the bus were parents, or teachers, or adult supervisors of some kind who were armed with rifles. They arranged the kids in a line for their tour of the zoo and one armed adult took the front, one took the back, and one walked in the middle of them, all with their rifles strapped around them. I’d never seen anything like that in my life. I’d had a friend from Israel who’d gone back to do his two years of mandatory military duty and I thought about him just then: he’d come back a completely different guy. He’d gone off as a nerd and returned as a nerd with combat experience.

IZZY STAYED OUT THERE WITH US FOR a while, all through Greece and Turkey—places we’d never played before. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but Izzy was doing what he does best; he was checking out the situation, taking stock, observing everything, taking part while committing to nothing. He wanted to see what had changed and what hadn’t. He was taking note of how much drinking was going on, what Axl’s trip was. He was testing the water to see if he could deal with it. At the time I still thought he’d quit the band because of the riot in St. Louis and the near riot in Germany. I didn’t even realize that those incidents were the least of his reasons.

For the entire Illusion tour, all two-plus years of it, we had two camera guys with us documenting every single moment. Those guys were close friends, so we really let them in and they really got it all. They captured the kind of history that anyone aside from the members of the band would never see. They were out with us on this leg of the tour, of course, as was Del James, who became a de facto narrator at times, conducting interviews and telling the camera guys what was what. One night Del and the cameras caught Izzy and me jamming on our acoustic guitars, just hitting loose stuff the way we did when no one was around. We fell into the pocket so naturally, and it felt comfortable and so great, that I’d love to see a tape of that. We have two years of footage, in fact, all of which is in a vault that will remain shut forever unless Axl and the rest of us get our differences ironed out. That footage is the Holy Grail of Guns N’ Roses: seeing the film that would result from condensing the best moments into two hours would be the be-all and end-all of knowing exactly who we were and who we are.

Izzy remained on board until late May, ending his run with two shows at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes, England. Gilby flew out and hung out and the two of them got along great. There was no drama as the baton was passed, thank God.

From there we continued across Northern Europe; we did our makeup show in Norway, our second try at our first ever. We’d had to cancel the first time it because Axl got “held up” in Paris. Norway was a big one for Matt, since his family is Norwegian; he was pretty into visiting the roots of his Nordic history.

A particularly memorable night took place in Cologne, Germany; the kind of night that I might not remember completely, but one that I am remembered for. We had a day off, which Gilby and I spent sightseeing. Later on we met the band and some friends at this Italian restaurant, where we filled a huge corner banquette. We had tons of food, all of this wine, and at the end of the meal, Gilby and I decided to indulge in a few grappa shots. The first few went down fine and all was well. Then we did one more and suddenly it all went wrong: I puked everywhere. It was an Exorcist puke; I was sitting in the deep corner of the booth, so it went all over the table, and inexcusibly all over everyone around me. It flowed across the plates and everything and started dripping on the floor. I don’t know what was wrong with the owners of this place, but they found it charming. They were so honored to have us there that me puking up my meal at the table was A-OK. I commemorated the night by signing their guest book: “Of all the restaurants in the world, this is definitely one of them!” That line, by the way, was definitely stolen from Mike “McBob” Mayhew.

The tour continued through Europe and then returned to South America. We did our last date in Argentina on July 17, 1993. As I recall we played until about two a.m. and then commandeered the hotel bar until about six a.m. And when we returned to L.A. we had the honor of having done the longest tour in rock history. We’d played 192 shows in two and a half years, spanning twenty-seven countries. Over seven million people had seen us perform. I don’t really keep track of my achievements, but if I did that is the one I’d point out first and foremost.