Guns N' Roses
"I'll Give You A Buck If You Let Me Hit That"
August 25, 1992
Phoenix International Raceway
Phoenix, AZ
opening acts: Faith No More, Metallica
Taper: ballsdeep
Master Analog Recording - Excellent full sound
Lineage: Sony D-3 with supplied mic (#PA-62)
Transfer: Denon 790R - > Kenwood A-522 amplifier - > Kenwood GE-622 Equalizer - > Audacity (boosting/splicing/tracking) - > WAV - > Trader's Little Helper 2.7.0 (FLAC level 8 lossless compression & verification) -> YOU
The first show back after the Montreal Riot!
ATTENTION: Take the time to read the two fan recollections of this gig that are included in this text file.
You won't regret it!
[01] Out Ta Get Me
[02] Mr. Brownstone
[03] It's So Easy
[04] Attitude
[05] Live And Let Die
[06] Bad Obsession
[07] Axl Rant
[08] Double Talkin' Jive
[09] Civil War
[10] Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds / Wild Horses [Intro]
[11] Patience
[12] Welcome To The Jungle
***MISSING drum solo***
[13] You Could Be Mine
***MISSING Slash's Solo***
[14] Godfather Theme (incomplete)
[15] Piano solo
[16] November Rain
[17] The One [Intro] / Sweet Child O' Mine
[18] Only Women Bleed [Intro] (incomplete)
[19] Knockin' On Heaven's Door
[20] Mother [Intro] / Paradise City (incomplete - significant portion of song missing)
[21] Outro - Fireworks/Lupo The Butcher Cartoon
Running time: 112:22
Band:
W. Axl Rose: Vocals
Slash: Lead Guitar
Duff McKagan: Bass
Matt Sorum: Drums
Gilby Clarke: Rhythm Guitar
Dizzy Reed: Keyboards & Percussion
Backing Musicians:
Teddy 'Zig Zag' Andreadis: Keyboards, Background Vocals, Emulation
Roberta Freeman: Background Vocals
Diane Jones: Background Vocals
976-Horns:
Lisa Maxwell
CeCe Worrall
Anne King
Ballsdeep's notes:
Well, for stories that go with a FST (first show taped, yes, this is my very first recording, warts and all), this one is a doozie/right up there. I was 3 months shy of 21 years old, with a borrowed Sony D-3 and supplied mic (thanks Dave!), going to the first Guns/Metallica show back after James' arm was burned in Montreal, with Faith No More still opening (later shows had Body Count and Motorhead in Seattle). I actually had tickets to Oakland, Pasadena and Seattle lined up, but those shows were postponed to Sept and Oct due to James' accident, but I flew down from Alaska 2 more times (!!!) to make sure they were documented (thank you Alaska Airlines frequent flier miles)
Hopefully you folks like a good story (hard to believe this was 23+ years ago, my memories of this one are still pretty vivid, or, no, this ain't from no journal)
I'ma (sic) title this one "I'll Give You A Buck If You Let Me Hit That":
Lets start with landing in Oakland CA, to drive to Phoenix in a little red Toyota pickup with my best friend (at the time), Gabe, and my fully-dreadlocked friend Shane from high school, who flew down *from Alaska* with me. The last words Shane's mom told me were "don't let my boy get arrested", as it was his first out-of-state trip sans family (yes, Shane is black, though the PC crowd may prefer African-American, Shane is just fine with the color terminology). Shane went for the FNM and Metallica, Gabe just for the Metallica, and I was down with all 3 bands.
We hauled ass to Phoenix (what, like 700 miles each way?). We checked into our dump of a hotel off of the I-10, about 30 miles west of Phoenix (close to the exit for PIR), then headed to the gig. Warning sign this was going to be a LONG day #1: the 2.5 gallons of 151 Mai-Tai's I mixed up (Bacardi). Warning sign #2: a monsoon had swept thru the area, and washed out ALL the bridges to the venue other than one two lane road. So, yeah, getting in there took a little longer than expected...but HEY, we had mai-tai's to drink, and hot 100+ degree sun beating on us to get properly lubricated for the show. So, we roll up to the parking lot just after the 5pm start time (yeah, 3 hours to drive less than 20 miles). We are in the ONLY state that didn't (at the time) observe Martin Luther King Jr's. birthday as a holiday (Axl talks about this from the stage during the show). We turn off the truck, and hear strains of FNM playing. Shane instantly jumps up and starts running into the venue. The last words Gabe and I heard him say were "fuck GNR, those racist motherfuckers"....That's my buddy Shane smile emoticon . Sadly, we had not come up with a post-show meet up plan. More on that later....
So I was able to catch about 25 minutes of the FNM set, and a blistering set by Metallica ("The Shortest Straw" was, simply put, brutal). So before GNR hit the stage, I decided to take a much needed "dehydrated piss", and to find a bottle of water (it was still well over 90 degrees at this point).
I get to the bathroom, and was like "fuck that"...EVERY light bulb had been broken out of the mens room, and I figured my odds of getting mugged or cut were rather high, so it was "find an empty cup on the ground, discreetly piss in it, and throw it in the garbage". And still no sign of Shane.
GNR hit the stage right after I'd picked up the water, so the first 2-3 songs you hear me slowly walking closer to where I thought was a good "spot" to tape (remember, first time taping). also, for some reason you hear the 'crinkle' of plastic water bottles being stepped on way more during the GNR than the Metallica between the songs. the title of this story comes from the kind Alaskan herb I'd brought down with me, I finally decided to smoke a J under the cover of darkness (naive to Arizona's draconian marijuana laws). Though I've no recollection of sharing with him or not (probably did for free, just to shut him up). And then Axl brought up the lack of a MLK holiday in AZ with mixed results (my view: the crowd seemed to cheer louder at the 'wrong' times, see what you think). My stupid error number one was misjudging my tape flips, and running out of tape in the middle of Paradise City (hey, this was a full blown rookie error, whose first taping experience involved 8 tape sides and nearly 5 hours of music?)....not knowing this was the last song, I decided, after much anguished fretting, that it would be a SUPER idea to tape over the FNM....and I caught the last minute of Paradise City...and a bunch of fireworks, at the expense of 3 of the FNM songs (the end of one, and entire one, and the beginning of a third)...hindsight says "DUMBASS", but whaddaya do???
As I've already rambled way too long, we can just get to the punchline. STILL no Shane. So, due to the road "conditions" (ONE lane out, and 20-25,000 cars), we decided to wait for him. With the watered-down mai-tai's. Until THREE AM. And STILL NO SHANE. Well, the road looks open, we're beat, the place is deserted, off to the hotel.
At 8am, we awoke to a gentle tapping at the door. It was Shane. He caught nearly all of FNM and all of Metallica, and made some friends during Metallica's set. So he decided it was a good idea to go to a house party and smoke some crack until 8am, then head back to the hotel to 'rest' for 3 hours....because "fuck GNR, those racist motherfuckers". Oh well....all's fair when you love your bro and no one got hurt (and you didn't get Mary's boy arrested).
I do believe the Metallica portion of this was torrented years and years ago...I prolly never put the FNM 'out there', as it not only way incomplete, but fragmented as well. And this one is just shy of complete ("Paradise City" being cut), but I feel is good enough to finally get 'out there'. Hopefully you folks dig the result. And, as always, props to "El Phantom" for the upload!
-ballsdeep OUT!
ROCKPHANTOM'S NOTES:
My good friend and frequent concert companion, Tim, was able to obtain backstage access at the Phoenix GNR/Metallica gig. I encourage fans to read about Tim's experience at this hard rock marathon....
Tim: I was fortunate enough to see the Use Your Illusion tour 2 times back when GNR ruled the universe. Both shows were in Phoenix Arizona, but at one of the gigs I was extremely lucky to end up backstage at possibly one of the biggest concerts I’ve ever attended with 2 of the most dangerous bands in the world!
Here’s a bit of what I remember on that day...
I already had general admission tickets to the gig when a lady friend of mine at that time mentioned that she knew Roddy from Faith No More from back when she lived in San Francisco. I spoke with her about the possibilities of getting some VIP passes and she said she could. I honestly didn’t think it would pan out but she made a few calls and within and hour said that our passes would be waiting at the ticket window! So far so good!
We arrived at the gig a bit early in hopes that the golden tickets would actually pan out. Sure enough at the counter they had our VIP passes for Faith No More and 2 tickets to the gig! How awesome is that! Roddy hooked us up big-time!
Once we got over the shock of actually scoring backstage passes we entered the venue. Huge place, and that day Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) expected to have an attendance of 40K! Anyways, we entered the front gates and went all the way to the front right where we showed our green badges dangling on a lanyard to security and they allowed us to go back stage.
The backstage area basically consisted of about 6 air-conditioned trailers with a large concession area that was more like a huge tent. Very large actually. The tented area had tables and chairs all laid out with several people eating. They also had a theme to it. This one had a cowboy like theme with cactus, roping ropes, bales of hay and other items to play the part of the theme. We grabbed a quick bite from the cafeteria style serving line with Roddy, real quick actually as he was quickly off to perform. He gobbled down a Salisbury steak if I remember correctly, anyways he left us in the tented area where we enjoyed complimentary Heinekens, which I didn’t mind at all.
We had a quick beer and went to the front of the stage / right and remember Jim Martin with his wild hair and red glasses playing just a few feet away from us. I remember watching the show and looking back and seeing one of my friends in the crowd pushed up against the barricade yelling “hook me up” while pointing to his chest. By that time we were actually heading back stage to meet the band and to hang out with them for a bit.
We all quickly made it to their trailer and sat on 2 couches in the trailer. They provided more beer on ice there along with a table of various drinks and appetizers for the band. I remember chatting with the band and they were all very cool to us. I also felt it would be good time to get my Angel Dust CD signed. I handed it around to the band and received it back. When I looked through the sleeve (long sleeve on that cd), I couldn’t locate Mike Pattons’ signature. I asked him about it and he said, “yeah I did”. Then looked through the sleeve himself and sure enough, it wasn’t there. He signed it the second go round “Mike Patton I lied”. Before long everyone was out of the trailer except Jim Martin, my lady friend and myself. We talked a while and he was actually a really cool guy and some of the things he said made it seem that he was really good friends with James Hetfield! I also asked him about the “cowboy” theme and he said that Axl wanted a different theme for every concert on the tour.
After chatting a bit we went outside the trailer and a few feet from our trailer Kirk was warming up his ESP on a golf cart, sitting on the top of the back seat. I saw Lars come out of the Metallica trailer scratching his nuts and Hetfield come down to join Kirk on the golf cart. I still regret not approaching Kirk and James but Kirk was warming his strings and I thought it may be rude since they were preparing to hit the stage. Time flying by and Metallica is on the stage and Mike Patton comes back to the trailer and asks us if we want to go on the stage and were like “hell yes!”. He takes us up a long ramp directly behind the stage and I remember that there were SO many large cords, wires, gear that it was very difficult not to step on things as we made our way to the front left of the stage. I remember peering out watching Metallica jam Blackened with a rack of Kirks guitars just an arms length away. We were there only for a short while before we were asked to leave by the sound guys. Patton was nowhere to be found at this point and was the last we saw of him.
We were so stoked that we were allowed to go on the stage and reminisced on the way back to the trailer but when we arrived FNM was nowhere to be found. We saw Slash and Duff walking around with a small mob of people around them and there was considerably more people back stage than there was before. We hung out at the trailer and debated on checking out Metallica when a white limo pulled in, parked with its lights on and the driver steps out. It wasn’t 5 minutes before we were approached by security. They asked us “Who are you all with” where we replied “Faith No More” which was answered by “They all left, we need to ask you to leave”. The security guard was nice and explained that the singer was extremely particular who he has backstage and apologized to us and escorted us back into the general population and we raised a fuss about it which really worked in our favor because we were placed in the small orchestra pit area directly in front of the stage and were able to watch Guns N' Roses from literally feet away. I remember gazing up at Slash while he did his Godfather bit and remember Axl working the stage on all sides. It was a night I’ll never forget and a once in a lifetime opportunity...
List of rockphantom's contributions to ballsdeep master recording:
1. Added 2 second of silence to the beginning of recording
2. Tracked with Audacity 2.2.1
3. Tagged FLAC files with MP3tag
Please feel free to create artwork and share in the comments section.
REQ: Any uncirculated GN'R audio/video from 1985-1993
Does anyone have a recording of the Guns N' Roses performance at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas on September 4, 1992? If so, please share!
Here's hoping for a reunited Guns N' Roses/Metallica stadium tour during the summer of 2017...
Do it for the fans in honor of the 25th anniversary of the original trek!!
rockphantom
December 6, 2015
Austin, Texas
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