Guns N’ Roses Big FD Tour

Use Your Illusion

It was late evening July 2nd, 1991 and I get this call from (one of) my airplane crew member, flying the “Guns N’ Roses” private aircraft, of which I had arranged and managed for their (#gunsnroses) ‘Use Your Illusion” World Tour (1st leg).

He goes… “Michael, we’ve got a problem on the road tonight and we’ll need some brilliant ideas to get out of dodge (St. Louis) without hassles.” Perplexed, I further learned what happened…

You see, on that July evening at the Riverport Amphitheater in Maryland Heights, Missouri, just outside of #StLouis, during a performance of “Rocket Queen”, lead singer, Axl Rose discovered that a fan was filming the show with a camera. After asking the venue’s security to take away the camera, Rose decided to take it upon himself, jumping into the audience and tackling the fan.

He had a heated confrontation with the fan before physically assaulting him. After being pulled out of the audience by members of the crew, Rose said, “Well, thanks to the lame-ass security, I’m going home!”, threw his microphone to the ground and stormed off the stage.

Ha!… could you imagine today requesting that you turn off your camera… [everyone in the stadium goes… WTF-Huh!?]. Amazing what just a decade can mean when it comes to the digital world regarding the capturing images.

Interestingly enough, the sub-title of this tour was… ‘Get in the Ring Mother Fucker’. [LOL!]

Read more in the Book…

Stories from the Air, Flying Some of the Biggest Rock N’ Roll Stars of the World…