APPETITE FOR DISCUSSION
Welcome to Appetite for Discussion -- a Guns N' Roses fan forum!

Please feel free to look around the forum as a guest, I hope you will find something of interest. If you want to join the discussions or contribute in other ways then you need to become a member. We especially welcome anyone who wants to share documents for our archive or would be interested in translating or transcribing articles and interviews.

Registering is free and easy.

Cheers!
SoulMonster
APPETITE FOR DISCUSSION
Welcome to Appetite for Discussion -- a Guns N' Roses fan forum!

Please feel free to look around the forum as a guest, I hope you will find something of interest. If you want to join the discussions or contribute in other ways then you need to become a member. We especially welcome anyone who wants to share documents for our archive or would be interested in translating or transcribing articles and interviews.

Registering is free and easy.

Cheers!
SoulMonster

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

3 posters

Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Soulmonster Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:01 pm

Date:
June 19, 1987.

Venue:
The Marquee.

Location:
London, England.

Setlist:
01. Reckless Life
02. Out Ta Get Me
03. Anything Goes
04. It's So Easy
05. Mr. Brownstone
06. Nightrain
07. My Michelle
08. You're Crazy
09. Paradise City
10. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
11. Move to the City
12. Mama Kin

Line-up:
Axl Rose (vocals), Izzy Stradlin (rhythm guitarist), Slash (lead guitarist), Duff McKagan (bass) and Steven Adler (drums).

Notes:
The first show outside of the USA. 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' played for the first time. Ian Astbury, the lead singer for The Cult, attended the show and liked it so much that he, according to Axl, invited them to open for them in August-September 1987 [Kerrang! October 1987].

Quotes:
And do you know how we got [the tour with the Cult]? Because Ian Astbury, the Cult's lead vocalist, came to our first show at the Marquee, the one we got such a slagging for, and liked it so much he offered us the tour. So f**k those journalists who wrote those bad things, Ian Astbury liked what he saw, right? [Kerrang! October 1987].
When we first played The Marquee in London, it got crazy. I don't mind stage-diving, I really don't. I like the guys who jump onstage and then jump right off. That's great. But when they get up there and start dancing, we kick 'em up. People look at the security guards and see what they're doin' because if the guards don't get 'em, we'll get 'em and it might not make the band look too good. We'll trash any dude who tries to stay onstage with us! I got photos of me holding up guys in my arms and literally throwing 'em back in the crowd in London. [Superstar Facts, 1988]
Those were the first publicized live shows we did as a signed band. I was born in England, and it was very important to me to play in front of an English audience. The version of 'Mr. Brownstone' on the live album was recorded at one of those gigs. I was just playing a Led Paul through a half-stack back then, but it sounded so cool [Guitar World, January 2000]
Those Marquee shows were loud and hell-bent; what I remember, I remember fondly [Slash's autobiography, p184]
Up to then, the only place I had been outside of the United States was Vancouver, Canada [...] After the first Marquee gig sold out in record time, they added a second date. That sold out just as fast, so they added a third night. By the time we arrived in London, we were minor celebrities. We found we had become the "it" band the youth of England had been looking for to fill the void left by Hanoi Rocks. [...]. In that period of the band's career - and with pent-up energy from half a year or virtually no gigs - nobody fucking rocked with as much purpose and sneer, or with the same level of recklessness and bad intentions. [...] At soundcheck before the first show on June 19, 1987, we ran through a cover song. We played it just once, but somehow our feelings found a vessel in this Bob Dylan song and our emotions just came pouring out [Duff's autobiography, "It's So Easy", 2011, p. 123-124]
On Thursday, June, 11, we were ready to perform our very first gig in Europe [Steven got the wrong date]. During the sound check, the guys started into a rocking song that I wasn't sure I head heard before. I was like, "Wow, this is a cool new tune." It had a haunting familiarity to it that I couldn't quite place. Sinc Axl wasn't there yet, Izzy and Duff started singing it the second time around and only then did I realize it was 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door.' I smiled, "Oh yeah, it's that song." I realized we were taking the classic Bod Dylan tune and rocking out on it, taking it solidly under our wing into Guns N' Roses territory. That night we recorded it live [...] The first show was great, although there were only about thirty people there [/i][Steven's autobiography, "My Appetite for Destruction", 2010, p. 126]
1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Rightarrow Next concert: 1987.06.22.
1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Leftarrow Previous concert: 1987.03.29.


Last edited by Soulmonster on Wed Oct 24, 2018 7:55 pm; edited 3 times in total
Soulmonster
Soulmonster
Band Lawyer

Admin & Founder
Posts : 15699
Plectra : 76206
Reputation : 831
Join date : 2010-07-06

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Soulmonster Fri Aug 03, 2012 11:36 am

Opening up with Reckless Life and one of the new album, a thumping rocker called Out Ta Get Me, GN'R were met with a hail of plastic beer glasses and a shower of gob. I remember wincing as a big, sticky lump of phlegm stuck in Izzy's hair. Axl was having none of it. "Hey, if you're gonna keep throwing things we're gonna leave!" Jeers rang out, but by the end of the third song, You're Crazy, the barrage was over. Guns N' Roses had passed the test.

The Cult's singer, Ian Astbury, was so impressed that he went backstage after the show to invite the band to tour with his band in America. But Ashbury's enthusiasm wasn't shared by Sounds writer Andy Hurt. When Axl saw Hurt's review of the gig, in which his singing was likened to the squealing of a hamster with its balls trapped in a door, he was livid and led the whole band to the Sound's office in Mornington Crescent, north London. "Andy Hurt?" he raged. "He fucking will be if I find him!" But the reviewer was absent, so Axl contended himself with a warning note left with another member of the staff [...]
[20 Years of Appetite, Classic Rock Magazine, JUly 2007]
Soulmonster
Soulmonster
Band Lawyer

Admin & Founder
Posts : 15699
Plectra : 76206
Reputation : 831
Join date : 2010-07-06

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Soulmonster Mon Nov 24, 2014 8:23 am

Review from Xavier Russel:

Sleaze comes to London in the form of Smog Angeles' latest exponents of 'Fashion-Made Hard Rock'- Lines n' Noses (whoops, sorry, I mean Guns N' Roses).

Believe me readers, I'd been looking forward to this gig for a long time, having already been mightily impressed with the lads' Live ?I*@ Like A Suicide EP. I was sure that this show wuz gonna be a real smoker, but - shock-horror-it ended up being a bit of a, dare I say it, CHOKER!

So where did the band go wrong? Well, as they used to say on that old Colt 45 commercial, and I quote, 'Never bolt a Colt'. And that's exactly what happened here in The Marquee tonight - Guns N' Roses blew it, pure and simple.

Some punters down the front obviously saw through the bullshit that was spewing forth and proceeded to spit and throw the odd can of beer at lead singer W. Axl Rose, who returned the compliment by saying, "Fuck you, pussy".

He really did look well and truly pissed off, and this incident ended up putting a downer on the show as a whole.

On the plus side Guns N' Roses do write good time rockin' toons, it's just a pity they all sound like Aerosmith outtakes mixed in with the odd hint of Rose Tattoo. Hell, I'm not complaining, I love both those bands, but did Guns N' Roses really need to do a cover version of the Aerosmith classic Mama Kin? I think not.

The 'best number of the night award' went to the brilliant It's So Easy, which just reeked of the Lightning Raiders (RIP), who were playing this sorta music back in the late 70s.

It has to be said that I left The Marquee in a very confused state, coz here was a band that has just made a truly wonderful album, the up and coming Appetite For Destruction, which I love, yet at the same time it's sad they just couldn't reproduce that rawness live. I blame it on those beer cans that were hurled at Axl!
Source: http://classicrock.teamrock.com/reviews/1987-06-19/guns-n-roses-review-of-their-first-ever-uk-show
Soulmonster
Soulmonster
Band Lawyer

Admin & Founder
Posts : 15699
Plectra : 76206
Reputation : 831
Join date : 2010-07-06

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Soulmonster Wed Nov 14, 2018 10:04 pm

Picture of the review above, from Kerrang! July 9-22, 1987.

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England V18UU1anS588FWTRLuQL+20181114_220153
Soulmonster
Soulmonster
Band Lawyer

Admin & Founder
Posts : 15699
Plectra : 76206
Reputation : 831
Join date : 2010-07-06

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Blackstar Thu Dec 06, 2018 10:07 pm

Review by Steve Sutherland, probably in NME:
1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England G5maRh2E_o

SHOOT IT UP

GUNS 'N' ROSES
Marquee, London

THEY referred to gals as "chicks" so, of course, they deserve to die like dogs but there was enough about the stalking swagger and grinning sweat of Guns 'n' Roses during their London debut to convince that their tiny controversy hasn't all been hype.

They're alien, they can all hang a fag like Bogart, sheet-metal screecher Axel Rose has affected a rather winning neanderthal lumber, they're more tattoo than flesh and, if there are DEGREES of sexism, theirs is marginally less absurd than their lingering forebears considering their lithe absence of beer guts, beards and wrinkles. At least in reclaiming heavy rock from the bottle and male menopause and reintroducing it to dizzy youth and dust, you can imagine Guns 'n' Roses actually doing all the screwing their songs claim - something Ozzy or Coverdale can doubtless barely REMEMBER.

Indeed, it may well have been the female following - steeped, it seems, in some groupie fantasy circa '74 judging by the predominance of lurex slacks, fake leather, panda eyeliner and perfect curls that so disturbed the porcine HM contingent herded near the back muttering that "the Yankee crap" wasn't heavy enough.

Others, evidently, were disappointed by what they claimed was a lack of glamour and there was much bemoaning poor Hanoi Rocks who, apparently, did it bolder and better and far more beautiful a few years back. But that's Guns 'n' Roses' sole trump card - their timing is immaculate so the look and action and sound (weak AC/DC) may be the same but the era is generous not to insist their every gesture be pickled in irony.

Certainly Guns 'n' Roses aren't an explosion in the quarry of rock but neither are they a chip off the old block - they appear to follow instinct rather than tradition or style and that such throwbacks have been thrown up at the forefront in '87 isn't so surprising since the upsurge of extreme black music has deemed the current pop currency be loud and proud and egocentric.

But, for all their noise, when the static dissipates, nothing granite remains. All their stuff, even the single, "It's So Easy", lacks anything monumental - a hook or riff or, dammit, a SONG - though "Night Train" almost got by on Stonesy bluster alone.

Significant, then, that Guns 'n' Roses’ best received number all night was Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door". But more significant still was surely the fact that the Marquee crowd largely loathed them. They must be doing SOMETHING right.

STEVE SUTHERLAND
Blackstar
Blackstar
ADMIN

Posts : 13082
Plectra : 85501
Reputation : 97
Join date : 2018-03-17

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Blackstar Thu Dec 06, 2018 10:16 pm

Steve Sutherland, the writer of the above review of the Marquee gig, remembered its aftermath in his 2005 review of the Greatest Hits album:

Steve Sutherland wrote:
Guns N' Roses : Greatest Hits
Score (41/2/5 stars)

This shit still sounds hot today...

The last thing I loved about Guns N' Roses was their music. On the contrary, I gave their UK debut at the old Marquee a right slagging back in June ”87; said they were silly, dumb throwbacks.

As a consequence, I received a phonecall from the singer, Axl Rose. He said the band were on the way to the airport in a cab and he wondered if I’d be in the office so they could swing right by and FUCKING SORT ME OUT!! Needless to say, I had a pressing engagement elsewhere but I had to admire their balls.

[...]

https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/reviews-nme-7348#pKIcIId8oRI74D0e.99


Last edited by Blackstar on Sat Dec 08, 2018 11:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
Blackstar
Blackstar
ADMIN

Posts : 13082
Plectra : 85501
Reputation : 97
Join date : 2018-03-17

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Misfit79 Sat Dec 08, 2018 11:17 pm

They were really not welcomed in England at first, were they? They came back a few months later and were better received, I think.
Funny how they seem to pin the start of their success here but the reviews are terrible!
Misfit79
Misfit79
 
 

Posts : 34
Plectra : 2248
Reputation : 8
Join date : 2018-07-19

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Soulmonster Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:30 am

Misfit79 wrote:They were really not welcomed in England at first, were they? They came back a few months later and were better received, I think.
Funny how they seem to pin the start of their success here but the reviews are terrible!



From my history writing:

The EP 'Live! Like a Suicide' was released in December 1986 without causing much of a stir except for in England where it gained some cult popularity. Kerrang! magazine even sent a photographer to Los Angeles to shoot the band for a cover article in early 1987 (The interview was released in June 1987).

Six months after the release of the EP, in June 1987, and still without having released their debut record, the band travelled to London for three shows at the Marquee. Originally this was intended as only one gig, but the first show sold out quickly, so another was added, and a third.

The first show on June 19 was not met with good reviews. Andy Hurt, writing for The Sounds, likened Axl's singing to "the squealing of a hamster with its balls trapped in a door." According to Classic Rock Magazine, "[Axl] was livid and led the whole band to the Sound's office in Mornington Crescent, north London. 'Andy Hurt?' he raged. 'He fucking will be if I find him!' But the reviewer was absent, so Axl contended himself with a warning note left with another member of the staff [Classic Rock Magazine, July 2007]. The two following shows did a lot better.

Duff: "The gigs were great. We played three gigs at the Marquee and they were all sold out. Kids line up at three in the afternoon, like two streets down. We'd walk up and all these kids knew who we were just by sight. There's really no rock n' roll over there, so we got there and the kids were just waiting and waiting. All the old Hanoi Rocks fans. There's the fans there, but there's just no bands. The kids are looking for a band they can all cling on to" [Endless Party Magazine, August 1987].

One of the clubs they visited in London was the legendary Limelight (the band would later play an acoustic gig at its sister club in New York on January 31, 1988). At this club it was reported that Slash got in a fight with Cobalt Stargazer, the singer of Zodiac Mindwarp, when he hit on his girlfriend, but Duff would later claim it was just exaggerated in the press (Endless Party Magazine, August 1987). They would also party with Lemmy from Motorhead [Endless Party Magazine, August 1987].

EDIT: Here is the section: https://www.a-4-d.com/t2847p30-the-history-of-guns-n-roses-in-their-own-words#11285
Soulmonster
Soulmonster
Band Lawyer

Admin & Founder
Posts : 15699
Plectra : 76206
Reputation : 831
Join date : 2010-07-06

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Blackstar Thu Jul 04, 2019 7:29 am

The infamous review by Andy Hurt in Sounds Magazine, June 27, 1987:

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England 1987_020
NEW BALLS PLEASE!
 
GUNS N’ ROSES
Soho Marquee

 
AND? OK, so I know Guns N’ Roses have been knocking around L.A. for years, but I’d been expecting something, well, new. But both musically and visually, they’re a hybrid of the softer periphery of heavy metal and the fag-in-mouth bar boogie of the Georgia Satellites and their ilk.
 
The twin guitars fire up, and the who-can-look-most-like Peter Frampton contest is on. There’s no denying that there’s an abundance of vitality onstage which rapidly infects the audience and a couple of metaloid colleagues among the congregation are totally impressed. But to my ears and eyes, this lot are expending their energy by running on the spot, taking leaves out of numerous other bands’ books without ever worrying too much about the quality of the material, which is consistently alright.
 
My main problem is with the singer. Yes, he does bob and weave like any self-respecting frontman should, and he has the Farrah Fawcett hair and the tattoos and the bad language, but that voice drives me up the bleeding wall.
 
If a six foot-tall hamster masquerading as a GI had the misfortune to be captured by the Vietcong and subjected to the dastardliest of tweaks and prods, it should emit noises similar to those made by Axl. His voice is the voice of Bon Scott with one terrified bollock stuck on the plane, too petrified to take the freefall into the scrotum below.
 
According to Axl, the set progresses from ‘Eek’ (a lively enough rocker) via the Bo Diddleyish ‘Eek Eek’ through to their best and penultimate song of the set, ‘Eeeeeeeek’.
 
18 hours earlier I’d been watching Spinal Tap on TV, and evidently so had the drummer, for at the end of each song he’d leap up from his stool and point a drumstick at the audience. Rock ‘n’ roll! Sadly, though, they played no selections from ‘Sniff The Glove’.
 
It would not be fair to say that Guns N’ Roses have no bollocks, as this is just not the case – they do have one.
 
ANDY HURT
 
***

Caption: GUNS N’ ROSES Axl heavy metal hamster
(Source: Un Día Como Hoy on facebook)
Blackstar
Blackstar
ADMIN

Posts : 13082
Plectra : 85501
Reputation : 97
Join date : 2018-03-17

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Blackstar Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:26 am

Blackstar wrote:Review by Steve Sutherland, probably in NME:
1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England G5maRh2E_o
SHOOT IT UP

GUNS 'N' ROSES
Marquee, London

THEY referred to gals as "chicks" so, of course, they deserve to die like dogs but there was enough about the stalking swagger and grinning sweat of Guns 'n' Roses during their London debut to convince that their tiny controversy hasn't all been hype.

They're alien, they can all hang a fag like Bogart, sheet-metal screecher Axel Rose has affected a rather winning neanderthal lumber, they're more tattoo than flesh and, if there are DEGREES of sexism, theirs is marginally less absurd than their lingering forebears considering their lithe absence of beer guts, beards and wrinkles. At least in reclaiming heavy rock from the bottle and male menopause and reintroducing it to dizzy youth and dust, you can imagine Guns 'n' Roses actually doing all the screwing their songs claim - something Ozzy or Coverdale can doubtless barely REMEMBER.

Indeed,  it may well have been the female following - steeped, it seems, in some groupie fantasy circa '74 judging by the predominance of lurex slacks, fake leather, panda eyeliner and perfect curls that so disturbed the porcine HM contingent herded near the back muttering that "the Yankee crap" wasn't heavy enough.

Others, evidently, were disappointed by what they claimed was a lack of glamour and there was much bemoaning poor Hanoi Rocks who, apparently, did it bolder and better and far more beautiful a few years back. But that's Guns 'n' Roses' sole trump card - their timing is immaculate so the look and action and sound (weak AC/DC) may be the same but the era is generous not to insist their every gesture be pickled in irony.

Certainly Guns 'n' Roses aren't an explosion in the quarry of rock but neither are they a chip off the old block - they appear to follow instinct rather than tradition or style and that such throwbacks have been thrown up at the forefront in '87 isn't so surprising since the upsurge of extreme black music has deemed the current pop currency be loud and proud and egocentric.

But, for all their noise, when the static dissipates, nothing granite remains. All their stuff, even the single, "It's So Easy", lacks anything monumental - a hook or riff or, dammit, a SONG  - though "Night Train" almost got by on Stonesy bluster alone.

Significant, then, that Guns 'n' Roses’ best received number all night was Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door". But more significant still was surely the fact that the Marquee crowd largely loathed them. They must be doing SOMETHING right.

STEVE SUTHERLAND
According to the magazine "The History of Rock: From the archives of NME and Melody Maker", which reprinted this review in its issue dedicated to the year 1987 (released in 2017), the Steve Sutherland review was originally published in Melody Maker on June 27, 1987.

Here is the reprinted review in the "History of Rock":

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England 1987_035
Blackstar
Blackstar
ADMIN

Posts : 13082
Plectra : 85501
Reputation : 97
Join date : 2018-03-17

Back to top Go down

1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England Empty Re: 1987.06.19 - The Marquee, London, England

Post by Sponsored content


Sponsored content


Back to top Go down

Back to top

- Similar topics

 
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum