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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

1985.06.08 - Rock Theatre at the Gorilla Gardens, Seattle, USA

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1985.06.08 - Rock Theatre at the Gorilla Gardens, Seattle, USA Empty 1985.06.08 - Rock Theatre at the Gorilla Gardens, Seattle, USA

Post by Soulmonster Mon 5 Sep 2011 - 19:44


June 8, 1985 - Rock Theatre at the Gorilla Gardens, Seattle, USA
Date:
June 08, 1985 [perhaps June 12, 1985, see discussion below].

Venue:
Rock Theatre at the Gorilla Gardens.

Location:
Seattle, USA.

Setlist:
01. Reckless Life
02. Shadow of Your Love
03. Move to the City
04. Anything Goes
05. Jumpin' Jack Fash
06. Heartbreak Hotel.

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

Flyer:
1985.06.08 - Rock Theatre at the Gorilla Gardens, Seattle, USA 19850608flyer

____________________________________________________________________

Notes:
The famous Hell Tour that resulted in only one show.

Quotes:
After two fuckin' days in the desert a guy in a semi picked us up. Finally we made it to Seattle. We played. There were ten, maybe twenty people there. We didn't get paid. Finally we had to steal another car to drive back to L.A. again [The Face - "The Daze of Guns N' Roses", January, 1990]
The club was called Gorilla Gardens, which was the epitome of a punk-rock shit hole: it was dank and dirty and smelled of stale beer. [...] We just got up and did our set and the crowd was neither hostile nor gracious. [...] That night we were a raw interpretation of what the band was: once the nervous energy subsides, at least for me, we'd reached the end of the set. That said, we had a very small number of train wrecks in the arrangements, and all in all the gig was pretty good [Slash's autobiography, page 106]
Boy, what a road trip for our very first one! But the crowd response was good and that's when we really took off. We were doing a little bit of everything -- Elvis Presley tunes, blues, you name it! We didn't give a damn about anyone or anything. We just wanted to play. [Interview with Izzy, 1991]
[...] our gear hadn't arrived when we played the show on Wednesday night at Gorilla Garden. We were sloppy on borrowed gear, though on the plus side only about a dozen people were subjected to our set [Duff's autobiography, "It's So Easy", 2011, p. 78]
[...]and took us to the Gorilla Gardens, the filthy dive bar where we were to do the show that night. When we got there, we walked right onto the stage, and just in the nick of time. We didn't have time to grab a beer, smoke a joint, or put on makeup. Although we were still at the stage where we'd tease our hair up to God and slap on the eye shadow, heavy eyeliner, and lipstick for our stage performances, there just wasn't a moment to spare. [...] Most fortunately, we were able to use th previous band's equipment. We just went on, jacked in, and played our songs. [...] And although we didn't exactly bring down the house, we got decent applause and were all smiles after the show, feeling that for the most part, it went over pretty well [Steven's autobiography, "Appetite for Destruction", 2010, p. 80]
____________________________________________________________________
1985.06.08 - Rock Theatre at the Gorilla Gardens, Seattle, USA Rightarrow Next concert: 1985.06.28.
1985.06.08 - Rock Theatre at the Gorilla Gardens, Seattle, USA Leftarrow Previous concert: 1985.06.06.


Last edited by Soulmonster on Mon 21 Jun 2021 - 12:33; edited 13 times in total
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Post by Soulmonster Mon 16 Jan 2012 - 18:40

Review from http://voices.yahoo.com/guns-n-roses-early-days-1985-hell-tour-seattle-7181166.html:

I love to see great up-and-coming rock bands play live in a small club, up close and personal, before they get huge and only play arenas and stadiums. On June 8th of 1985 I witnessed the band Guns N' Roses play in Seattle, Washington at a small rock club called the Gorilla Gardens. It was Guns N' Roses first show in Seattle, their first official "tour" (albeit a short one), and just their second show with the classic line up of Axl Rose, Duff McKagen, Steven Adler, Izzy Sradlin, and Slash. According to the book Watch You Bleed: the Saga of Guns N' Roses, original guitarist Tracii Guns and the original drummer quit the band just three days before they were set to embark on this short jaunt to Seattle, but they got Slash and Steven Adler (who had been trying to put together a band of their own at the time) to replace them.

Duff McKagen was a well known Seattle rock musician back in the day before he relocated to California to make it big. He was an active musician in the Seattle underground punk rock scene and had played drums or guitar for countless Seattle punk rock bands in the early 1980s, bands such as the Fastbacks, Cannibal, the Fartz, Ten Minute Warning, and scores more. At the same time I myself was a budding punk rocker just getting into the scene and looking to join my first punk rock band as a bass player. I first met Duff when I auditioned for his band Ten Minute Warning (I didn't get the gig) and would see him at all the punk rock shows and parties. In 1984 or so Duff made the move down to Los Angeles to get into the L.A. music scene and that, of course, is when rock history was made and he joined up with Guns N' Roses.

I remember seeing fliers posted around Seattle advertising the Guns N' Roses show at the Gorilla Gardens. The flier said "GUNS AND ROSES... FEATURING EX-TEN MINUTE WARNING MEMBER DUFF McKAGEN.... WITH THE FASTBACKS...SAT. JUNE 8...ROCK THEATER." The Gorilla Gardens was a pretty cool all ages rock club located in the Chinatown district of Seattle. It was a decent sized venue which featured two show rooms. One, the Omni Room, was where they had the punk rock bands play. The other room, the Rock Theater (the room in which GNR played) was where the heavy metal bands played. On weekend nights when there were shows going on in both rooms there used to be fights outside the club between the punk rockers and the heavy metalers, as back then they did not get along so well. My own band played the Gorilla Gardens several times and it was a big part of the scene in 1985 as there were not too many other places at the time where punk rock bands could play.

According to the book Watch You Bleed: the Saga of Guns N' Roses, the members of Guns N" Roses made the trip up to Seattle in one vehicle while roadies drove their gear up in a second vehicle. Unfortunately, both vehicles broke down on the way and Guns N' Rose had to hitch hike the rest of the way to Seattle only to find out their gear did not make it. Seattle band the Fastbacks were also on the bill so Guns N" Roses used their drums and amps for the night.

I went to the show with my girl friend and my room mate Slats (who was a good friend of Duff's and a local punk rock musician/character). While the opening bands played we drank in the bar next door to the club but made our way into the Rock Theater in time to see Guns N' Roses play. I've read in books and on other websites that only 10-20 people attended the show, but as I recall the crowd was maybe 20-30 people in attendance. It was a much smaller crowd then expected, after all -- this was Duff's first show with his new band from L.A. and he did have a lot of friends in Seattle.

All I really remember about the Guns N" Rose show at the Gorilla Gardens (besides the smallish crowd) was that Duff was wearing some sort of Japanese kimono (which looked pretty cool) and paced back and forth near the drum set while playing his bass. I recall one of the guitar players was wearing a black top hat (must have been Slash) and one resembled Johnny Thunders (must have been Izzy). The singer (Axl Rose, of course) looked to me like Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, with the same long, straight hair. My impression of Axl was that he was trying to be Bruce Dickinson, actually. We watched the entire set a mere ten feet in front of the stage and got a good look and listen to this band who would, just a short time later, become the hugest rock band in America. To tell the truth, I do not recall which songs they played that night except that I believe they played an Aerosmith cover or two. None of the songs really stood out to me that much, but they seemed to play okay and definitely had the "rock star" look down. Most of our friends who attended the show did not seem to be too impressed, but it was still a fun show.

After the show was over, we drove back home to our house on Capital Hill only to find 20-30 people (pretty much everyone from the show) standing on our front lawn. Apparently, my room mate told a few people at the show we were having a party that night and everyone showed up, including the members of Guns N' Roses. The lease was in my name and the landlords lived right next door (they hated us and kicked us out after our six month lease expired) but what the heck... we let the punk rockers in and cranked up some music and drank some beers.

I played DJay and cranked some punk rock music while our guests partied down. The party didn't last too long, however. A fight broke out in the living room and then spilled outside to the front yard. People were yelling a and screaming. Some crazy punk rocker had a gun and started firing shots into the air while the fight continued. Soon the police showed up in force responding to reports of gun shots and dispersed the crowd. I, of course, had to talk to the police and explain the situation (I told them someone lit firecrackers). The party was over.

Supposedly, Guns N' Roses was only paid $50 for their show in Seattle (they were supposed to get $300) and all the other shows they had booked were canceled since they had no gear. They had to bum a ride back to Hollywood and this little "Hell Tour" of theirs was inspiration for the song "Paradise City." Take me back to the Paradise City, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty... oh, please, take me home... This was the only time I ever saw Guns N' Roses play, as the next time they played in Seattle they were huge and only played arenas.
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Post by Soulmonster Sun 22 Apr 2012 - 8:16

Cool with a gig where 4 out of 5 members have reminisced.
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Post by Shackler Sat 19 Jun 2021 - 12:27

To clear up some of the venue confusion, Gorilla Gardens was an old Chinese two-screen movie theater turned into a music venue with two stages – The Omni Room and The Rock Theater, the latter being Guns N' Roses' victim this evening. The venue was located in Chinatown and is now considered the birthplace of grunge. It was founded and operated by Tony Chu, the son of an affluent Taiwanese family and the former proprietor of the Gorilla Room, a Pioneer Square punk/new wave club that operated from 1980 to 1982. Chu gained a bad reputation among Seattle underground bands based on his management style: many bands from that era have complained about not getting paid for playing at Gorilla Gardens – as was the case with GN'R.

It closed and opened up as a single-stage venue that same year in a different location until a riot ensued in November, leading to Chu being arrested and the venue closing down barely a year after it opened.
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Post by Soulmonster Mon 21 Jun 2021 - 12:34

Shackler wrote:To clear up some of the venue confusion, Gorilla Gardens was an old Chinese two-screen movie theater turned into a music venue with two stages – The Omni Room and The Rock Theater, the latter being Guns N' Roses' victim this evening. The venue was located in Chinatown and is now considered the birthplace of grunge. It was founded and operated by Tony Chu, the son of an affluent Taiwanese family and the former proprietor of the Gorilla Room, a Pioneer Square punk/new wave club that operated from 1980 to 1982. Chu gained a bad reputation among Seattle underground bands based on his management style: many bands from that era have complained about not getting paid for playing at Gorilla Gardens – as was the case with GN'R.

It closed and opened up as a single-stage venue that same year in a different location until a riot ensued in November, leading to Chu being arrested and the venue closing down barely a year after it opened.

Ah, thanks for this helpful info. The OP is updated to reflect this.
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Post by Soulmonster Tue 8 Feb 2022 - 11:00

Tomie O'Neill (soundman; RKCNDY club co-owner/comanager), would later reminisce about the show:

There were a bunch of legendary shows there [=at Gorilla Gardens]. Guns N’ Roses played in the small room. That night, we’re also havin’ a great Violent Violent Femmes show—maybe 400 or 500 people in there. And my friends were like, “Dude, you gotta go in the other room, there’s this metal band that’s just fuckin’ outta hand—and Duff ’s in it.” Duff had lived in Seattle and went, “Fuck you guys, I’m movin’ to L.A. and I’m gonna be the hugest fuckin’ rock star!” And I remember walking in the other room and goin’, “Man, these guys are fuckin’ great!"
Mark Yarm, Everybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge; September 2011
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Post by Soulmonster Tue 8 Feb 2022 - 11:01

We were horrible. We had a car with a trailer, which broke down in Bakersfield—that’s a long way from Seattle. So we hitchhiked with our guitars and used the Fastbacks’ gear. But it was great for me coming back to Seattle. That was our first real gig. Well, I think we played a gig the night before we left, at Madame Wong’s East or something, to three people. In Seattle, we played to 12. There’s been thousands that said they were at that gig, but actually there were 12, and four of them were the Fastbacks.
Mark Yarm, Everybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge; September 2011
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