1985.07.21 - UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

by **Soulmonster** Tue Sep 06, 2011 7:12 pm

July 21, 1985
UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Setlist:
01. Welcome to the Jungle
02. Move to the City
03. Jumpin' Jack Flash
04. Reckless Life
05. Think About You
06. Nice Boys
07. Back Off Bitch
08. Don't Cry
09. Mama Kin
10. Anything Goes
11. Heartbreak Hotel.

Date:
July 21, 1985.

Venue:
UCLA.

Location:
Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Line-up:
Axl Rose: Vocals.
Slash: Lead guitar.
Izzy Stradlin: Rhythm guitar and backing vocals.
Duff McKagan: Bass and backing vocals.
Steven Adler: Drums.

Notes:
Frat party that the band was asked to play with "very few hours notice" [Marc Canter, "Reckless Road", 2007].

Quotes:

I remember us playing this frat party. We played for beer and thirty bucks. I don't remember how it came about. IT was just a bizarre gig that we did and ended up having a great time cause there was a lot of beer. We were finding ourselves and finding our songs. Playing them for people under the gun helped the process of writing songs. But, we just wanted to play. We were a band. That's what we were there for.

Marc Canter, "Reckless Road", 2007

I don't know how we got that gig. Someone asked us to do it. I think the Joneses might have had something to do with that. And, you know, we just showed up. That was basically the long and the short of it. [...]
I remember that particular afternoon really well. I remember Izzy was locked in the bathroom with Desi most of the time. You know, it was just one of those kind of crazy little gigs, so we’d just do what we do and throw ourselves into situations where we were in such sharp contrast to everything going on around us. I think that's why we made such a big impression, because we were always us no matter where we were at, even in the UCLA fucking frat party (laughs).

SuicideGirls, February 29, 2008

[...] the night after we unveiled "Jungle" at the Troubadour, we played a UCLA frat house. We got $35 and free beer for that show. It was one of those spontaneous gigs - it was set up the same day we played. The students at the frat party weren't sure what to make of us and hung back a little. Axl's assless chaps may have had something to do with our tepid reception, too. Still, free beer.

Duff's autobiography, "It's So Easy (And Other Lies)", 2011, p. 98-99

Axl had big balls. And when I say that I mean of steel. To go out in a crowd like that? I can’t imagine. But Axl did it. And he did it often. He had no issues at that frat party.

Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock, Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion, 2021

Tracii Guns and Mick Cripps from L.A. Guns attended the show:

But once I left Guns N' Roses, Slash got a hold of, I believe it was a dual channel, 800 or it was a very early 900, which he asked me at the first show he did after I left with Guns N' Roses, was at a UCLA fraternity party and I was waiting for them to play, and he comes up and he goes, "Hey man, what's that amp you know that I'm playing out of?" Because he really didn't know and I kind of knew what the amp was and I go, "Well the thing about that amp is it has an extra gain stage so it's kind of like having a distortion pedal built into the amp," and I had never played one, I just recently read about. And he was like, "Everything I said about Marshall, I was wrong," because he loved that amp. And at that time, he had a Warlock. He had a Warlock with a Kalar[?] on it, this thing. And honestly, it sounded great.

The Tone King, May 29, 2021

Nickey Beat told me to go see this band Guns N’ Roses. “They just got their new guitar player, Slash, and they’re playing a frat party at UCLA.” Which was a fucking ridiculous place to play. So I go there and Axl’s walking around with his chaps on, with his ass hangin’ out. I was like, “This is hilarious!” That he had the balls to do that, right?

Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock, Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion, 2021

I remember there was this grand piano in the frat house. And Axl’s got his chaps on with nothing underneath but, like, a codpiece, and he sits down at the piano and starts playing an early version of “November Rain,” I think it was. You can just imagine all the jocks at this frat party eyeing the guy with murder in their eyes. But Axl didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t suffer fools.

Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock, Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion, 2021

Next concert: 1985.07.26 - The Seance, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Previous concert: 1985.07.20 - The Troubadour, Hollywood, CA, USA.

by **Soulmonster** Sun May 18, 2014 7:57 am

by **Soulmonster** Wed Jan 01, 2025 1:06 pm

Tracii was also attending this show (incorrectly saying it was the first with Slash), probably together with Cripps from LA Guns:

But once I left Guns N' Roses, Slash got a hold of, I believe it was a dual channel, 800 or it was a very early 900, which he asked me at the first show he did after I left with Guns N' Roses, was at a UCLA fraternity party and I was waiting for them to play, and he comes up and he goes, "Hey man, what's that amp you know that I'm playing out of?" Because he really didn't know and I kind of knew what the amp was and I go, "Well the thing about that amp is it has an extra gain stage so it's kind of like having a distortion pedal built into the amp," and I had never played one, I just recently read about. And he was like, "Everything I said about Marshall, I was wrong," because he loved that amp. And at that time, he had a Warlock. He had a Warlock with a Kalar[?] on it, this thing. And honestly, it sounded great.

The Tone King, May 29, 2021

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1985.07.21 - UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

1985.07.21 - UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

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