What Was The Big Attraction to Guns 'N' Roses.

[AFD5]

I remember there being a tiny article in Kerrang about this new band from America were to play a handful of dates in England one of the being Newcastle Upon Tyne were I lived. There was a small pic of the band to go with the article on the pick Axl had wrote "Fuck " on his jeans. Apparently they had an attitude & we're great live this intrigued me a bit like The Sex Pistols so with that in mind I decided I go and see them. I knew I wouldn't need to buy a ticket in advance so I turned up it was a miserable wet Sunday night tickets were £5 I paid my money & was told it's downstairs only the balcony my favourite vantage point was closed as there was roughly about 1,000 people there. I saw the t shirt they were selling it looked cool as fuck it was what we now know as the AFD cross with 6 tour dates on the back I bought on of those & went into the hall.The support band were on Faster Pussycat & seemed to be doing ok but there was anticipation in the air. A lot of us in the hall had seen a lot of rock legends play here what would these young guns be like very few people in the room had heard them let alone seen them. The names as well it seemed like the guy on the drums had a proper name Steven. Anyway the came on stage & we're given a decent reception they launched into Its So Easy & you could tell they were rough around the edges but you could tell they were special nobody saw Slash's face that night it was just this mass of curls with a top hat playing a guitar. There was a blonde Sid Vicious wannabe on bass we later found out he was called Duff. The other guitarist looked like an extra from The Rolling Stones. The drummer Steven was all blonde hair & arms but kept perfect time. Then this guy on the vocals he was really good he had a fantastic range as well as looking cool as fuck with his bandana & tattoos his name W. Axl Rose that was it I was hooked I went out the following day & bought AFD my hair was very long I started wearing a bandana & after Donington in 1988 I got the AFD cross tattooed on my right fore arm the rest is history so what about you guys.

this HTML class. Value is https://m.youtube.co Wow I've just found this that same show Newcastle City Hall 1987 it's audio only but I can't say how happy I am to have found it. This is were I got on the role coaster guys it's been a he'll of a ride so far.

[BlueJean Baby]

I remember the first time I saw them on MTV and I was just transfixed on the TV screen. I have always had this major rebellious side and the music was something I could relate to. Not to mention I have always been drawn to the bad boys...lol. My ex hated GNR and he would get so mad at me when I would crank up the volume whenever I heard it...it just made me feel happy and so alive. Once I started loving GNR, I never stopped. It has gotten me through all the tough times in my life. 

[BlueJean Baby]

What happened here?? There are two of these threads??

[AFD5]

Double post I'm hoping mods can delete one I've tried it won't let me 

[wasted]

I had 3 or 4 tapes. I had Madonna's Like a Prayer, the S'Express album, Roachford's debut. I liked Roachford the most so I got Hysteria by Def Leappard. I liked that more. Women! whoah! Rocket! Woah! Then I got AFD. The next day I was smoking marlboros and binge drinking like a professional. 

[tsinindy]

1 hour ago, BlueJean Baby said:

I remember the first time I saw them on MTV and I was just transfixed on the TV screen. I have always had this major rebellious side and the music was something I could relate to. Not to mention I have always been drawn to the bad boys...lol. My ex hated GNR and he would get so mad at me when I would crank up the volume whenever I heard it...it just made me feel happy and so alive. Once I started loving GNR, I never stopped. It has gotten me through all the tough times in my life. 

Pretty much exactly this

[BlueJean Baby]

3 minutes ago, tsinindy said:

Pretty much exactly this

Out of likes 

[-W.A.R-]

the solo on SCOM blew me away....just loved the how it sounded like the guitar was whining as if somebody was putting their heart and soul into playing it.

that made me check out AFD and i was hooked after Nightrain.

[DIST]

GNR 85-93

1) the music : raw,real,epic.

2) the live shows : attitude, surreal performance mainly by Axl and slash.

[Dan H.]

Careful OP, mentioning the Pistols even once is how we summon the Len around here

[Len Cnut]

You rang?

But yeah, in answer to the question cuz they swore and looked cool and the songs weren't like the pop charts.  I was 8 or 9 when i first got into GnR, my reasons weren't very adult.  Seeing the inside cover with all these stringey haired herberts with bottles of booze and smoking fags pretty much did the trick.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Len Cnut

[ZoSoRose]

14 minutes ago, Dan H. said:

Careful OP, mentioning the Pistols even once is how we summon the Len around here

 

9 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

You rang?

But yeah, in answer to the question cuz they swore and looked cool and the songs weren't like the pop charts.  I was 8 or 9 when i first got into GnR, my reasons weren't very adult.  Seeing the inside cover with all these stringey haired herberts with bottles of booze and smoking fags pretty much did the trick.

Lol

[ZoSoRose]

7 hours ago, AFD5 said:

I remember there being a tiny article in Kerrang about this new band from America were to play a handful of dates in England one of the being Newcastle Upon Tyne were I lived. There was a small pic of the band to go with the article on the pick Axl had wrote "Fuck " on his jeans. Apparently they had an attitude & we're great live this intrigued me a bit like The Sex Pistols so with that in mind I decided I go and see them. I knew I wouldn't need to buy a ticket in advance so I turned up it was a miserable wet Sunday night tickets were £5 I paid my money & was told it's downstairs only the balcony my favourite vantage point was closed as there was roughly about 1,000 people there. I saw the t shirt they were selling it looked cool as fuck it was what we now know as the AFD cross with 6 tour dates on the back I bought on of those & went into the hall.The support band were on Faster Pussycat & seemed to be doing ok but there was anticipation in the air. A lot of us in the hall had seen a lot of rock legends play here what would these young guns be like very few people in the room had heard them let alone seen them. The names as well it seemed like the guy on the drums had a proper name Steven. Anyway the came on stage & we're given a decent reception they launched into Its So Easy & you could tell they were rough around the edges but you could tell they were special nobody saw Slash's face that night it was just this mass of curls with a top hat playing a guitar. There was a blonde Sid Vicious wannabe on bass we later found out he was called Duff. The other guitarist looked like an extra from The Rolling Stones. The drummer Steven was all blonde hair & arms but kept perfect time. Then this guy on the vocals he was really good he had a fantastic range as well as looking cool as fuck with his bandana & tattoos his name W. Axl Rose that was it I was hooked I went out the following day & bought AFD my hair was very long I started wearing a bandana & after Donington in 1988 I got the AFD cross tattooed on my right fore arm the rest is history so what about you guys.

this HTML class. Value is https://m.youtube.co Wow I've just found this that same show Newcastle City Hall 1987 it's audio only but I can't say how happy I am to have found it. This is were I got on the role coaster guys it's been a he'll of a ride so far.

Badass story

[Nightrain92]

I remember it was summer I was seventeen and was listening to the radio when I heard welcome to the jungle on it...  I was blown away by the singer's voice and the riff of the song!! Then I checked the video on YouTube and was impressed by slash's look, his top hat and the fact that you can't see his face... they were all so badass!!! I fell in love with them immediately and listened to all their songs and for the first time in my life found a band which I liked almost all the songs! I'm a fan since then and I would never imagine this reunion so when it happened I was so happy because my biggest dream was to see Axl and Slash on the same stage at least once in my life and I'm gonna see it this summer hopefully

[Italian girl]

AFD was and still is a bomb!!!!!

[axlsend]

Went to the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert to say goodbye to Freddie and was blown away by Guns n Roses and Axl/Elton. They were the best on the day although everyone was excellent.

[Silverburst80]

1987 i was 6 years old in my friends pool and his older brother put AFD on, WTTJ starts and when that comes on you knew straight away something cool was about to happen so the music was the number 1 attraction. Apart from that they looked cool, fucked everything in sight, took an obscene amount of drugs,got in fights and started riots...what's not to love really. Won't be anything like them ever again.

[Len Cnut]

5 minutes ago, Silverburst80 said:

1987 i was 6 years old in my friends pool and his older brother put AFD on, WTTJ starts and when that comes on you knew straight away something cool was about to happen so the music was the number 1 attraction. Apart from that they looked cool, fucked everything in sight, took an obscene amount of drugs,got in fights and started riots...what's not to love really. Won't be anything like them ever again.

You'd be suprised mate, there's been worse than them since, look at The Wu Tang Clan, they were a bunch of dust smokin' five percenters that shagged their way through entire townships, done a ridiculous amount of drugs, made some genre changing albums, frequently got arrested, were investigated by the FBI over some serious shit.  In a rock band context I don't think there will be but only because of the music being outdated now.  But a great many celebrities do a lot of drugs and shaggin' these days, even your the most soft looking poppy ones.

To me the look and the attitude was the hook, it was a happy accident that the music was amazing and set me on a pretty good path in terms of where my taste went after but at 8 yrs old it was their being a bunch of wrong uns that drew me in.  I'm thankful too, imagine if I'd've gotten into Crue cuz of the look and ended up being into shite music.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Len Cnut

[Silverburst80]

26 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

You'd be suprised mate, there's been worse than them since, look at The Wu Tang Clan, they were a bunch of dust smokin' five percenters that shagged their way through entire townships, done a ridiculous amount of drugs, made some genre changing albums, frequently got arrested, were investigated by the FBI over some serious shit.  In a rock band context I don't think there will be but only because of the music being outdated now.  But a great many celebrities do a lot of drugs and shaggin' these days, even your the most soft looking poppy ones.

Yeah i do mean specifically a rock band, and rock can still make an impact i think. There's band's over the last decade or so that have gotten big and got the radio play (Kings of Leon, White Strips, Artic Monkey's etc) but perhaps that lack hat little bit of excitement to them that the older bands had that people were drawn too and probably drew in people who weren't really rock fans. I'm sure plenty of celebs/pop stars are partying hard but not many are dying in front of an elevator like Slash, slipping into a coma for 96 hours from downing a whole stash of drugs like Izzy or just being Steven Adler in general haha.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Silverburst80

[Len Cnut]

1 minute ago, Silverburst80 said:

Yeah i do mean specifically a rock band, and rock can still make an impact. There's band's over the last decade or so that have gotten big and got the radio play (Kings of Leon, White Strips, Artic Monkey's etc) but perhaps that lack hat little bit of excitement to them that the older bands had that people were drawn too and probably drew in people who weren't really rock fans. I'm sure plenty of celebs/pop stars are partying hard but not many are dying in front of an elevator like Slash, slipping into a coma for 96 hours from downing a whole stash of drugs like Izzy or just being Steven Adler in general haha.

I think Arctic Monkeys were REALLY onto something with their first song and then they sorted of went off into more typical rock n roll, it was kinda like...weird.  Like they discovered the new thing then fucked it off.  I mean it was guitar based, it had a danceable groove, was sort of minimalist but didn't sound too much like punk and the dance aspect didn't sound too Madchester, it was brilliant, they seemed really on the verge of something...and the subject matter, a sort of cynical look at working class club going Saturday night thing, REALLY appealed to me.  I guess it was that bassline.  They just sort of fucked it all up after that.

Sorry, went off topic there, didn't I?

[J Dog]

Cool look. Great debut. Bunch of good songs. Attitude. And the fact that at the time rock music was filled with a bunch of soft, super commercial bands helped too.

Edited January 14, 2017 by J Dog

[Silverburst80]

19 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

I think Arctic Monkeys were REALLY onto something with their first song and then they sorted of went off into more typical rock n roll, it was kinda like...weird.  Like they discovered the new thing then fucked it off.  I mean it was guitar based, it had a danceable groove, was sort of minimalist but didn't sound too much like punk and the dance aspect didn't sound too Madchester, it was brilliant, they seemed really on the verge of something...and the subject matter, a sort of cynical look at working class club going Saturday night thing, REALLY appealed to me.  I guess it was that bassline.  They just sort of fucked it all up after that.

Sorry, went off topic there, didn't I?

Yes Len, you been smoking hehe?

Yeah i'm not the biggest fan but i've gotta say Alex Turner does have a way with words, great lyricist. I don't know i guess i like to see my rock n rollers in news for all the wrong reasons and that seems lacking in most new bands.

[Len Cnut]

3 minutes ago, Silverburst80 said:

Yes Len, you been smoking hehe?

Yeah i'm not the biggest fan but i've gotta say Alex Turner does have a way with words, great lyricist. I don't know i guess i like to see my rock n rollers in news for all the wrong reasons and that seems lacking in most new bands.

I think way too much has changed in music and the way it is made to see much of that again.  I mean a lot of the reason those guys started on drugs was as a physical necessity from doing crazy tours with like, two performances a day, it begins with taking ups and goes from there, no one even works that hard today and the people that are into drugs get into em before they get into music anyway.  

[Apollo]

4 hours ago, Silverburst80 said:

Yeah i do mean specifically a rock band, and rock can still make an impact i think. There's band's over the last decade or so that have gotten big and got the radio play (Kings of Leon, White Strips, Artic Monkey's etc) but perhaps that lack hat little bit of excitement to them that the older bands had that people were drawn too and probably drew in people who weren't really rock fans. I'm sure plenty of celebs/pop stars are partying hard but not many are dying in front of an elevator like Slash, slipping into a coma for 96 hours from downing a whole stash of drugs like Izzy or just being Steven Adler in general haha.

It's a generational thing, really. 

When we were teens and early 20s we thought all that extra stuff was cool and badass. But as an adult, is it really cool to get in fist fights, overdose on drugs or start riots? At 18 we support that - at 38 you see how ridiculous it is. 

There are plenty of fighting and riots and drug use out there by bands. When Kayne starts a riot or mouths off - we say he is an arrogant prick with no talent. When Chris Brown beats up his GF or has the helicopters raising his home because he might have hostages - we say he is a thug who needs to go to jail. When Wess Scanlon (his band name escapes me) has a couple public drug related incidences  - we say he is a loser junkie who needs to retire and go away. 

What do you say if you catch your neighbor selling heroin to your local high school kids? Do you say he is cool AF like we say Izzy was? 

We condemn musicians today that are doing the same things we praise GnR for doing. 

If Kayne west or the guy from limp bisquit played four songs, then went on a ten minute rant bashing other musicians, then complained about his guitar player being too high to play, then he jumped in the audience and punched a fan.....then he walked off the stage, causing a huge riot to break out that caused millions of dollars of damage. Would anybody on this forum be on here saying what a BADASS Kayne or Fred were? Axl does it and he's our hero. Kayne West does it and we hate him. 

Edited January 14, 2017 by Apollo

[tobymcclure]

nirvana turned me onto rock music during my early teens,, the real awkward, lonely phase of adolescence,,,, later on in my teens i started experimenting with alcohol and drugs and chasing women and Guns n Roses were the soundtrack to my life from then on....!! especially Appetite!  im 30 now,,, have some resentments in life,, have had one great heartbreak and feel angry and let down by alot of people,,,,,,,,,, so chinese democracy is the GnR album that speaks to be most in adulthood,... i admire Axl Rose for always being himself,, something ive not always been myself and i admire Duff and Slash for their recovery from addiction as im a recovering alcoholic myself! Guns and Roses tied into my life on every level.....