My First GN'R Experience (A Long Post)

[The-Jungle83]

OK, so first I will introduce myself, I was a member of this very forum many years ago... having joined out of sheer excitement that I was about to see the band for the first time ever having been a fan for so many years prior, yet never having the chance to see them - at last it was finally happening, and I'd found a forum to vent that excitement on! I lost access to that account (under a similar name) in the following years, so here I am with a new one, to vent my excitement at seeing the band again... next year.

My apologies, but this will be a long post, as I'm in a reminiscent mood and I would just like to revisit my feelings and memories of that first live experience with GNR, and what it means to me, even all these years later.

The year is 2006.
I am 22 years of age.
Long-haired and carefree.

I have just managed to secure tickets for the Chinese Democracy World Tour, the closest location to me was then known as the Metro Radio Arena, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. I secured 2 seated tickets, to the right of the stage, roughly 10 seats back, 6 rows up... the gig was months away, on the 19th July, and I could not have been any more impatient for that date to arrive. During that time in my life, I lived and breathed GNR, I listened to little else on my Sony Ericsson W810i phone, as well as on my new-fangled 8 CD hi-fi, I could regularly be found earphones in, with some kind of GNR related reading material in hand on the bus to work every morning, so to say my acquisition of tickets to actually see them was mind-alteringly exciting for me would be a huge understatement.

I went to collect the physical tickets (which I still have) from the arena's box office not long before the gig, they were black tickets, featuring the GNR CD-era logo, and that of their support act, Bullet For My Valentine ,(Sebastian Bach also supported that night, as well as joining GNR on stage if memory serves), I felt like I had a priceless artefact in my hand - I was going, finally, I WAS GOING. I met a couple of friends at a bar near the arena after picking up the tickets, and I sat there the whole night with the tickets on the table while everyone drank their drinks - in hindsight a bit OTT, but I did not want to take my eyes off the tickets, and wanted everyone to know I had them too.

Time passed, slowly... slowly... slowly...

Days felt like months, hours felt like weeks, but finally the day came.

July 19th 2006.

I was in the prime of my life, I had no worries to speak of, I had a job that I loved, and I set off for work that morning knowing I had an early finish booked in that day in order to prepare for the night's festivities... as much as I enjoyed my job, and bizarrely, the commute to it every morning, the GNR fanboy ruled that day - I was immersed in what was to come, to me nothing else mattered in the world.

I was booked in for a 3pm finish, for a gig with a door opening time of 6:00 (if I remember correctly)... and I'd forfeited my lunch break as well as exercising some flexi-time in order to get said early finish, and believe me - I was counting the hours. And then, the time came...

I logged out of my workstation, said goodbye for the day to my workmates (one of whom was also going to the night's gig) and I swaggered out of the door, into the almost blistering heat of the mid afternoon (that day would go on to become the hottest on record at the time for where I lived). I put my earphones in, and leisurely wandered through the village in which I worked, without a care in the world... and all the hope in the universe, on my way for the bus home. It was hours before, but it was time... the sun was blazing, and the song in my ears - Paradise City, never before or since has a song fitted a moment in my life so seamlessly and perfectly.

The bus moved too slowly, but at the same time just at the right speed for my relaxed mood, I was soaking up the scenery, absorbing every note and lyric in my ears, drinking everything in, and using it to fuel my excitement for everything that lay ahead that night.

The gig that went down in history as the night Axl kept us waiting for hours on end, inside an arena, on the hottest day on record in Newcastle, only to end up being bottled (or pound-coined) off stage by some moronic idiot in the middle of Nightrain... "we came here to do the show, and one of you is a f**king c*nt...".

Newcastle was deprived of Paradise City that night, but I have nothing but amazing memories of that show, and the days and hours leading up to it. I still have the tickets, the tour shirts I bought, as well as a printed card featuring a braided Axl alongside the words 'I Was There - Guns N' Roses, Metro Radio Arena 2006, these were given to us all as we filed under the bridge towards the arena stairs, I still have it all, even the red paisley bandana I wore that night.

I returned to see GNR when they played the same venue in 2012, where we got our Paradise City at the end of an epic show, and I will be at Glasgow Green next year, but I will always carry memories of that summer's day in 2006, when I felt as if, in my life... nothing else mattered.

❤ Always GNR, the soundtrack to some of the greatest times in my life. ❤

[Dean]

3 hours ago, The-Jungle83 said:

OK, so first I will introduce myself, I was a member of this very forum many years ago... having joined out of sheer excitement that I was about to see the band for the first time ever having been a fan for so many years prior, yet never having the chance to see them - at last it was finally happening, and I'd found a forum to vent that excitement on! I lost access to that account (under a similar name) in the following years, so here I am with a new one, to vent my excitement at seeing the band again... next year.

My apologies, but this will be a long post, as I'm in a reminiscent mood and I would just like to revisit my feelings and memories of that first live experience with GNR, and what it means to me, even all these years later.

The year is 2006.
I am 22 years of age.
Long-haired and carefree.

I have just managed to secure tickets for the Chinese Democracy World Tour, the closest location to me was then known as the Metro Radio Arena, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. I secured 2 seated tickets, to the right of the stage, roughly 10 seats back, 6 rows up... the gig was months away, on the 19th July, and I could not have been any more impatient for that date to arrive. During that time in my life, I lived and breathed GNR, I listened to little else on my Sony Ericsson W810i phone, as well as on my new-fangled 8 CD hi-fi, I could regularly be found earphones in, with some kind of GNR related reading material in hand on the bus to work every morning, so to say my acquisition of tickets to actually see them was mind-alteringly exciting for me would be a huge understatement.

I went to collect the physical tickets (which I still have) from the arena's box office not long before the gig, they were black tickets, featuring the GNR CD-era logo, and that of their support act, Bullet For My Valentine ,(Sebastian Bach also supported that night, as well as joining GNR on stage if memory serves), I felt like I had a priceless artefact in my hand - I was going, finally, I WAS GOING. I met a couple of friends at a bar near the arena after picking up the tickets, and I sat there the whole night with the tickets on the table while everyone drank their drinks - in hindsight a bit OTT, but I did not want to take my eyes off the tickets, and wanted everyone to know I had them too.

Time passed, slowly... slowly... slowly...

Days felt like months, hours felt like weeks, but finally the day came.

July 19th 2006.

I was in the prime of my life, I had no worries to speak of, I had a job that I loved, and I set off for work that morning knowing I had an early finish booked in that day in order to prepare for the night's festivities... as much as I enjoyed my job, and bizarrely, the commute to it every morning, the GNR fanboy ruled that day - I was immersed in what was to come, to me nothing else mattered in the world.

I was booked in for a 3pm finish, for a gig with a door opening time of 6:00 (if I remember correctly)... and I'd forfeited my lunch break as well as exercising some flexi-time in order to get said early finish, and believe me - I was counting the hours. And then, the time came...

I logged out of my workstation, said goodbye for the day to my workmates (one of whom was also going to the night's gig) and I swaggered out of the door, into the almost blistering heat of the mid afternoon (that day would go on to become the hottest on record at the time for where I lived). I put my earphones in, and leisurely wandered through the village in which I worked, without a care in the world... and all the hope in the universe, on my way for the bus home. It was hours before, but it was time... the sun was blazing, and the song in my ears - Paradise City, never before or since has a song fitted a moment in my life so seamlessly and perfectly.

The bus moved too slowly, but at the same time just at the right speed for my relaxed mood, I was soaking up the scenery, absorbing every note and lyric in my ears, drinking everything in, and using it to fuel my excitement for everything that lay ahead that night.

The gig that went down in history as the night Axl kept us waiting for hours on end, inside an arena, on the hottest day on record in Newcastle, only to end up being bottled (or pound-coined) off stage by some moronic idiot in the middle of Nightrain... "we came here to do the show, and one of you is a f**king c*nt...".

Newcastle was deprived of Paradise City that night, but I have nothing but amazing memories of that show, and the days and hours leading up to it. I still have the tickets, the tour shirts I bought, as well as a printed card featuring a braided Axl alongside the words 'I Was There - Guns N' Roses, Metro Radio Arena 2006, these were given to us all as we filed under the bridge towards the arena stairs, I still have it all, even the red paisley bandana I wore that night.

I returned to see GNR when they played the same venue in 2012, where we got our Paradise City at the end of an epic show, and I will be at Glasgow Green next year, but I will always carry memories of that summer's day in 2006, when I felt as if, in my life... nothing else mattered.

❤ Always GNR, the soundtrack to some of the greatest times in my life. ❤

Tremendous man. I believe it was rumored Axl demanded he have a Lamb dinner before he took the stage that night, at least what my two Mackem friends informed me of that chat that was doing the rounds at the time! Glasgow will be a certainty for a great evening, it was the SECC they last played in 2012, which is probably still my favourite concert from the 8 I've been to, but definitely looking forward to seeing them in Glasgow Green.

[AppetiteForDestruction]

I lost my virginity to GNRs music oops. 

Edited August 12, 2021 by AppetiteForDestruction

[RussTCB]

10 minutes ago, AppetiteForDestruction said:

I lost my virginity to GNR

The entire band?? Which line up? 

[AppetiteForDestruction]

2 minutes ago, RussTCB said:

The entire band?? Which line up? 

The sensual buckethead and the bad boy DJ ashba ha. 

[mikeman5150]

6 hours ago, The-Jungle83 said:

OK, so first I will introduce myself, I was a member of this very forum many years ago... having joined out of sheer excitement that I was about to see the band for the first time ever having been a fan for so many years prior, yet never having the chance to see them - at last it was finally happening, and I'd found a forum to vent that excitement on! I lost access to that account (under a similar name) in the following years, so here I am with a new one, to vent my excitement at seeing the band again... next year.

My apologies, but this will be a long post, as I'm in a reminiscent mood and I would just like to revisit my feelings and memories of that first live experience with GNR, and what it means to me, even all these years later.

The year is 2006.
I am 22 years of age.
Long-haired and carefree.

I have just managed to secure tickets for the Chinese Democracy World Tour, the closest location to me was then known as the Metro Radio Arena, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. I secured 2 seated tickets, to the right of the stage, roughly 10 seats back, 6 rows up... the gig was months away, on the 19th July, and I could not have been any more impatient for that date to arrive. During that time in my life, I lived and breathed GNR, I listened to little else on my Sony Ericsson W810i phone, as well as on my new-fangled 8 CD hi-fi, I could regularly be found earphones in, with some kind of GNR related reading material in hand on the bus to work every morning, so to say my acquisition of tickets to actually see them was mind-alteringly exciting for me would be a huge understatement.

I went to collect the physical tickets (which I still have) from the arena's box office not long before the gig, they were black tickets, featuring the GNR CD-era logo, and that of their support act, Bullet For My Valentine ,(Sebastian Bach also supported that night, as well as joining GNR on stage if memory serves), I felt like I had a priceless artefact in my hand - I was going, finally, I WAS GOING. I met a couple of friends at a bar near the arena after picking up the tickets, and I sat there the whole night with the tickets on the table while everyone drank their drinks - in hindsight a bit OTT, but I did not want to take my eyes off the tickets, and wanted everyone to know I had them too.

Time passed, slowly... slowly... slowly...

Days felt like months, hours felt like weeks, but finally the day came.

July 19th 2006.

I was in the prime of my life, I had no worries to speak of, I had a job that I loved, and I set off for work that morning knowing I had an early finish booked in that day in order to prepare for the night's festivities... as much as I enjoyed my job, and bizarrely, the commute to it every morning, the GNR fanboy ruled that day - I was immersed in what was to come, to me nothing else mattered in the world.

I was booked in for a 3pm finish, for a gig with a door opening time of 6:00 (if I remember correctly)... and I'd forfeited my lunch break as well as exercising some flexi-time in order to get said early finish, and believe me - I was counting the hours. And then, the time came...

I logged out of my workstation, said goodbye for the day to my workmates (one of whom was also going to the night's gig) and I swaggered out of the door, into the almost blistering heat of the mid afternoon (that day would go on to become the hottest on record at the time for where I lived). I put my earphones in, and leisurely wandered through the village in which I worked, without a care in the world... and all the hope in the universe, on my way for the bus home. It was hours before, but it was time... the sun was blazing, and the song in my ears - Paradise City, never before or since has a song fitted a moment in my life so seamlessly and perfectly.

The bus moved too slowly, but at the same time just at the right speed for my relaxed mood, I was soaking up the scenery, absorbing every note and lyric in my ears, drinking everything in, and using it to fuel my excitement for everything that lay ahead that night.

The gig that went down in history as the night Axl kept us waiting for hours on end, inside an arena, on the hottest day on record in Newcastle, only to end up being bottled (or pound-coined) off stage by some moronic idiot in the middle of Nightrain... "we came here to do the show, and one of you is a f**king c*nt...".

Newcastle was deprived of Paradise City that night, but I have nothing but amazing memories of that show, and the days and hours leading up to it. I still have the tickets, the tour shirts I bought, as well as a printed card featuring a braided Axl alongside the words 'I Was There - Guns N' Roses, Metro Radio Arena 2006, these were given to us all as we filed under the bridge towards the arena stairs, I still have it all, even the red paisley bandana I wore that night.

I returned to see GNR when they played the same venue in 2012, where we got our Paradise City at the end of an epic show, and I will be at Glasgow Green next year, but I will always carry memories of that summer's day in 2006, when I felt as if, in my life... nothing else mattered.

❤ Always GNR, the soundtrack to some of the greatest times in my life. ❤

We had very similar experiences with GNR. I too was 22 in 06’ and most of what you described is how I felt about going to the Hammerstein Ballroom. Yep, not a care in the world, GNR was a massive part of my life back then. Still is, but not as intense as it was then. That was when I still believed 100% in Axl’s vision and that Chinese democracy was going to bring rock back to the mainstream and be one of the biggest albums of all time. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but damn I still love that album, and it’s definitely one of my all-time favorites 

[The-Jungle83]

8 hours ago, Dean said:

Tremendous man. I believe it was rumored Axl demanded he have a Lamb dinner before he took the stage that night, at least what my two Mackem friends informed me of that chat that was doing the rounds at the time! Glasgow will be a certainty for a great evening, it was the SECC they last played in 2012, which is probably still my favourite concert from the 8 I've been to, but definitely looking forward to seeing them in Glasgow Green.

Yeah I also heard the lamb dinner thing, in the meantime all of us were cooking like one in that belting hot arena... then we had the LALD flamethrowers to contend with too! 😂

Had my tickets for Glasgow Green booked since they originally came out, still in 2 minds whether to upgrade them or not... but buzzing for the show either way!

[The-Jungle83]

5 hours ago, mikeman5150 said:

We had very similar experiences with GNR. I too was 22 in 06’ and most of what you described is how I felt about going to the Hammerstein Ballroom. Yep, not a care in the world, GNR was a massive part of my life back then. Still is, but not as intense as it was then. That was when I still believed 100% in Axl’s vision and that Chinese democracy was going to bring rock back to the mainstream and be one of the biggest albums of all time. That didn’t turn out to be the case, but damn I still love that album, and it’s definitely one of my all-time favorites 

Yeah, it's great to have that kind of memory to look back on and remember exactly how you felt at the time... later that same year I even located an Afro-Caribbean hair place willing to braid my hair into the Axl style (maybe not the wisest decision in hindsight considering how much it knackered my hair), but as you say, so many of us were all-in on Axl's vision back then... and devotion does crazy things to a person! 😂

Totally with you on CD, sure it's not an outright masterpiece,  but there's still at least 4/5 songs from that album that will always find their way onto my GN'R playlists!

[The-Jungle83]

8 hours ago, RussTCB said:

The entire band?? Which line up? 

Love this.. ! 😂

[RussTCB]

6 minutes ago, The-Jungle83 said:

Love this.. ! 😂

Haha, I couldn't help it. 

I loved reading your story btw. I'm an old man compared to you lol but I got into GN'R in 87 or 88, then saw them live in 91 for the first time. If my count is right, this past Sunday was my 18th time seeing them. 

I've had a few let downs here and there, like incidents where shows were cut short, etc. Overall it's always been worth it. 

I'm one of the rare "old timers" who's favorite GN'R album is Chinese Democracy. Robin Finck is my favorite guitarist in the bands history though, so I'm all over the map. 

In any case, I enjoyed reading your story

[The-Jungle83]

4 minutes ago, RussTCB said:

Haha, I couldn't help it. 

I loved reading your story btw. I'm an old man compared to you lol but I got into GN'R in 87 or 88, then saw them live in 91 for the first time. If my count is right, this past Sunday was my 18th time seeing them. 

I've had a few let downs here and there, like incidents where shows were cut short, etc. Overall it's always been worth it. 

I'm one of the rare "old timers" who's favorite GN'R album is Chinese Democracy. Robin Finck is my favorite guitarist in the bands history though, so I'm all over the map. 

In any case, I enjoyed reading your story

Hey, being an 'old man' ain't a bad thing... you were the original fans that put GNR on the map back in the day! 🤘

I remember they played Gateshead Stadium on the UYI tour in either 92 or 93, just the other side of the river - you literally used to be able to hear the louder gigs from where I lived! Ahhhh to have been a little older back then. *sighs*

18 times is crazy! utter dedication man.

I must admit I love GNR Lies, putting aside all the One In A Million stuff, I think the acoustic setup really shows off everything that was great about Guns at their absolute peak. CD is maybe not given the same credit as the 'classic' albums... but its certainly not a bad album by any means.

Glad you enjoyed my story man, stirred a lot of emotions just typing it. 😁

[Sausagebrain]

I saw two shows on that tour - Hammersmith Apollo and Wembley Arena. Wild, hopeful times. 

[The-Jungle83]

23 hours ago, Sausagebrain said:

I saw two shows on that tour - Hammersmith Apollo and Wembley Arena. Wild, hopeful times. 

Absolutely! I remember how active this forum was around that time too... seems a lifetime ago when we were all trying to predict when Chinese Democracy would finally drop, analysing song leaks, waiting for songs to pop up in the setlist... 

The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess! 😂

[backinblack]

Great story thanks for sharing

[Gunner Gilby]

Awesome story bro. I've seen Guns in Auckland 93, Auckland night one 07, Wellington 2017 and will be again this November in Wellington. Also saw Gilby in Rockstar Supernova in Christchurch 07.

Every show was a slightly different line up but I'm grateful to have seen each one. 

On a side note if anyone has or knows of a audio recording of Wellington NZ Feb 2 2017 I'd be hugely grateful 😃.