Guns N’ Roses
Dallas Starplex Amphitheater July 23, 1988
In the moments before Guns N’ Roses went on stage there was a strange atmosphere in the band’s dressing room. Slash, having turned 23 the previous day, was presented with a cake on which it was written in icing: ‘HAPPY FUCKIN’ BIRTHDAY YOU FUCKER’. But amid the boozy celebrations there was tension emanating from Axl Rose, who warmed up by singing to The Needle Lies by Queensrÿche – a thinly veiled warning to the other members of the band.
I had seen Guns N’ Roses four times in 1987, at the Whisky in LA, the Marquee, a half-empty Manchester Apollo and a packed-out Hammersmith Odeon. But at this show in Dallas in 1988, with GN’R opening for their spiritual forebears Aerosmith, and with their debut album Appetite For Destruction about to hit No.1 in the US, they were at their peak. It was the classic line-up, with drummer Steven Adler still a force of nature, and they knocked 20,000 rowdy Texans dead, with an eight-song set beginning with It’s So Easy and ending with Paradise City. Aerosmith were great that night, too. But there was something in the air – a sense of a changing of the guard – and you could feel it.