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From The Desk Of Aloha: Guns N’ Roses’ “Rocket Queen” Live At The Ritz

Tony Cavallario: During my own personal Couchella, I went for a deep dive into the Guns N’ Roses YouTube K-hole. The essential document is this 1988 concert film that aired on MTV when I was 11. Before Axl was a punchline, when he was covering “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” but not yet asking for some reggae. That raw, super-basic, ramshackle Guns. This was my introduction to live music, its perils and its power. How different studio Axl and winded, snake-hips Axl were. How a shirtless Slash can just totally whiff on a solo—while smoking. The audience is so close to the stage that Slash can’t take a step forward or his guitar gets grabbed. Axl jumps into the crowd and barely makes it out alive (he loses some jewelery and his cool Thin Lizzy shirt). Danger was lurking, but on-brand, Dial MTV-ready danger.

“Rocket Queen” comes in the encore, with the band exhausted and already basking in the afterglow. Steven Adler glams it up with his loose disco hi-hats, and riffage ensues. Duff’s proto-Singles soundtrack bass. Guitars. Altogether it’s a little sophisticated, but that Stooges/N.Y. Dolls meets evil Aerosmith thing is popping off. Axl disappears … cocaine? Hoping for a live sex act during the solo like on the record but no dice, just Axl and Slash lighting each other’s cigarettes. Fist pumps and the clouds part as Slash picks out the arpeggio, B and G string way out of tune. This sets up Axl for some heroics. He digs deep because he so badly wants to let us down easy. He’s pulling his own hair to retch out the words, vocal chords are being shredded, glass is breaking, phrasing is faithful but the melody is obliterated. Yet the coda serves the same function it does on the record. He wasn’t about to let Appetite (yeah that 20 times or so platinum debut) or this concert end on a low note. He wants us to know that he cares. That he’s a good boy from Iowa caught up in something. That we are the Rocket Queen. That we saved him. He screwed us. But we got something in return.