To be fair this should have been the opening blog. After all, without this album I might never have heard (or at least paid any attention to) many of the bands I've written/will write about, and I'm sure I'm not alone there.
In 1987, aged 16, my favourite band was Metallica. Donington 1987 (Metallica and Anthrax on the same bill) was one very happy day. By this time of course Poison had released Look What The Cat Dragged In but they were never going to be the band to change the face of rock music.
Notably Appetite For Destruction was released on the same day as Faster Pussycat's debut album, and the two bands arrived in the UK on a joint-headline tour. I turned down a ticket - after all, what did these bands have over James, Kirk, Lars and Jason (Cliff RIP)? Having heard 'It's So Easy' and 'Mr Brownstone' I wasn't exactly bowled over. The first seeds of regret were sown when I heard 'Night Train' on the Friday Rock Show - and for a moment there was a possibility that the spare ticket was still up for grabs. It was not to be.
The rest is of course history. Slowly, the world (myself included) woke up to what was arguably the rock album of the 1980s. I bleached my hair for the first time; bought some crimpers; gave make-up a go (quickly concluding that eye-liner and mascara would do; lipstick and rouge was just daft) and plans for a band of my own took a significant change of direction.
I finally did get to see them at the ill-feted Donington Monsters of Rock show in 1988. Between the annoucement of the bill (with G'n'R fifth on the bill, second on between Helloween and Megadeth) and the show itself Axl and Co were the most talked about band in the world and could easily have headlined. Even though we were a fair way from the stage the sheer force of the crowd meant we were dragged twenty yards one way and then twenty yards back again in a matter of seconds - wash, rinse, repeat. We got out as quickly as we could but some weren't so fortunate.
See also:
Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds
No comments:
Post a Comment