“As if they thought of rain. I’d hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain.” – Guns N’ Roses
shot by Neil Zlozower, 1988.
Amazingly, all five of the guys in the picture above are alive and apparently doing well. I only say amazingly because these guys seemed to me like the group that said to the other heavy metal groups of the time… I’ll see your drugs and alcohol and raise you more drugs, alcohol with a splash of total chaos! Now whether that’s true or not, I don’t have any idea, but in 1988 they just seemed like they were far and away the most popular, most destructive, most “I don’t give a s#$t” rock band on the planet.
I recently made the 3.5 hour car trek with my buddy Chris and saw GNR (and three of the above five) at the awesome outdoor Morton Amphitheater (Morton as in Morton Salt) just outside of Kansas City. The venue is maybe a year old and it was a pleasant 80 degrees when Axl Rose, 64, Slash, 61, and Duff McKagan, 62 took to the stage around 8:45 with the opening chords of “Welcome to the Jungle.” The other two members in the photo above – drummer Steven Adler (far right) is touring with his own band performing a lot of the GNR hits while guitarist Izzy Stradlin (far left) leads a quiet and very private life somewhere along the California coast if you believe the internet. Axel Rose never stood still, Slash nailed his solos, and the 6’3″ McKagan strutted around the stage like he owned the place as the band jammed for three solid hours before wrapping up at 11:45 with a trio of their top hits.
When Appetite for Destruction was released in July of 1987, there was very little attention paid to it. Radio stations were uninterested in playing the songs, but after a lengthy tour promoting the album, requests for airplay increased and MTV agreed to start airing the video for “Welcome to the Jungle.” After that, the album ascended up the charts to #1 in August of 1988 basically a full year after its’ release. It was also during the summer of ’88 that I bought the cassette album, and it was soon thereafter in steady rotation on my cassette Walkman and in my car stereo.
She′s got a smile that it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Today is my wife’s birthday. She’s got that smile and she’s got eyes of the bluest skies, and this is also her favorite Guns N’ Roses song. Happy birthday to my beautiful wife and my very sweet child o’ mine.
Released in June of 1988, this became the band’s only #1 single. Slash began it with that familia opening riff while Duff and drummer Steven Adler added the bass line and Axl wrote the lyrics based upon his then girlfriend Erin Everly (daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers).
From the Morton Amphitheater in Riverside, Missouri recently, here was my view and the 2026 version of “Sweet Child o’ Mine”…
sincerely, the 80's 