Metrodome, Minneapolis, MN
September 15th 1992
Preview



‘Guns’ fans in ticket line not worried about Axl
- Kate McCarthy, Star Tribune

About 70 stout-hearted rock fans camped out on the sidewalk near the entrance to the St. Paul Dayton’s ticket office Sunday for first dibs on tickets to an Aug. 5 Guns N’ Roses-Metallica concert.

The ticket seekers brought lawn chairs, blankets, pillows, headphones, compact disc players and vast quantities of their primary life-giving commodities - cigarettes and Coke Classic.

Clad in black boots, jeans and jewelry, the concert-goers also sporting a lightning array of heavy-metal T-shirts: Megadeth, Testament, Anthrax, Van Halen, Kingdom Come, Dokken, the Scorpions - as well as the obvious “Guns” and Metallica.

But the fans were nonplussed about the arrest of Guns N’ Roses lead singer Axl Rose on Sunday. Rose was picked up by federal agents at New York’s Kennedy International Airport on misdemeanor charges filed after violence broke out at a Guns N’ Roses concert in St. Louis. Rose, 30, is accused of diving into the crowd and causing a riot.

Violent incidents - as well as vicious lyrics and confessions of drug use - are a G&R trademark, and seem only to further endear Rose to his fans. Along with bedraggled copies of City Pages, ticket seekers Sunday passed around “Appetite For Destruction: The Days of Guns N’ Roses,” which, the jacket cover purports, “captures the poetry and dark hexagonal of Axl Rose’s mind.”

“He’ll be out by tomorrow, even today - hell, he’s probably out by now,” predicted line-waiter Jamie Martinson of St. Paul.

Martinson, 21, turner out to be right: Rose was turned over to New York police, but shortly released on $100,000 bail.

Stacie Rettinger, 17, of St. Paul contended the incident “was zero percent Rose’s fault.”

Second-in-line Rettinger said Sunday evening that her three-day camp-out on Cedar was well worth it. Rettinger will use her salary at Arby’s to put out the $30.50 required for a top-flight ticket. She lined up on Friday.

“There are no words to explain Guns N’ Roses,” she said. “They have so much energy, they’re just incredible, there’s no one comparable.”

Clovis Bracknis, 20, of St. Paul proudly showed off his homemade leather-and-spikes bracelet as he waited for tickets. A cheerful personal-care attendant for the handicapped, Bracknis tried to explain the allure of heavy metal.

“It’s loud, hard, wild and fast,” he said. “When a band has the power to get 30,000 people to bang their heads, you’ve got to respect that.”