Do we still care ?
I loved their music up until the infamous 1993 gig at Calder Park in the searing heat when they turned up 2 1/2 hours late ( having done a show in Sydney the night before ) , they played fairly ordinary music and band members constantly disappeared under the stage one by one while the rest of the band played on. 75,000 of s showed up.It was packed.
That is ontop of everyone being told to throw their food and drink into a pile before they entered the venue.
Rose Tattoo were the curtain raisers and blew me away that day. They showed how it was done.
I still prefer their studio stuff .but not live. Apparently the last time they played together was in july 1993 and i reckon the calder park gig was in january or february of that year.
My 2 cents.
I was there that day.
Came over from Perth for that gig and the experience of it remains vividly in my mind to this day.
As you said earlier of the 38 degree day, the dust storm that whipped up late in the afternoon, then the downpour of rain in the evening only to end end with a whole heap of young drunken bogans suffering from hypothermia and covered in those foil thermo blankets waiting to be carted to hospital or home from late that night to about 3am the next morning due to an overwhelming lack of public transport back into the city.
I remember too the confiscation of food and drink being brought into the venue and having to pay exhorbitant prices inside for them. Also watching people having to line up and refill their water bottles at the only accessible tap in the entire venue at the back of the drag strip.
The audience was a bit of a highlight, especially the cardboard toboggan races down the grass banks and mudball fights between the crowd on the banks and the people on ground level in front of the stage after the rain had cleared.
Of the performers that day, as good as the Rosie Tatts were, nobody but nobody came anywhere near Sebastian Bach and Skid Row that night. They ended up being a very tough act for G’n’R to follow, as was proved by their fairly uninspired and listless performance that night.
Had the absolute pleasure to go and see Seb Bach at the Forum doing a solo tour a few months ago, and even after 22 years having passed, he was just as great that night as he was two decades prior. He’d have to go down as the one of the very best live performers that I’ve ever seen.
I actually dread this latest announcement of the Gunners getting back together as I feel, given their chequered history together, that this reunion will all end in tears and further tarnish their legacy.
