Enter Night_ A Biography of Metallica - Mick Wall [182]
The brainchild, almost inevitably, of the Axl-besotted Lars, as former Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven says now, ‘As much as I loved Metallica – I would go just to see-hear “Seek and Destroy” and hope for “Orion” – I thought the idea of them touring with Guns N’ Roses was absolutely absurd and a recipe for some kind of disaster. Who follows who for one thing? It’s insane to forget it’s better to be a hard act to follow than to follow a hard act.’ Niven also ‘found it most uncomfortable to be sitting in Duff’s bathroom one night with Lars and co all gacked to the gills planning their onslaught on the world. “How am I gonna get around this one?” I wondered, and half thought to drop Lars off at the Hollywood Sheriff’s station, in his blithering condition, ranting about the enormity of this sonic blitzkrieg, his arms waving expansively in the big windows of the Range Rover as I tried to quietly and unobtrusively slip down a traffic-less pre-dawn Sunset [Boulevard], instead of at his hotel, which I reluctantly did as the cold grey light of the day came up.’ He adds wearily, ‘God bless cocaine and the idiocies it induces…’
In fact, the running order was the least of anybody’s worries, with it agreed early on that Metallica, although billed as co-headliners and splitting the proceeds 50/50 with GN’R, would go on first, by simple dint of the fact that by this stage Axl Rose was keeping audiences waiting for up to three hours most nights of the tour. As Slash said, ‘Metallica was not a band to pull that kind of shit at all, so they wisely opted to play first so as to avoid being pulled down by our bullshit.’
The twenty-five-date stadium tour began at the RFK Stadium, in Washington, in July. Axl was at the height of his megalomaniacal fame. To his usual on-tour retinue of chiropractor, masseuse, vocal coach, bodyguard, driver, personal assistant, PR, manager and gaggle of hangers-on masquerading as friends, he now added a psychotherapist, Suzzy London, and a professional psychic named Sharon Maynard, a short, middle-aged Asian woman nicknamed ‘Yoda’ by the rest of the band (after the mystic goblin in Star Wars) whose specialities included ‘channelling’ past lives, communicating with extraterrestrials and utilising the power of crystals. Sure enough, Metallica would go onstage each night bang on time – and Guns N’ Roses wouldn’t. Sometimes because Axl genuinely had throat problems; often times because he was still ‘psyching himself up’ back at the hotel. The energy might not be right, the vibes all muddled, or Yoda would simply advise him against it.
Ten days into the tour, at Giants Stadium in Rutherford, New Jersey, Axl was struck in the genitals by a cigarette lighter thrown from the audience. He hurled down the mike, tore off the white cowboy hat he was wearing and hobbled to the side-stage wings where he tried to catch his breath. A chant went up among the crowd: ‘Axl! Axl! Axl!’ Then the houselights came on and it became clear the show was over. The next three shows – in Boston, Columbia and Minneapolis – were all cancelled. The official explanation: ‘severe damage to [Axl’s] vocal chords’. The real reason: humiliation; fury; hubris? Only Axl really knew.
To begin with, Metallica took it all in their stride. They knew touring with GN’R would be ‘a trip’. Besides, they were busy having their own, less public adventures. During the lull after New Jersey, James