It's So Easy - Duff Mckagan [61]
The video for “Sweet Child o’ Mine” was on MTV when we set off in July, but on the first few dates we still got a tepid reaction from the crowd—polite applause. Soon, however, the song became a phenomenon, much to all of our surprise, to be honest. We had not even seen it as a potential single when we put it together.
We found ourselves in a novel position: we idolized the band we were on tour with, but crowds were coming to see us now. The amphitheaters we played were packed by the time we went on for our abbreviated opening-band set. The less-than-ideal elements of being an opening band—cramped positioning of our gear onstage, second-class-citizen status at the venues, and so forth—remained, but the feeling that we had been banished from our fans when we left L.A. to play those other opening slots quickly evaporated. Suddenly we had fans in force all over the country.
In early August 1988, we were sitting backstage one day when some people from our record label came in with a sheet cake from the local grocery store.
“Congratulations,” they said, “you’re number one!”
I remember thinking, Uh, wow, cool … a cake.
And then, What does this mean?
Shit was crazy.
Shit was great.
I was hammered.
But after a little while I remember going back out to the bus and thinking about the whole thing.
Really?
I knew somebody was making real money as a result of our record reaching the top of the charts. It certainly didn’t seem to be us. There was a party back at the record label in L.A., I was pretty sure. Limos out front of the Geffen office to take people to celebratory dinners. Champagne all around. But was anybody from the label there when our friends died? Did anyone from the record label send flowers to their parents? Hang on a minute now, was it anybody at Geffen’s responsibility to do that? This was a business, after all. Maybe I shouldn’t have expected anything different.
I didn’t know what to think. I was a dumb motherfucker.
Our album had reached the top of the chart almost exactly one year after its release. My brother later told me this was a very unusual feat—albums typically reached their peak chart position within the first few weeks after they came out. Still, I never really celebrated Appetite reaching number one. Maybe I still haven’t.
Lots of people think it was an upward trajectory from there. But for me, it was the opposite. About a week after the sheet-cake ceremony, we flew to England again to play the outdoor Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington. This was the kind of thing you heard about other bands playing—big bands, household names, not grubby kids a year or two removed from living in a back-alley storage space and treating their venereal diseases with fucking fish food.
Looking out at the sea of faces on August 20, 1988, I realized I’d never even seen a crowd that size, much less stood in front of one. The festival had been going for a few years, but this was the biggest one so far—107,000 in attendance. It was stormy, and the lawn—the infield of a racetrack—was thick with mud. Wind swirled. The PA had problems and a giant video screen blew over.
We were near the bottom of the bill and played early in the day. When we started playing, tens of thousands of people surged forward.
Shit almighty, people really want to see us. This is fucking crazy.
As fans swarmed toward the stage, I could see people getting pushed around, losing their footing.
“Back up!” Axl screamed at the crowd.
Security stopped the show during the third song to fish a few people out of the scrum. But they were also occupied dealing with the video screen that had collapsed in the wind. People refused to get out from under it—it was still showing the video feed.
We continued playing after getting the okay from security.
When we played “Paradise City” the crowd surged forward again, a writhing mass of bodies, singing, screaming, nodding.
Suddenly I could see kids piled on top of other kids, horizontal in the mud. It looked like some kids might be getting hurt.
Should I jump in and try to do something?
I was too