It's So Easy - Duff Mckagan [84]
A few nights later, Axl’s assistant called us in Oslo as we were getting ready for a sold-out show there. He said Axl was in Paris. He wouldn’t be playing the concert.
I could see right then and there that Izzy wasn’t going to last. The cadence of his walk was different now: I saw it as clearly as the lurch of a bicycle with a misshapen wheel. His face was drawn, his eyes blank, his body language exhausted.
He had made it with us, sober, touring. But he couldn’t stand pissing off the fans and torturing the crew. He had to confront that reality sober. And at the same time he had to deal with Slash, Matt, and me trying to bury our own frustrations by obliterating ourselves with drink and drugs. It was only a matter of time now.
This cannot be happening.
Head down.
Bottoms up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I open my eyes.
Where the fuck am I?
Thirsty as a motherfucker. Vodka?
Vodka, vodka, vodka.
I sit up. Drape my legs over the edge of the bed. Elbows on knees. Head in hands. I groan.
Vodka.
Fumble for the phone.
I clear my throat and spit on the floor.
Into the phone: ice.
Where the fuck am I?
That sound, that ominous sound.
Schiesse!
Scheisse, scheisse, scheisse.
Not a good word. The change in tone.
The bad rumble of a stadium of fans becoming foes. Again. Not again, please.
I throw my full cup onto the floor of the stage. No! I turn around and glare toward the wings of the stage. I hold my thumb and pointer finger far apart and thrust my hand toward my bass tech, McBob. Then I pinch them almost together and gesture again. That much vodka and that much cranberry.
I spit on the hotel carpet again and rub my eyes. Knock at the door. Thank fuck: ice.
I pour a tumbler of vodka over the fresh ice cubes.
Back in the jet, snort some more coke. Vodka. Vodka, vodka, vodka.
No, Izzy, man. No, it’s not going down like this. But no.
The whole room is vibrating. With anger. From within and, more ominously, from without.
Scheisse, scheisse, scheisse!
Mannheim, Germany. Last night. Maybe several nights ago now. Nights not slept.
They’re here for us. They hate us. They’re here for us. I can’t stop shaking. Give me another drink. I hold my thumb and pointer finger far apart and thrust my hand toward the caterer. Then I pinch them almost together and gesture again. That much vodka and that much cranberry.
Fuck, not again, Axl. There’s no going back from this.
I see the line. I’m standing with my toes right on it. Time for a line. Another sort of line. Sober up. I disappear behind a stack of amps.
Flying like an aeroplane. Feeling like a space brain.
Get me to my airplane.
Get me the fuck out of here. Wembley? Vodka. Only an hour and a half gone by since the openers. On we go. I can stand. I can see.
Izzy, man, this was your band. This was our band. Our gang. This is a fucking war of attrition.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
When Axl left the stage in Mannheim, Germany, another riot looked inevitable. We had gone on really late again. The venue was huge, an outdoor stadium packed with twice as many people as even the biggest of the basketball arenas we had played in the United States up to this point.
Matt Sorum tried a novel approach when Axl left; maybe to a “new” guy it was the obvious thing to do. He went to find Axl and confront him. He was turned away by Axl’s security detail.
The promoters—not the band members, not the managers, not the entourage—saved the day. Their threat that Axl would be arrested if a riot occurred might not have worked on its own. But they had also locked us into the venue.
Axl returned and finished the show. Izzy disappeared as soon as the houselights came up. We still had one final show left on that leg of the tour, at Wembley Stadium on the last day of August 1991. I knew now that Izzy was definitely going to quit, but nobody knew for sure when he would actually leave us.
Izzy didn’t walk away and force the cancellation