It's So Easy - Duff Mckagan [89]
After Jeff had played some blistering passes at one song, my mom said, “Jeff, you play really nice guitar.”
My mom was not aware of Jeff Beck’s iconic status—she didn’t know about the Yardbirds or his influential albums like Wired and Blow by Blow.
Unfazed, Jeff answered, “Oh, well, thank you so much, Marie. I thought I messed up that last pass pretty good. Did you like it, then?”
That guy will forever be my hero.
On June 21, 1992, Guns N’ Roses had to pay to keep the public-transport system open late in Basel, Switzerland. The only way back into town from the soccer stadium was a tram line that normally closed long before we finished—maybe before we even started.
Almost every night we heard the crowds get antsy and then ugly. After about an hour of waiting, kids would start to chant. Then they would start to throw beer bottles and rocks and whatever else they could find. Everyone on the crew knew not to walk around in front of the stage equipment—not to make themselves a target. From backstage it was difficult to know whether people had started or would soon start to try to scale the security fences or rigging—that is, break into full-on riot mode. But the thumps of flying objects and the angry chants sounded threatening enough to fill my soul with foreboding, dread, and embarrassment. Know your exit.
We shared our plane with U2 on this leg of the tour, with the MGM 727 crisscrossing the skies over Europe to tote each band to its next location. Everything had scaled up. We often flew from our hotels to the venues in helicopters, plural—even massive double-prop Chinook helicopters. We rented yachts the size of oil tankers for outings on off days. We went on private shopping sprees at designer boutiques and spent entire days racing go-karts on tracks reserved exclusively for us. Everything had become outsized. Everything. When McBob and his brother started slugging each other at a club late one hazy night, Harry Connick Jr. pulled them apart. We had celebrities breaking up the fistfights between our crew members.
On Tuesday, June 23, in Rotterdam, I stewed backstage after the Dutch police told us power would be cut at 11:30 p.m.—fans had already waited two hours since opener Faith No More finished playing, and our set would not be finished by 11:30 p.m. I feared another riot. Onstage, Axl told the crowd about the police threat, and basically invited the audience to tear the place down if the show was stopped. The power stayed on. We closed out this leg of the tour about a week later in Lisbon, Portugal, then flew home.
I was so used to being in hotels—and I acted like an animal in hotels—that I woke up in my own bedroom and spat on the floor and tried to call room service. During the break between that European leg and the launch of a co-headlining tour with Metallica in late July, I got married to Linda Johnson, a Penthouse Pet and an enthusiastic co-conspirator in drug use. At least I think it was then. I don’t remember the wedding. I think we got married on a boat at Lake Arrowhead, which was still party central—all about cocaine and debauchery. We were drinking with a bunch of friends; I woke up a few days later and we were married. I guess boat captains can marry people.
That I could do all my coke—even crack—in front of her was pretty much the basis of our bond. And now we were married.
It was obvious even to me that my life was unraveling. I was married to a drug buddy. How much worse could it get?
In July 1992, we started a co-headlining tour with Metallica at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. In some cases, such bills are plagued by disputes over who gets to play second. Not this bill. Metallica graciously insisted on taking the stage first. It was smart: they wanted to