This was supposed to be one song. We pulled Appetite for Destruction off the shelf to grab one track, the needle dropped, and that was the end of the plan. When you go down that road, you don’t take the off-ramp. So tonight is Guns N’ Roses in album order: Appetite from start to finish, all of G N R Lies, and as far into Use Your Illusion as the clock would let us go. The clock won. We ran out of show before the band ran out of songs, and that seems right for this band.
Hour One is Appetite, start to finish, the way it was meant to be heard. It came out in the summer of 1987 and almost nobody noticed. Then MTV gave Welcome to the Jungle a late-night slot, and a year after release the record was number one. It’s still the best-selling debut album in American history. Sweet Child O’ Mine became the band’s only number-one single, and supposedly it started as Slash goofing around on a warm-up riff. The hits are the hits, but listen to Out Ta Get Me, My Michelle and Think About You. Those are the songs that make Appetite a great record and not just a famous one. When Rocket Queen ends, we go straight into Reckless Life.
Hour Two is G N R Lies, really two records stuck together. The first half is the 1986 Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide EP, with its famously “live” crowd and covers of Rose Tattoo’s Nice Boys and Aerosmith’s Mama Kin. The second half goes acoustic, and that’s where Patience lives. You’re Crazy comes around twice tonight: the full-speed Appetite version and the slower acoustic Lies take, which is closer to how the song was first written. One in a Million is the most argued-about song the band ever recorded, and it’s here because it’s part of the story. Then the doors open on Use Your Illusion I, released the same day in September 1991 as its twin, Volume II. The two debuted at number one and number two, a band competing with itself on the chart. Steven Adler was gone and Matt Sorum was behind the kit. A Wings cover, Live and Let Die, lands a few tracks before the original Don’t Cry.
Hour Three is where it gets big. November Rain. Alice Cooper drops in on The Garden. Coma runs over ten minutes and is the longest thing they ever recorded. Then we cross into Volume II for Civil War, Adler’s last recording with the band, then 14 Years, and we close on Yesterdays. That’s where the clock ran out. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Estranged and You Could Be Mine are still out there. Consider it unfinished business.
Play it loud, play it late, play it start to finish.
Program notes and audio stay up for two weeks after broadcast, then the transmission goes dark.
PLAYLIST
Hour One
01. Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
02. Guns N' Roses - It's So Easy - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
03. Guns N' Roses - Nightrain - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
04. Guns N' Roses - Out Ta Get Me - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
05. Guns N' Roses - Mr. Brownstone - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
06. Guns N' Roses - Paradise City - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
07. Guns N' Roses - My Michelle - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
08. Guns N' Roses - Think About You - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
09. Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
10. Guns N' Roses - You're Crazy - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
11. Guns N' Roses - Anything Goes - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
12. Guns N' Roses - Rocket Queen - Appetite for Destruction - Interscope Records - 1987
13. Guns N' Roses - Reckless Life - G N R Lies - Geffen Records - 1988
Hour Two
14. Guns N' Roses - Nice Boys - G N R Lies - Geffen Records - 1988
15. Guns N' Roses - Move to the City - G N R Lies - Geffen Records - 1988
16. Guns N' Roses - Mama Kin - G N R Lies - Geffen Records - 1988
17. Guns N' Roses - Patience - G N R Lies - Geffen Records - 1988
18. Guns N' Roses - Used to Love Her - G N R Lies - Geffen Records - 1988
19. Guns N' Roses - You're Crazy - G N R Lies - Geffen Records - 1988
20. Guns N' Roses - One in a Million - G N R Lies - Geffen Records - 1988
21. Guns N' Roses - Right Next Door to Hell - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
22. Guns N' Roses - Dust N' Bones - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
23. Guns N' Roses - Live and Let Die - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
24. Guns N' Roses - Don't Cry [Original Version] - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
25. Guns N' Roses - Perfect Crime - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
26. Guns N' Roses - You Ain't the First - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
27. Guns N' Roses - Bad Obsession - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
28. Guns N' Roses - Back off Bitch - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
Hour Three
29. Guns N' Roses - Double Talkin' Jive - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
30. Guns N' Roses - November Rain - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
31. Guns N' Roses - The Garden - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
32. Guns N' Roses - Garden of Eden - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
33. Guns N' Roses - Don't Damn Me - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
34. Guns N' Roses - Bad Apples - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
35. Guns N' Roses - Dead Horse - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
36. Guns N' Roses - Coma - Use Your Illusion I - Dgc/Geffen/Reunion - 1991
37. Guns N' Roses - Civil War - Use Your Illusion II - Geffen Records - 1991
38. Guns N' Roses - 14 Years - Use Your Illusion II - Geffen Records - 1991
39. Guns N' Roses - Yesterdays - Use Your Illusion II - Geffen Records - 1991