First Ever Gigs

My Best (And First) Ever Gig

Guns N’ Roses. Milton Keynes Bowl. 30 May 1993

It’s May 1993. I’m 19 years old, and I'm driving down to Milton Keynes to watch Guns N’ Roses.

It’s my first ever gig. Ten years of rural boarding school on the English/Welsh border saw to that. Even if we had been allowed out to see a band— which we weren’t — there was nowhere to go and see one.

After I left school and went to university in Nottingham, people went to gigs. But I was never invited. Plus the bands I liked: ACDC/GnR/Def Leppard/Iron Maiden/Nirvana/Pearl Jam didn’t play the city. Or if they did, I wasn’t aware of it.

It was in the Easter holidays of 1993, while at my parents, that I saw an ad for a GnR gig in NME. I’d started buying the magazine to look cool — you know to try and fit in.

I picked up the phone, and ordered my ticket.

‘Can I have your credit card details?’ asked the expressionless voice.

‘Er, do you take Switch?’ — Switch being an early UK debit card system.

‘Credit cards only,’ the voice demanded.

I remember panicking and phoning my father up at work and asking him to phone the hotline as the tickets were selling out fast. He said he was about to go into a meeting, but would have a look later, if he had time.

I remember the agony of that wait. GnR at the time were my favourite band. They only had three and a half albums, but I’d listened to all of them at least 500 times. And this was my chance to see them live. But it relied on my father.

It was about seven o’clock in the evening when he finally drove into the driveway. I raced out.

‘Did you get the ticket?’ I was shaking.

My father had a habit of taking his time. A routine developed from years of business deals. He got his briefcase from the car. Then his suit jacket. Then carefully closed the door, before locking it.

‘Well?’

‘The Saturday tickets were sold out.’

‘What!’

‘But I got you one for Sunday.’

‘Sunday? I didn’t know there was one on Sunday?’

‘Extra show,’ he declared, smiling.

I think I hugged him.

So there I was driving down the M1 a month later to Milton Keynes. I parked up in some industrial estate about two miles from the arena and walked.

I got there at one in the afternoon. People were already there even though the show didn’t start till nine. Having never been to a gig before, never mind a gig of this size, I didn’t know what I was meant to do. So I just stood in line.

I had half a packet of Marlboro, and a bottle of Coke I’d bought from a service station on the way down.

Four hours later we were let in, and I ran to the front. During my ten years at school, I’d become an excellent runner, and held the school 800 metres record. I may have smoked half a packet of Marlboro, but no one was going to beat me to the barrier. And no one did.

Soul Asylum and Blind Melon were the support bands, along with The Cult. I’d heard of The Cult but not the other two. To be honest, they could have put on Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and a reincarnated Jimi Hendrix, and I wouldn’t have cared.

I was only here for one band.

So finally, after what seemed like a decade, GnR came on stage and launched into It’s So Easy, Mr Brownstone and Welcome to the Jungle in quick succession.

The place went mental, I mean mental. For an ex-private school boy with limited life experience (almost none in fact), I’d never known anything like it. Furthermore, the line-up was close to the original one.

Izzy Stradlin, the original rhythm guitarist, who’d left the band in 1991, had reunited for five shows, as his replacement Gilby Clarke had broken his wrist. It felt like old times again — the old band back together — and as far as I’m aware, one of the few times Stradlin, Rose, Slash and Duff have played together since his departure.

That was a bonus. But there was another surprise in store. By booking me onto the Sunday show instead of the Saturday one, my father had done me a favour.

Towards the end of the gig, a helicopter appeared over the stadium, and landed somewhere at the back. Ten minutes later, Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones appeared, and they knocked out Honky Tonk Women.

Did anyone know this was going to happen? I didn’t, and I doubt any of the 50,000 present did. Either way, we got a two-for-one: The (almost) original line-up of Guns N’ Roses, plus one fifth of the Rolling Stones.

How cool is that for your first ever gig.

(Thanks to Scott-Ryan Abt for suggesting I write this.)

Want more madness, check out some of my other stuff below.