Guns N’ Roses would take the world by storm with their debut LP Appetite for Destruction in 1987.
Their long awaited full length follow up a double album named Use Your Illusion 1 and 2
would arrive 4 years later in 1991 after many delays.
The band supported the double album by touring the world for almost 2.5 years,
playing nearly 200 shows and leaving a path of destruction in their footsteps.
While a lot has been reported on the riots that happened in St. Louis and Montreal,
one element of their tour that hasn’t been as widely reported was their deadly and dangerous
trek through South America. Bombings, military coup, death threats, drug cartels and fan deaths,
resulted in a lot of anxiety and tension around that leg of the tour. Guns N’ Roses Former Drummer
Matt Sorum would perfectly summarize those dates in South America recalling in an interview with
John Adam Meyers “I remember getting back to LA, and I was totally frazzled, like,
it was one of the scariest tours I’ve ever that I’ve ever been on my life,
and everything was just sort of in disarray.” Let’s take a deeper dive into what happened.
A year and a half into the Use Your Illusion Tour, Guns N’ Roses barely made
any money. While they sold out stadiums and arenas, their consistent lateness,
legal problems, & paying overtime dues to their union staff night after night
as well as throwing lavish parties left them with little to no money. In order to have
something to show for their efforts on the road their manager booked them some dates in south
america in late 1992. . While they had played Brazil as part of Rock in Rio 2 in early 1991,
it was only two dates and they never played any other countries on the continent.
You have to remember that at this point in time South America’s touring scene
was not run by Live nation or ticketmaster, but rather
questionable promoters set against a backdrop of political instability.
The band would be playing dates in Venezuela, Chile, Columbia, Argentina as well as Brazil
The tour began on November 25, 1992 and run a few weeks until December 12th. The first show
took place in Caracas, Venezuela. The band members including drummer Matt Sorum, bassist Duff McKagan
and guitarist Slash themselves were suffering from drug and alcohol addiction and a growing
rift between themselves and frontman axl rose who was wielding a lot of power in the band.
Matt Sorum would recall in his book arriving in venezuela saying “By the time we got to Venezuela,
I was in really bad shape. My alcohol and drug habits had long been out of control,
but this was when I first began to realize that they might even cost me my life.”
He would recall in the same book driving through the jungles of the country to score drugs
only to wake up on his hotel balcony after several days being told he needed to go to a rehearsal.
The band’s show in Venezuela went reasonably well,
but as the band left the country and landed in Bogata, Columbia for their next show,
the Venezuelan airforce staged a failed coup, It was the second attempt that year.
While the band was already in Columbia their equipment and crew were still stuck in Venezuela.
Columbia at this point in time was extremely dangerous as drug Lord Pablo Escobar was on the
run and by this point in time foreigners were frequently being kidnapped in bogata . Sorum
would recall landing at the airport in the country in his book saying “We each had an SUV,
and I got into mine. There was one guy on either side of me, each clutching a machine gun.
Two guys sat up front, and one of them also had a gun. We even had cops with machine guns riding
motorcycles in front, beside, and behind us. When we pulled up outside our hotel, a tank and
a load of armed guards were out front. I said to Doug, “What the f. . . . is the tank for?”
Doug gave me a serious look. “To protect you guys. The band was ordered not to leave the
hotel for their own safety and Guns N’ Roses were supposed to play two shows in Bogata
but due to their equipment being stuck in Venezuela they cancelled one show
and a torrential downpour caused the stage to collapse resulting in their concert being delayed.
As the band hunkered down into their hotel, a bomb would go off not too far from their
hotel. According to Duff McKagan’s book it’s so easy and other lies he was quoted
as saying “Colombian drug lord pablo escobar told the press that we were his friends...we
never ever met him) and i guess he was just sticking it to the us government using us to have
some fun. I was already annoyed at the politician questions fired at us at press conferences...Now
we had become inadvertent political pawns in a grand international game" he'd say.
When time came for the band to play their sole show in Columbia, it started to rain during
the band’s performance of November Rain. And Frontman Axl Rose would recall it was one his
most memorable moments of the tour. November Rain for it's part would be #1 in Columbia for over 60
weeks According to sorum’s book “ Axl and the promoter (who spoke Spanish) explained to the
crowd that we had to stop playing, because the water could conduct electricity. But the crowd
refused to accept that; they went crazy. They were rioting outside the stadium, too.
People were throwing fireworks. And someone even got killed. “‘
The promoter in Columbia was pretty shady according to Sorum. Those people who bought
tickets to the first cancelled show were told their tickets would be honored at the
second show so you had double the number of people trying to fit into the stadium
As soon as the band returned to their hotel they were told by their manager to pack up their stuff
as they needed to leave the country immediately. It had turned out Guns N’ Roses had already been
paid for two shows despite the fact that they only played one and they opted to keep the money
angering the promoter. The promoter who would be interviewed by VICE’s youtube channel who would
claim he sent a radio message to the airport telling the federal police that the members of
Guns N' Roses had drugs on them and their plane and their bodies would be searched by the police.
Thankfully for the band, nothing was found.
The band headed off to Chile next and things didn’t go well when they arrived at the hotel.
Some local reporters were waiting in the lobby Upon spotting them frontman Axl Rose
charged the crowd of reporters injuring one of the camera men and damaging his camera. .
The stadium where the band was planning on playing their show had the been the sight of a prison camp
run by former dictator Augusto Pinochet. This news made its way to Rose who said he didn’t want to
play the concert, but Sorum would reveal to VH1’s that Metal Show what happened next as you can see
here. What's the scariest moment you ever had on stage? We were in Santiago Chile and we had gone
on late in bogota columbia and some people had gotten hurt and stuff like that. So we get to
Santiago and the military comes and he's got a big machine gun and he says to our tour manager
if axl leaves the stage early we will shoot and kill him.
Axl was in rare form, perfect set, perfect time. Good show, but It was a little nervy.
The band’s next shows took place in Argentina where the band was planning on playing two shows.
There was a media firestorm once the band arrived in the country.. IT was reported
in the press that the members of Guns N’ Roses had burned an argentian flag while they were in
Paris earlier in the year. And the media also reported that the band were going to burn their
boots after leaving the country because they hated Argentina. Of course this was all false,
but the band did receive numerous death threats from right wing nationalists
and politicians used it to their advantage claiming Guns N’ Roses were some sort of outlaws.
The band even had to call a press conference to dispel these allegations.
That wasn’t the only trouble the band landed itself in. Drummer Matt Sorum was once again
trying to score and found himself staying two days in a pretty swanky part of the Bueno Aires
but unbeknownst to him the people he was staying with were part of
the argentinian drug cartel and he was being tracked by the authorities.
Upon returning back to his hotel the federal agents raided his hotel room and threatened to
arrest the drummer, but according to his book it would be the band’s manager Doug Goldstein
who saved him writing in his book Doug seemed to have composed himself somewhat,
because he said,“You realize that if you arrest Matt, you guys are going to have a riot on
your hands, right? These kids will tear this f**** town apart. How about
we do this instead? we play the two shows, then we get the fuck out of
here. No one gets hurt, and I’ll tell Matt to stay away from the cartel.”
Goldstein would say in other interviews that he would frequently carry around briefcases of cash
to grease the authorities. During the band's shows in Argentina it was reported that a teenage girl
was not allowed to go to the guns n' roses show by her parents and she would take her own life.
The band’s final shows would happen in Brazil with two shows in Sao Paolo and the final show in Rio.
Things in Sao Paolo didn’t fare much better. Bassist McKagan was struggling with addiction
hoping to get out his own private hell and recalled how frontman axl rose even reached
out to him giving Duff hope that maybe the band’s fractured relationship could be healed and maybe
he could get sober someday. He would write in his book “half an hour after I left the
dinner. Axl was throwing chairs in the lobby of the hotel and trying to fistfight some guy.”
It had turned out after the dinner Rose was playing pool in the hotel and spotted a group
of journalists and fans in the lobby who were bothering him so he threw a chair down below
about 30 feet and walked away. Thankfully No one was hurt and Rose would be charged him with
“endangering human lives.” That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure
to hit the like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.
Another frequent site of the tour were fans throwing objects on stage angering Rose who
would frequently call for an interpreter. Fans would hurl bottles and rocks on stage,
angering Rose who threatened to end shows early.