When Guns N’ Roses takes the stage this weekend at Soldier Field, it will have been almost 30 years since the band’s first Chicago appearance, opening for Alice Cooper at the UIC Pavilion.
The band appeared in Chicago on and off since that 1987 gig, canceling almost as many performances as it played. GNR was unpredictable, controversial — and heading for worldwide fame.
In 1989 the L.A.-based group’s management wanted it to record a new album (which would eventually become “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II”) but didn’t think that would happen with the distractions Los Angeles offered. Where could they go to concentrate on work? Chicago.
“They were on the fast track there (Los Angeles) and everyone there was aware how debilitating it was,” Metro/Smart Bar owner Joe Shanahan said. “There was quite a lot riding on it, I think.”
It was Shanahan who fielded a call from the band’s manager, Doug Goldstein, looking for rehearsal space. The fourth floor of the building that houses Metro and Smart Bar included a space now known as Top Note Theatre, and that’s what the band used.
“We didn’t have a name for it back then. It was just a little theater. It was a space we would use for rehearsal,” Shanahan says of the room. “Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair and Material Issue have used it since. It would be like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna woodshed.’ It was a small stage with decent acoustics and you could work some things out.”
Shanahan says the band used the space for about a month during the summer of 1989.
“I’d leave them alone unless Axl asked me to come in, which sometimes he did,” he said. Did the band’s presence here go unnoticed? Definitely not, yet its management tried to keep it quiet. A June 26, 1989, Tribune article tracked sightings of the band. No one in the music industry publicly admitted to seeing the band — except for Shanahan. In the article, he confirms the band members’ visits to then-named Cabaret Metro and Smart Bar.
“All I know is that they’ve been downstairs, having a good time in the bar,” Shanahan said in the Tribune story. “They seem to like the atmosphere.”
Asked about the 1989 article now, and whether Shanahan feared repercussions from the band’s management, he said, “Well, you know, we were kind of under a ‘publicity gag order’ not to say they were in the building working.”
“I asked Slash and Duff, ‘People are hitting me up like crazy. I don’t like to lie so I’m going to say you are hanging out at shows at Metro.’ At this point, everyone had seen them around town. They dressed the way they dressed — it was no question who they were. In L.A. they might have been able to blend in a little bit, not in Chicago.”
Of their time in his establishments Shanahan says, “I think Guns N’ Roses holds the bar tab crown — biggest and longest running bar tab.”
He became friends with Slash. “He’s good people. A whole lot of fun. Very gracious,” Shanahan said. They hung out frequently that summer — and since then the guitarist has returned to town over the years to perform with Slash’s Snakepit, Velvet Revolver and his other projects — often late at night.
“(Slash) liked the late-night jams,” he said. “I would sometimes get a call at midnight. I’d turn to my new wife, Jennifer, and say I have to go out with Slash. ‘What’s that going to mean?’ she’d ask. ‘It might mean bail money,’ I’d say.”
Shanahan also has kind words for the band’s bassist, Duff McKagan. “He was also really great to be around. Very affable, very approachable,” Shanahan said.
Though he can’t remember the exact location where the band was housed while in Chicago, Shanahan thinks it was in Lincoln Park. Yet, it could have been above Home Run Inn Pizza on Sheffield Avenue, which was a Leona’s at the time. Regardless, Shanahan remembers this about GNR’s living quarters: “They definitely flopped there. They needed a housekeeper twice a day.”
(Update: A Tribune reader reached out to say the band stayed in apartments near DePaul University, “Some or all of Gun N’ Roses ‘flopped’ in a flat across the street from St. Vincent’s (St. Vincent de Paul Parish),” Kevin Garvey wrote in an email. “We lived a block west with our little kids and definitely noticed the GNR fans who seemed to be sitting on the church steps/fence/grass across the street around the clock hoping to see any GNR’s. GNR being there seemed odd but I figured they followed their own rules.”)
Shanahan has remained friendly with the band members, introducing their music to the next generation of Shanahans. He took his 18-year-old son, Michael, to Coachella this spring.
“He’s been hearing me talk about Guns N’ Roses for years. He’s there to see Ice Cube and LCD Soundsystem, but I told him he’s got to see them.” As for this weekend, Shanahan says, “I think people are going to like the show.”
Twitter @rumormill
.galleries:after {
content: ”;
display: block;
background-color: #144A7C;
margin: 16px auto 0;
height: 5px;
width: 100px;
}
.galleries:before {
content: “Entertainment Photos and Video”;
display: block;
font: 700 20px Georgia,serif;
text-align: center;
color: #1e1e1e;
var playlist = ‘chi_ent_movie_trailers’,
layout = ‘autoblurb’,
iu = ‘%2F4011%2Ftrb.chicagotribune%2Fent’;
Watch the latest movie trailers.
