Watch Guns N’ Roses Play St. Louis For The First Time Since The 1991 Riverport Riot

Kevin Mazur / Contributor

Watch Guns N’ Roses Play St. Louis For The First Time Since The 1991 Riverport Riot

Kevin Mazur / Contributor

Before last night, the last time Guns N’ Roses played in the city of St. Louis was 1991. That show didn’t go well. During the band’s 1991 set at the Riverport Amphitheatre, Axl Rose noticed a fan in the crowd taking pictures. He reportedly told security to stop him, and they didn’t. So he jumped into the crowd to attack the fan, setting off a brawl, with Rose fighting both audience members and security guards. When he made it back to the stage, he announced that he was leaving, and he cut the show short. A massive riot erupted, causing 60 injuries and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to the venue. Here’s the back-in-the-day MTV News report about the riot:

A personal note: My first-ever concert was the opening show from the 1992 Guns N’ Roses/Metallica co-headlining tour. I still have vivid memories of Rose stopping the show to go on a long, splenetic tirade about the city of St. Louis. In any case, Rose didn’t return to St. Louis for the next 26 years. Even when GN’R announced the Not In This Lifetime tour, with Slash and Duff McKagan back in the band, the tour notably skipped St. Louis. But last night, the band finally returned.

According to Alternative Nation, during the band’s 31-song set at the Dome At America’s Center last night, Axl Rose said this: “Ladies and gentlemen, my partner in crime, as we return to the scene of the crime… Slash.” And William “Stump” Stephenson, the fan who Rose attacked 26 years ago, was in the building:

Below, check out a few videos of the band playing last night, which mostly looks like every other recent GN’R show:

In retrospect, it’s pretty amazing that Axl Rose took less time to patch things up with Slash than with the entire city of St. Louis.

more from News