Rock ‘n’ roll and aggressive chaos have always been two sides of the same rambunctious coin, and on July 2, 1991, Guns N’ Roses added their name to the long list of bands who held a concert that turned violent in an incident that the press would later call the Riverport Riot. The name came from the concert venue, the Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, Missouri, which is just under half an hour east of St. Louis proper.
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The riot came on the first leg of the band’s Use Your Illusion Tour, which made history both as Guns N’ Roses’ longest tour and one of the longest tours in rock ‘n’ roll history. Of course, riots and the outspoken, unpredictable behavior of frontman Axl Rose also played a part in this tour’s infamy.
The Performance Was Almost Over When The Mood Suddenly Shifted
Guns N’ Roses was well into their set—nearly finished, actually—by the time they got to “Rocket Queen.” For a good portion of the song, everything seemed to be going well. Slash was cutting up on the guitar while wearing cut-off shorts. Frontman Axl Rose donned the same kind of short shorts plus a big, fluffy fur coat and a black leather muir cap. The band’s performance was tight and going off without a hitch until suddenly, Axl Rose’s raspy whine switched registers: “Take that. Take that. Get that guy and take that!”
Axl Rose kept his eyes locked on the crowd and, realizing that no one was making their way to the man in question, said, “I’ll take it, godd*** it.” Before anyone in the back of the amphitheatre likely knew what was happening, Rose flung off his leather cap and, for lack of a better word, belly-flopped into the audience. It wasn’t quite the cartoonish, rolling ball of dust and limbs one would expect from a move like that. But it was certainly chaotic, with many of the nearest attendees awkwardly trying to figure out what to do.
While all of this was happening, the band took their raucous rock ‘n’ roll arrangement down to a tight simmer, almost adding to the bizarreness of the entire exchange. By the time Rose returned to the stage, the music had stopped. Speaking into a mic someone handed him, Rose said, “Thanks to the lame-a** security, I’m going home.” The singer walked backstage, leaving the rest of the band to follow. Slash shrugged at the crowd, or maybe flipped them a quick bird, before leaving the stage.
A Guns N’ Roses Concert Turns Into Violent Riverport Riot
No one knew why Axl Rose leapt into the crowd at first. As it turns out, the man he was after was holding a camera, which Rose refused to tolerate. Guns N’ Roses was performing new material that wouldn’t be out for another two months, and in a pre-smartphone era, rogue photographers could snatch quite a pretty penny from taking low-quality photos from inside a concert venue. The only problem with Rose’s choice of target, of course, was that the man with a camera was Bill “Stump” Stephenson, the leader of a local motorcycle gang called the Saddle Tramps. Naturally, chaos ensued.
Violence began erupting between concert attendees and the police. People were bleeding, stripping off their clothes, destroying their seats, and flinging the debris that caught people’s foreheads and arms. The police retreated to outside the venue, giving the rioters free rein to rip up trees, start fires, tear down video screens, and engage in general melee. Daniel Durchholz, the then-arts editor for the Riverfront Times, recalled watching rioters swing from cables attached to the sound and lighting rig. “If that rig comes down, there will be massive death,” a nearby sound tech told him.
Luckily, and quite surprisingly, there were no deaths. But there were upwards of 65 injuries and a new feud between Guns N’ Roses and the city of St. Louis. The band memorialized this bad blood in the liner notes to Use Your Illusion, writing, “F*** you, St. Louis!” It took years for the band to return to the Gateway City, performing their first post-riot concert in St. Louis in 2017. While nothing like the Riverport Riot happened again, we’d say there are still a few St. Louisans who are sore at Guns N’ Roses even decades later.
Photo by Pete Still/Redferns
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