Thirty years later, the memories are more hazy. Necessarily. What belongs to the legend? Did my friend Eric take advantage of the heist to bring back an Expos memento? A Yippee! plush? A Delino DeShields key fob? Or had we all quietly returned to our suburbs, hearing the muffled rustling of anger growing in the crucible of the Olympic Stadium?
Posted at 7:15 a.m.
On August 8, 1992, the famous stadium riot took place, much less significant, historically, than that of the Forum in solidarity with Maurice Richard, but nevertheless significant in my adolescence and in the history of rock in Montreal.
With my high school friends, more fans of the first Metallica albums than of Guns N’ Roses, we went to the stadium at the end of the afternoon, this Saturday, to miss nothing of the show of Faith No More in the first part . The rock event of the year at $35.50 plus tax didn’t seem too expensive to us.
That was before Lollapalooza moved to Parc des Îles (now Parc Jean-Drapeau) in 1994, with A Tribe Called Quest, Nick Cave, The Verve, the Smashing Pumpkins, Breeders, Flaming Lips and Beastie Boys among the headliners. And does not change the idea that we have of a musical event.
The sound was bad at the stadium, the plastic seats were uncomfortable, but we were in a good position to see the stage. During the intro of Fade To Blackwhich I was singing at the time in a pseudo band of covers, James Hetfield was burned in the face and arms due to a change in the configuration of the pyrotechnic system. He was immediately taken to hospital. Metallica had barely had time to perform a dozen songs.
Two hours and ten minutes later, Axl Rose finally deigned to take the stage and, with his middle finger extended, announced the start of the Guns N’ Roses show with a resounding Fuck you Montreal!. The sequel was to follow suit. A predicted disaster.
Rose, aka Bill Bailey, remained seated for almost half of his singing round. He chained without conviction eight songs, including two covers (Live and Let Diefrom Wings, and Attitudeof the Misfits), then he cut short at the ninth play, Civil Wartaken from the recent double album Use Your Illusionmuttering that we would be reimbursed. We’re outta here!he announced before his band left the stage.
Like the other 57,000 spectators, I couldn’t believe my ears. I had waited five hours for this 55 minute show? Fifteen minutes later, the stadium lights were on, and it was confirmed over the loudspeakers that the show was indeed over and that we would be reimbursed. The public, in shock, was heated to block. It was the spark too many. The riot was inevitable.
The police had planned to arrive on the scene shortly after midnight, when the first spectators left. The show was canceled around 11 p.m. Welcome to the jungle.
There were more than 20 injured, including nearly a dozen police officers, and damage estimated at half a million dollars: smashed windows, ransacked shops, vandalized toilets, burned and overturned cars.
All because Axl Rose didn’t feel like singing. Did he have voice problems, was he nursing laryngitis? Were there sound problems on stage? We never really knew. Contrary to what he suggested, the spectators were never reimbursed, the promoter Donald K. Donald judging that they had gotten their money’s worth…
The rock event of the year became the fiasco of the decade, which we still talk about 30 years later, even when the music of Guns N’ Roses (in the soundtrack of the film Thor: Love and Thunder) and Metallica (in the series Stranger Things) is experiencing a resurgence in popularity.
I was not a fan of Axl Rose, execrable slapper and ridiculous megalomaniac already outdated by his time. Kurt Cobain was right to have fun and denounce his sexism and homophobia. The Nirvana singer had declined Rose’s repeated requests to take part in that 1992 tour of his band and Metallica. Between the two, I had already chosen my side.
Ironically, the following year at the Verdun Auditorium, three months after having attended an anthology performance of Pearl Jam there, I saw Kurt Cobain, almost neurasthenic, disappear completely behind the other musicians of Nirvana, before disappearing forever in April 1994.
I think back and think that it wouldn’t have taken much, five months after the Stanley Cup riots downtown — where I was once again with my friends — for the disappointing spectacle of Nirvana also turns into a riot (an annoying mania of the time). And if Cobain, already more than the shadow of his shadow, had also left the stage prematurely? Sometimes all it takes is a spark to change the course of history.