After successfully paying tribute to Talking Heads and The Rolling Stones at past album themed shows, God Johnson took on what Rolling Stone Magazine dubbed the 61st best album of all time, Appetite for Destruction. I would have to put it in my Top 10 most influential records of my youth. It's hard to overstate just how important this album was. It was the first tape I ever owned. Sure, I had Thriller on record and a few tapes I called my own, the Top Gun Soundtrack among the earliest, but Appetite was something new and exciting and wonderfully rebellious but not entirely relatable and/or understandable for a 9 year old boy in suburban Minnesota. Still something spoke to me, and millions of other young rock and roll fans. I suppose it was the Paradise City video, or the Welcome to the Jungle video at first. These are some of the best songs of that decade.
Of course the Paradise City video is one of the coolest videos ever, but Axl won't let me embed it here.
I remember being at Target and my mom being pretty skeptical about getting this particular cassette tape for me, with its blasphemous cover featuring five long haired skulls adorning a cross. (That was the cover that was not banned. The original cover, what became the artwork inside the album cover was even more shocking.) The record, of course, has so much booze and sex and violence and cursing in it that certain songs mandated that the volume be turned down so as to not get in trouble or go to hell. I also had an awesome black-light poster of the cover in my bedroom.
Discussing the relevance of the album on our collective musical development with friends before the show, I realized I was not the only one whose first tape was GnR's Appetite. For many in the audience at Trocadero's on Saturday night, seeing Appetite for Destruction performed in its entirety was like seeing a friend from the distant past, one you forgot you appreciated so much back in the day. Choosing Valentine's Day for such a bold performance only added to its brilliance.
Like the other album tributes, GJ did it right. The universal symbols of Axl Rose and Slash were prominent: the red bandana atop the lead singer and Slash's signature top hat/long curly black hair obscuring modern day Slash Jason Fladager. Every song rocked, as did Steve Davern as Axl, who also helped with vocal duties on the Sticky Fingers tribute. He nailed Axl shriek after marvelous Axl shriek as he lead the crowd in what was essentially a 12 song singalong.
Following the spectacular GnfnR set, GJ threw down some funk on "The Wrath" and Scott Rourke revisited his David Byrne persona. With God Johnson playing fewer shows these days, hearing a set of their own tunes was a perfect nightcap.
Opening the show was Absolut Gruv, who were impressive and ended their set with a nice Elizabeth Reed featuring GJ frontman Jason Fladager.
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