4 June 1992
With due respect to Linda Martin’s Eurovision win, the major live music happening of 1992 was the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley that April. The concert was billed as an AIDS awareness event, with proceeds going to AIDS charities, and it was the Live Aid-style all-star shindig of its time, broadcast live on TV around the world. Worthy causes and noble intentions aside, the concert was effectively a soft rock superpower summit, with the likes of George Michael, Elton John, Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey and Annie Lennox singing Queen classics with the three remaining band members. Earlier in the evening, Guns N’ Roses had played a short set, and Axl Rose came on later to sing the rock-out section of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Guns N’ Roses were now a mainstream soft rock behemoth, and their earlier rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ was the breakout hit of the Freddie Mercury concert. Despite a studio version appearing on their Use Your Illusion II album the previous year, it’s this live version that became the chart hit and performance of record.
‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ is a dirge, I have no interest in Bob Dylan, and I’ve never been a Guns N’ Roses fan either. Nothing on this record has me reconsidering these views. It’s the dullest kind of Ford Mondeo-driving corporate soft rock. Already, Slash in his leather trousers and Axl in his Lycra underpants are just cartoon figures – two Wile E. Coyotes who have run off the cliff of relevance and are spinning their legs mid-air before gravity brings them plummeting down to Earth, the Acme anvil of grunge not far after them.
