"When you have to get Guns N' Roses and Metallica on the same tour to sell tickets, it shows everyone that you have to put real big packaging together to make a difference."
Following James Hetfield's injuries stemming from his burns during their ill-fated performance in Montreal, the tour resumed in Avondale, Arizona, at the Phoenix International Raceway on August 25, 1992, with Hetfield wearing a thick elbow-to-finger bandage and unable to play guitar until his arm was fully healed. Former Metallica roadie, former Metallica guitar tech, and Metal Church guitarist John Marshall filled in for the rest of the tour on rhythm guitar, while Hetfield continued to sing. Metallica's performance of "Nothing Else Matters" was recorded for their documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica.
Body Count was hired to open the tour on September 22, 1992 after Faith No More was fired from the bill the day prior. Body Count performed their first concert as the opening act in Kansas City, Missouri, at Arrowhead Stadium on September 17, 1992, and continued opening for the rest of the tour, along with Motörhead on the last three dates of the tour. Motörhead opened for the show at the Los Angeles Coliseum in Los Angeles, California, on September 27, 1992, as Body Count was dropped from the bill for the Coliseum show.
The tour was financially successful for Metallica, however; Guns N' Roses did not benefit nearly as much. According to Slash, in his self-titled autobiography, the band lost about 80% of their earnings primarily due to Rose's extravagant spending, which included funding expensive backstage theme parties at every show, as well as the band being fined heavily for multiple late appearances. The tour also earned both bands a Metal Edge Readers' Choice Award in 1992, when it was voted "Best Concert Tour".[3]
Incidents
On July 21, 1992, when Guns N' Roses was performing at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan; The band was done performing their song "You Could Be Mine", when Axl Rose vomited onstage and left soon afterwards, but returned to the stage and apologized to the audience for the poor performance, so the band performed the song again.
On July 29, 1992, while Guns N' Roses was performing during the second show at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, frontman Axl Rose encountered severe pain in his throat, but continued the show until he was hit in the genitals by a cigarette lighter thrown from the audience during "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", forcing him to retreat backstage to recover, while bassist Duff McKagan took over on vocals as the set would be immediately be cut short soon afterwards.
On July 30, 1992, while on a rest day in New York City, Rose was diagnosed with severe damage to his vocal chords, and was told by doctors that he could not sing for at least a week, resulting in three shows of the tour being rescheduled.
On September 21, 1992, Faith No More was fired from the tour due in large part to the band's dissatisfaction with Guns N' Roses' management and singer Mike Patton's obscene retaliatory behavior in which he allegedly urinated on Axl Rose's teleprompter.[4]
Montreal Riot
On August 8, 1992, during the performance at Montreal's Olympic Stadium; halfway into Metallica's set, during the song "Fade to Black",[5] frontman and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield was accidentally torched by pyrotechnics due to a miscommunication with the pyrotechnics director, forcing the band to cut their set short as Hetfield was rushed to the hospital. After Hetfield was taken to the hospital, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, bassist Jason Newsted and drummer Lars Ulrich took the stage and Ulrich said "There was an incident with the pyrotechnics, unfortunately James, uh, is on his way to the hospital right now, and we're sorry, but we can't continue the concert for you guys tonight, but we promise one thing from Metallica and you know that we are always good by our words. We will come back, and finish our concert and play again for you as soon as we can within the next couple of months. Thank you Montreal, we're sorry, okay?" which was an effort to quell the sold-out crowd of 54,666. Hammett then thanked the audience for being patient while the situation was being tended to. After a lengthy delay, the audience became increasingly impatient as Guns N' Roses eventually took the stage after a two hour and fifteen minute wait. However, the shortened time between sets did not allow for adequate tuning of the band's stage monitors, resulting in multiple band members noticing audial issues. Singer, Axl Rose, later blamed the issues on bad audio and vocal problems stemming from his diagnosis on July 30.[6] Rose forced the band to end their set short after performing only nine songs, then proclaiming to the crowd "Thank you, your money will be refunded, we're out of here!" before throwing his microphone and storming offstage.[7] Following the set, the screens on the sides of the stage flashed the message "The show is over, please check the media for more news.", which led to an estimated crowd of 2,000 people to start rioting within the stadium and surrounding areas, the fans would overturn police cars, loot various souvenir booths, and set multiple bonfires within the stadium causing an estimated $600,000 in damage to the stadium and surrounding areas. Footage from the incident was later included in Metallica's 1992 documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica. According to multiple reports from Metallica's road crew and guitarist Kirk Hammett, Rose showed little remorse for the incident following the mayhem, and was even reported by Hammett to have returned to his dressing room drinking with other band members while the bands were forced to remain inside the Expos' locker rooms during the destruction.
Six shows were forced to be rescheduled due to Hetfield's injuries, including a cancelled performance in Vancouver at BC Place for August 17.[8]
On August 27, 1992 during a performance of U2's Zoo TV Tour, frontman Bono jokingly imitated Rose regarding the incident to the crowd, asking fans "Oh hey, what time is it? Looks like we gotta go!".[9]
Metallica would later perform two half-priced shows at the Montreal Forum in February 1993. The Régie banned Guns N' Roses for life from the venue.[10]
On August 11 and 13, 2023, as part of their M72 world tour playing two shows for every city, Metallica returned to the Olympic Stadium for the first time since the events.[11]
Guns N' Roses setlists
First setlist
(Taken from the Orchard Park, New York, Rich Stadium show on July 25, 1992)
