Guns N’ Roses released their debut studio album entitled ‘Appetite for Destruction’ on July 21, 1987, which received very positive reviews from fans and music critics. Along with critical acclaim, their first record brought great fame and commercial success to the band members who were about to become some of the most popular and scandalous rock stars in music history.
Shortly after releasing their album, the band decided to promote the record through a tour, The Appetite for Destruction Tour, which started on August 14, 1987, in Halifax and ended on December 19, 1988, in Auckland. The tour was highly successful and is often credited for popularizing the record as it hit the charts after the band’s tour.
Aside from achieving mainstream popularity and commercial success, the tour also introduced GN’R to the rock scene. During that tour, Guns N’ Roses performed opening acts for The Cult, Mötley Crüe, Alice Cooper, Iron Maiden, and Aerosmith without knowing that they would soon become the headliners.
Guns N’ Roses Performed Opening Acts For Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden started their Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour on April 28, 1988, in Cologne to support their seventh studio album, ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.’ Many bands such as Guns N’ Roses, Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, L.A. Guns, and Megadeth joined Iron Maiden to perform the opening acts.
The brand new band, Guns N’ Roses, who were also on tour, accompanied the iconic heavy metal band in Seventh Tour’s North America leg. Their opening acts drew the great attention and people started to realize that GN’R would become a groundbreaking band for rock music. However, Iron Maiden lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson had doubts and regrets considering the band’s frontman.
Why Did Bruce Dickinson Want To Attack Axl Rose?
Guns N’ Roses performed the opening act for Iron Maiden’s concert on May 16, 1988, at the Coliseum in Quebec City, Canada, which turned out to be a disappointment for Dickinson as he witnessed Axl Roses’s unacceptable behavior toward the audience. In one of his interviews with Le Journal de Montréal, the frontman recalled the concert saying that Rose was very rude to the fans because they spoke French to him.
In Dickinson’s words, he said:
“I should have come on stage and given him a punch. How could he dare speak to my audience in that way? I always regretted not having done so.“
Therefore Bruce Dickinson got so angry with Rose that he wanted to go to the stage and punch him in the face to teach the young singer a lesson. However, he decided not to do it, probably not to ruin the audience’s night by attacking the GN’R frontman, but he then clearly regretted his decision.
