UNDER THE RADAR

There was a piece of tape stuck to the rehearsal studio floor in the spot where in the past Izzy Stradlin’s amp would have been. “On the piece of tape,” Gilby Clarke says now, “and I’ll never forget this, it said: ‘Do you have what it takes to fill this spot?’” Clarke’s Guns N’ Roses audition took place at Third Encore Studios in North Hollywood. Slash had called him around midnight to come in the next afternoon.

Clarke had walked in that autumn 1991 day with a Les Paul and Marshall half-stack to audition for the position of GN’R’s rhythm guitarist, which Stradlin had vacated following a tour leg supporting their two Use Your Illusion albums. He did have what it takes. He got the job, and his three-year tenure with the band included their most legendary tour. It also included two not at all legendary GN’R albums: The Spaghetti Incident? and Live Era ’87–’93.

For such a huge band, these albums, particularly the latter, are close to being forgotten. Lost in the shuffle amid savagely brilliant debut Appetite For Destruction, the controversial GN’R Lies, the sprawling Use Your Illusion and the mythologised/maximalist Chinese Democracy.

Still, Live Era ’87–’93 is an underrated concert album that remains the band’s only official classicera live record. It shows why GN’R were powerful enough to (partially) reunite in 2016 and play stadiums and arenas across the world–something they’re still doing, more than 25 years after their heyday. Punk-covers album The Spaghetti Incident? includes some feisty gems. It’s admirable that the band followed up the grandiose Illusion twin towers by returning to their street-band roots.

and were both released on November 23, six years apart, the former in 1993, the latter in ’99. As far as GN’R goes, that period is typically remembered for the band splintering to where nor are essential. But the Guns N’ Roses story isn’t complete without them.