Thursday, November 09, 2006

Guns Are Found to be Wrong Kaliber for Maine

Axl looks good for his age

Wedged among the election results in the Portland Press Herald yesterday:

" Guns N' Roses and state fire marshals disagree on who is to blame for the rock band's decision to call off its show at the Cumberland County Civic Center Monday night. The band, through a press release issued Tuesday, blamed the decision on a pair of overzealous state fire marshals.

Nelson Collins, supervisor of licensing and inspections at the State Fire Marshal's Office, said he was doing his job when he let band managers know performers wouldn't be allowed to drink alcohol out of bottles on stage. Collins said Guns N' Roses' management objected.

Guns N' Roses canceled its performance at the civic center at 5:30 p.m. Monday, 2� hours before the show was scheduled to begin. The decision angered fans, many of whom blamed the band's lead singer, Axl Rose, who has called off shows before. Collins and another fire marshal, Robert Cadigan, "made it impossible for the band to perform their show to the usual high standards that their fans deserve," according to a press release from the band's management agency.
" (The rest...)

My favorite line from the rest of the story? "He said Green Day agreed to the alcohol rule and Clay Aiken did not have a pyrotechnics show..." Clay Aitken don't need no fireworks- he's pure vocal dynamite!

I once covered a Blues Traveler show* for a radio station I used to work for and the fire marshals wouldn't let people dance, and I saw town officials shut down Jefferson Starship at an outdoor festival for breaking the noise ordinance (Starship stormed off, which meant I didn't have to explain what I had done with their booze rider**) but this "no booze on stage" rule is new to me. Huh. It can be considered a small mercy however that the fire marshals didn't try and pull this at a Def Leppard or AC/DC show in Maine. As my old pal Boo (a long time observer of the Maine concert scene) often notes, "trends in Maine come and go, but DC and the Lep will never die." Pull the plug on those bands and there would have been hordes of the hockey-haired hurling kodiak cans at the State House.

(*And it sucked. As I had expected.)
(**I had forced an intern from a rival radio station to stow it in the trunk of my car, which I then slept in parked in the corner of a muddy fairground as I was too drunk to drive home.)

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Axl Rose is 0 for 2 in Portland. Back when Appetite for Destruction was new, they were supposed to open for Aerosmith, but cancelled then too. They did play in Augusta on the Use Your Illusions tour though. Maybe next time.

SkookumJoe said...

They were worried drinking on stage would start a fire?

Wisdom Weasel said...

Not the Tracii Steele? No, it can't be.

SJ, there is no telling what twisted logic the official mind in Maine follows. Some are incredibly nice and possessed of great situational awareness, while others are more like the Vogons in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We still have the following laws on the books, for example:

Shotguns are required to be taken to church in the event of a Native American attack (which might happen more often if we keep denying their casino applications).

You may not step out of a plane in flight (hence all the hush hush skydiving shabeens).

After January 14th you will be charged a fine for having your Christmas decorations still up (I have never seen this one enforced, unless instead of "January 14th" they meant to write "when the ice goes out on the pond or when the clocks go forward, whichever is sooner").

Margaret Porter said...

I want to steal, erm, respectfully borrow the prolongued decoration fine. I'm not a government-in-your-face kind of person, but I definitely tend to be a seasonal purist. It would be immensely satisfying to penalise those who don't remove their Xmas adornments in a timely fashion.

Seeing a filthy, faded plastic Santa toppling over drunkenly in his sleigh--during Eastertide, surrounded by daffodils and tulips--and elves and reindeer--is incredibly annoying. Not to mention that wreath on the door.

Just because somebody lives in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean people don't drive by their house.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, the Tracii Steele. They have rebuilt me; better than before.

Wisdom Weasel said...

If you are indeed the real Tracii Steele, what did you receive a substantial cash settlement for several years ago, and what sort of Maine transportation company shares your real last name?

flyingrodent said...

That's nothing, in York there's still a law that allows citizens to shoot Scots with a bow and arrow.

They must still be sore about that whole "burning and exterminating" thing from the 12th century.

Anonymous said...

It can't be, indeed. The real honest-to-goodness tracii steele?

Now with two i's?

The glamorama bassist who hasn't updated his web page since March 2000?

Will wonderz ever cease?

PiesFan90 said...

Axl is looking remarkably "Avril" like. He seems to have the breasts as well.

Wisdom Weasel said...

Funny that....

Anonymous said...

"It can't be, indeed. The real honest-to-goodness tracii steele?

Now with two i's?

The glamorama bassist who hasn't updated his web page since March 2000?

Will wonderz ever cease?"



I chose the name so I spelled it how I liked which was with two i's ala Tracii Guns. I used to see it spelled with one 'i' and, at first, I'd be like,"Um, that's Tracii with TWO i's." In the time it usually took the laughter to die down I'd ponder the significance of the spelling. In time, I came to appreciate the notion that, when someone asks you to act cool and you act like a retard, you shouldn't bitch when they won't let you wear the helmet.

As for the website, it's still there - as poorly designed as ever, but hasn't been updated since roughly 2003. I did a little recording and performing as a singer/songwriter around that time. Right after I began doing that, I started a family. Being a great dad leaves less time than being a so-so musician requires. I still enjoy playing, but that dream has become more of a hobby.

In all of 2006 I booked and played exactly one show - my first in nearly three years. It took place at a tiny hole in the wall in Little Rock, Arkansas. In attendance were my wife, a handfull of our friends, the headlining band, their women, and a tiny group of folks who belly up to that bar every day right after they punch out whether there's live music or not. I sang my songs, my friends clapped, I felt old, I thanked everyone for coming, then I left.

While we're on the topic of my radio moniker, here's an amusing annecdote about it. I remember that when I came up with "Tracii Steele" I thought it had a familliar quality to it that I liked. When I left Maine, I went back to Austin for a little bit. I caught up with an old friend and bandmate. We reminisced and caught up. When I told him I'd been working in radio he asked me what I called myself. I told him and he looked stunned. He said,"Why did you name yourself after my sister?" I suppose that's where the familliar feeling I got was coming from. Incidentally, she spells it with one 'i'.

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