Peter Jans

Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast, The Mnemonic Memory, where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our tree of knowledge.

I'm Jan, your mnemonic man, and today's mnemonic rewind is on the American rock band, Guns N' Roses.

Formed in Los Angeles in 1985, Guns N' Roses exploded onto the music scene with their first album, Appetite for Destruction.

It contained the song Welcome to the Jungle, which helped it become the best-selling debut album in the US.

They produced some of the biggest hits in rock, which included Sweet Child O' Mine, Paradise City, You Could Be Mine, Don't Cry and November Rain, and accompanied these hits with some of the most recognisable music videos ever produced.

Enjoy.

And today's episode is on the hard-hitting, rebellious and wild Guns N' Roses.

Formed in Los Angeles in 1985 when the LA Guns needed a new vocalist, Guns N' Roses rose to fame in just a number of years after their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, finally got a foothold.

From there, their iconic albums, Use Your Illusion 1 and Use Your Illusion 2, launched them into the stratosphere, making them one of the biggest bands in the world.

Now I have my own memories of Guns N' Roses way back in 1993 when they toured Australia and were playing at Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne.

Now getting there was an adventure in itself, driving my first car which was a four speed Holden Gemini which had a proclivity to overheat.

So the trip down was with the windows right down and the heater flat out to cool the engine.

Anyway, we got there okay, parked the car in the middle of a big field and began the long trek just to get in the venue.

Once in, the weather was pushing 40 degrees with seemingly no shelter along with lines to just get a drink over an hour long.

Following this the weather turned and it started to blow a gale causing a dust storm making it difficult to see anything at all.

And then it started to rain and the temperature basically dropped 30 degrees.

Now this change in the weather must have driven a few people crazy because after the rain they were making mudslides down the Calder Park Embankment, some naked.

In between all this, the band actually eventually got out and put on a great show.

Now, thinking that all the drummers were there behind us, we left and we couldn't find the car for over an hour.

Anyway, when we finally found the car, elatedly we jumped in, started it and moved five metres and then not a centimetre further for another hour.