J.D. Yorke's Review

Here we go...The infamous "Superskate" gig. While on tour with The Cult as assistant Monitor Engineer (and as Guns And Roses Main Monitor Guy), we happened to do a gig in Moncton Canada at a roller skating rink called Superskate. Ordinarily, we were playing large venues-hockey arenas and the like, but somehow tour management thought it would be great for the band to do this gig. At first, we figured we would only set up half the gear, but sound and lighting guys being what they are (lunatic egomaniacs by-and-large), we wound up setting up all of the PA and most of the lighting rig in this small place. The PA itself was stacked right to the ceiling...literally. Guns and Roses played first, put on a great show....everything was going great. Any concerns about power consumption were pretty much allieviated while GNR was playing...it seemed as if everything would be alright. Two songs into the Cult set...the lights went out. Everything went out. Except for some feeble emergency lights near the exit doors, everything went dark and the crowd went ballistic. I immediately shut the Audio distro down...if service returned, the resulting surge would blow the mains. People were flipping out in the jammed venue. Ian and the boys stood on stage for a few moments in complete confusion. I ran back to the breaker room where all the tie ins for Power distribution had been made. There was a lighting guy arguing with a house electrician because they couldn't get the panel open to see what the hell had happened to the dynamite stick sized fuses which had blown. I picked up a hammer, actually more of a maul than a hammer and proceeded to bash the shit out of the box handle. Two strikes and the box popped. Out on stage, Ian walked out on his runway extention into the crowd. In a loud voice he began talking to the crowd... keeping people cool and entertained while we were scrambling to restore power to the venue. What else is there to say? We got the system up, The Cult started the show from the begining, redoing the first two songs, and adding in a bunch of extra stuff...Doors cover tunes and the like. At one point Ian climbed the PA stack (during Born To Be Wild) and disappered into the false ceiling scattering ceiling tiles everywhere. I also remember almost getting hit in the head by a wine bottle that Ian had took a slug out of and tossed up behind the backdrop. As I was running from one side of the stage to the other in order to stop the PA stacks from falling into the crowd, the wine bottle exploded in front of me. I also remember a huge amount of people on stage after the barracades collapsed, I remember pulling security guys out of the pit as they were getting crushed by the fence which had been pushed against the stage by the crowd. In 20 years of touring, it's up there as one of the most bizarre gigs I can remember. Anyone with pictures from the Electric Tour of Canada August 1987 please let me know!