The Rose no-show things is often times blown completely out of proportion. He missed a few concerts (because one time he was arrested and stuff like that) and aborted a couple when morons threw stuff at him and the band on stage but GnR played 194(!) concerts during the Use Your Illusion world tour. It was one of the longest and biggest tours in music history.
According to the "
notable events" section about five shows were cancelled or aborted. So we're talking about a ~3% max. "no-show" rate
.
I personally went to their August 24, 1991 concert in Mannheim which was on their first European leg. It was awesome. Skid Row opened up for them and GnR showed up about two hours late but it was all worth it. Nice, hot August night with a (nearly) full moon… unforgettable.
I was 18 years old and pretty inexperienced with concerts back then though and I made some huge mistakes. I partied the night before, then drove from Hannover to Mannheim with a friend (about a four/five hour drive IIRC), arrived around noon time, got in line for hours in the scorching August heat, then waited even more hours in the heat w/o being able or willing (when you have worked your way somewhat to the front) to get out of the crowd.
End result: I had my last drink (non-alcoholic, of course) around noon and the concert finished at 11PM or something like that and due to the crowd we did not really get off the event site until 1AM.
I've never been that thirsty in my entire life and the worst thing was everything was so crowded (including the gas stations on the way to and on the actual Autobahn) that it was not possible to get/buy something to drink until we were some way out of and away from Mannheim.
And then I was also rarely ever that tired in my entire life. My friend fell asleep on our way back home but as the driver I did not really have that option, right? It was an excruciating four hour drive back home where we arrived in the wee early morning hours. Very stupid in hindsight on many accounts but I guess that happens when you're young and dumb
.
The year after Mannheim I went to their Hannover show on June 3, 1992 but it was only a shadow of the Mannheim show. One could tell that they were exhausted, tired and that playing all those concerts, one after another (almost) every other night, had just turned into a routine job for them.
I still enjoy listening to their old stuff these days and also thought that Chinese Democracy was better than its reputation. I'm not much of a music person at all but if I ever was a fan of any band then it's GnR.
I wouldn't go to another concert these days though. Axl has not exactly aged very well and his voice is pretty terrible most gigs (that I have watched on YT).
They also need to record some new material. The old stuff has gotten, yeah, old.
P.S.: Ticket prices were OK back then. Not cheap but compared to mainstream garbage like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey it was alright. I don't remember the exact prices… maybe DM 50 to DM70 (DM = Deutsche Mark… no Euro back then, of course).
