Guns N’ Roses at the Ritz in 1991: “You Could Be Mine” – a club show before the storm
New York, 16 May 1991: just before “Use Your Illusion”, Guns N’ Roses played the small Ritz Theatre – shot on 35mm film and officially released in 4K in 2022.
Photo: Raph_PH / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped and resized)
Single video: YouTube · GunsNRosesVEVO · youtube.com
On 16 May 1991 Guns N’ Roses took the stage at the Ritz Theatre in New York – one of four warm-up shows before the huge “Use Your Illusion” tour, alongside gigs in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The night was shot on 35mm film for the concert film “Live in New York”, and the footage was originally meant to provide the music video for “You Could Be Mine”.
The official video shows the song at full force – Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan, drummer Matt Sorum and keyboard player Dizzy Reed made up the line-up of the “Use Your Illusion” era. That night the band also played “Don’t Cry” and “You Ain’t the First”, and Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon joined them on stage. For the reissue, the 35mm film was transferred to 4K UHD and the sound remixed from the original multitrack tapes.
The original “You Could Be Mine” video combined concert footage with scenes from “Terminator 2” and was therefore never released commercially. Only with the reissues of “Use Your Illusion I & II” on 11 November 2022 did the complete Ritz show come out officially – as a Blu-ray in the Super Deluxe box. The two original albums had been released on 17 September 1991; “Use Your Illusion II” reached No. 1 and “Use Your Illusion I” No. 2 in the US charts.