Read This: Remembering the night Axl Rose incited a riot in St. Louis

When Guns N’ Roses embarked upon the Use Your Illusion tour in 1991, it was arguably the biggest act in all of rock, with Appetite For Destruction going multi-platinum and an ambitious double album on the way. But Axl Rose and company were also garnering a hard-earned reputation as trouble-making “bad boys” and were creating headaches for concert promoters seemingly everywhere they went. Nevertheless, the owners of St. Louis’ then-brand-new Riverport Amphitheater thought they could handle GNR. They miscalculated. About an hour and a half into the July 2, 1991 concert, Rose went ballistic when he spotted a biker named Bill “Stump” Stephenson taking some unauthorized photos from the audience. What happened next is one of the most infamous nights in rock history, and it’s vividly recounted by Christian Schaeffer in an article for Riverfront Times entitled “Riverport Riot: An Oral History Of The Guns N’ Roses Show That Sated St. Louis’ Appetite For Destruction.” A full-scale riot ensued when Rose, having physically attacked Stephenson, left the stage, blaming “lame-ass security.” Fans went ballistic, tearing out seats and stealing valuable equipment from the stage. Soon, every available cop in the area was called in. “After the dust settled,” Schaeffer writes, “nearly all the blame fell on Rose.”