Thirty-five years after Axl Rose leapt into the crowd at Riverport Amphitheatre and touched off a three-hour riot that injured dozens and tore up a brand-new Maryland Heights venue, St. Louis fans still can’t quite agree on how they feel about Guns N’ Roses. That mix of nostalgia, wariness, and grudging affection is resurfacing again this month as the band prepares to play Busch Stadium.
The riot broke out on July 2, 1991, while Guns N’ Roses was roughly 80 minutes into its set and playing “Rocket Queen,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Axl Rose attacked an audience member who was wielding a prohibited video recorder and then jumped into the crowd himself, according to seed facts drawn from the Post-Dispatch’s reporting. A photo caption cited by the paper attributes the spark to Bill “Stump” Stephenson, a local musician who now plays in the St. Louis band Southside Five, who was reportedly taking photos of Rose during the performance when the singer confronted him.
What followed was chaos. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, an estimated 2,500 fans stormed the stage after the band abruptly walked off, destroying equipment, fencing, and landscaping at the amphitheater, which had opened in Maryland Heights just weeks earlier on June 14, 1991. The three-hour riot injured roughly 60 people, including 13 law enforcement officers, and drew an emergency response of more than 300 police officers, with 16 people booked on suspicion of riotous behavior, the Los Angeles Times reported. Riverport Amphitheatre, built for $12 million with a 20,000-person capacity, sustained an estimated $200,000 to $300,000 in damage, per the Post-Dispatch.
A Years-Long Legal Fallout for Axl Rose
The consequences for Rose stretched well beyond that July night. He was arrested at JFK Airport in July 1992, and in November of that year a St. Louis County Court convicted him of misdemeanor property damage and assault charges, according to WhatCulture. A judge dismissed the more serious felony incitement-to-riot charges, ruling that Rose had not directly incited the crowd. He was ultimately sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine to local charities…