Yellow-jacketing: the most ludicrous Axl Rose request
Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose has partaken in his fair share of rock ‘n’ roll antics over the years. One of music’s most well-known divas, his existence in the fast lane has divided many people and provided several notorious moments.
From being late to show for numerous concerts to strangely including the sounds of real sex on one of the band’s songs, Axl Rose has continued his attempts to shock the music industry throughout his career. For a long time, he was the most obvious manifestation of the traditional idea of a rockstar, with his life utterly startling in numerous junctures. Alas, he emerged in an era when outlandish behaviour was still expected from prominent musicians – albeit he is now facing very serious and very worrying accusations from that time period.
In the early 1990s, Rose’s behaviour grew so out of hand that it would seriously affect Guns N’ Roses when supporting one of the most famous bands on the planet: Metallica. After James Hetfield suffered a severe injury on stage and was rushed to hospital, it was up to Guns N’ Roses to save the night. However, Rose stormed off stage after just three songs, complaining of problems with his voice and the monitors.
It was not a well-received decision by the crowd, who started to riot angrily in the stadium, spilling over into the Toronto streets outside. Reflecting on the incident, Hetfield told Rolling Stone later: “He threw a fit, and that was that. I was so disappointed in him. Because he could have won so many people over by continuing the show. And he went the exact opposite way and made things ten times worse and jeopardised people’s lives. There was a lot of unnecessary violence because of his attitude”.
Axl Rose’s attitude knew no bounds. According to filmmaker Cameron Crowe in Entertainment Weekly, who interviewed many crew members for his 2016 series Roadies, one claimed that the Guns N’ Roses frontman had sent them all the way to England from America just to retrieve his beloved yellow jacket. This became such a notorious moment that it became a part of road crew lore.
Crowe said: “I heard some roadies talking about how something had to be ‘yellow-jacketed’, and I [asked] ‘What is yellow-jacketing?’ They said, ‘There was a guy that worked with Guns N’ Roses, and there was a show, and Axl Rose needed a yellow jacket that he’d left in England before he would perform. So a roadie was given the job to get on a plane as fast as possible, go to London, find Axl Rose’s yellow jacket, and come back so he could play the show.’ The best part about that story is not that somebody had to go get a yellow jacket for Axl Rose, but that it became such lore among other roadies that it became a verb — to yellow-jacket.”
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