POP MUSIC REVIEW : GNR, Metallica Rock Rose Bowl . . . Peacefully

Welcome to the Arroyo Seco, baby.

The Rose Bowl’s bucolic setting is hardly a jungle, urban or otherwise. Yet the highly touted--and highly feared by some in the neighborhood--Guns N’ Roses/Metallica tour seemed right at home in the dry Pasadena riverbed Saturday night.

When the site for the concert was announced last spring, some questioned the choice. On one hand, the locale seemed a bit placid for a hard-rock concert. On the other, a large crowd of young, possibly rowdy rock fans invading the well-to-do, conservative neighborhood--members of which have been fighting proposals for rock concerts there for years--seemed someone’s worst nightmare.

Why not go to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum? That’s a rockin’ place that has withstood all that rock has to offer--from the Rolling Stones to the Who.

Well, the tour did go to the Coliseum eight nights ago, for a show announced after the Rose Bowl concert was postponed for a month due to an injury suffered by Metallica singer James Hetfield. And the Coliseum show was, by all accounts, a lackluster affair, with a half-filled stadium and less than show-stopping performances.

But the Rose Bowl rocked Saturday--and apparently without disturbing the neighbors. Rose Bowl officials and area residents reported that the show was about as trouble-free as a gathering of 62,000 rock fans could be--or 62,000 anythings, for that matter. Both co-headliners delivered highly charged performances, feeding off the enthusiasm of the crowd.

And leading the best-behavior brigade: W. Axl Rose himself.

“We didn’t have such a great experience when we just played the Coliseum,” Guns N’ Roses’ often temperamental singer told the Rose Bowl crowd. “This (expletive) makes up for the whole thing.”

Rose wasn’t above a little provocation: He invited comedian Andrew Dice Clay to introduce GNR with his scatological, misogynistic patter. And at one point during the show, the singer wore a T-shirt with big red letters proclaiming “St. Louis Sucks”--a reference to his legal problems in that city, stemming from a riot at a GNR concert last year when he went after an unauthorized photographer in the audience and cut the show short. But later he proudly wore a football jersey from UCLA, the Rose Bowl’s home team.

Rose was in such a good mood that he launched only one of his famous tirades, and that was a small one--apparently about a former friend whom he feels betrayed the band. He didn’t once mention not being allowed by the show’s promoter to have controversial rapper Ice-T on the bill, as he’d requested. And even what sounded like a slightly strained throat didn’t set him off. (It was a sore throat that caused him to cut a Montreal show short in August, sparking another uprising by rampaging fans.)

Later, with a big grin on his face, Rose said: “They might even allow us back again. You’ve been a (expletive) excellent crowd. They’ve got nothing to complain about.”

Nothing, that is, until some very loud and bright fireworks were launched just before the midnight curfew--with fines of $4,000 per minute to be assessed against the band if the show ran any longer. (There had been some doubt that GNR would meet the curfew, as Rose was reported to have commented that the threatened fine was “only money.”)

But Dale Beland, president of the East Arroyo Residents Assn., said Sunday that the pyrotechnics were his only real complaint, and he praised the efficient traffic and security measures that got the crowd in and out of the area with relative ease.

Breathing the biggest sigh of relief were the Pasadena officials who saw this as the ultimate test of rock in the Rose Bowl, which is viewed as a way to add to the city’s recession-stretched coffers.

“I was very concerned about Guns N’ Roses because of the St. Louis and Montreal incidents,” Pasadena Mayor Rick Cole said during the concert. “We want more concerts here, so we can’t afford to make mistakes.”