WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE: Appetite for Destruction dress up like Axl Rose and Toss for a point at The Omni in Toledo last Friday night.
Guns N' Roses tribute band, Appetite for Destruction, welcomed the Omni audience to their own Paradise City, fit with Slash's top hat and Axl Rose's signature kilt.
The audience crowded the halfway stage last Friday night as the band paid court to one of their favourite bands.
"One of my friends that I grew up with, he thinking it would be a right mind to get a Guns N' Roses tribute because I'd ever been a vocalist and had long red hair," Chad Atkins, who portrays Axl Rose said. "And, I mean, we loved Guns 'N' Roses to death."
Atkins said when they began the band 10 days ago, he didn't need to be in a tribute band, however, his friend convinced him to remember about it and he came to the end that it might be fun.
"We tested it out and the beginning two shows we put together just sold out and we were like 'I imagine this is a sound idea' so we just went from there," Atkins said.
In the 10 years they have been together, the circle has gained notoriety as one of the best Guns N' Roses cover bands.
"Of all the Guns N' Roses tribute bands in the nation, [Appetite for Destruction] is top dog," said Omni promoter Troy Michaels.
Along with the band's notoriety comes fan stories. Mike Ropelewski, who impersonates drummer Steven Adler, held up a picture of a tattooed fan and said, "That's not an Axl tattoo, that's a tattoo of [Atkins] on a dude's back.
The circle plays the classic Guns N' Roses hits like "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Sweet Child O' Mine" and finishes the picture with "Paradise City," but they possess also played b-side tracks from the G'N'R "Lies" demo album and songs that the original band covered like Aerosmith's "Mama Kin" and Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog."
"It's peculiar because, through the years, our institution was college gigs and younger kids," Ropelewski said. "Now that they're getting older, you can see less and less 'less popular' songs . we even get a large answer but we don't get the response we did with the b-sides songs [that we used to]."
The band members are all originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, except for drummer Ropelewski who is from Pennsylvania and Axl, who affected to Atlanta, Georgia three days ago.
Up next at the Omni for the cover band series will be AC/DC cover band "Thunderstruck" Friday, April 8 at 8 p.m.
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