Guns N’ Roses Pay Tribute to Orlando Shooting Victims
On Friday (July 29), Guns N' Roses' "Not in This Lifetime ..." tour made a stop at the Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla. Yesterday, they honored the victims of last month's attack at one of the city's gay nightclubs.
They posted the video below to their social media feeds, with the caption "49 Roses ... #WeAreOrlando." It begins with the #WeAreOrlando hashtag, and then their logo is turned into the colors of the rainbow -- a symbol of gay pride. The video concludes with roses blooming out of their logo.
In the early morning hours of June 12, a gunman opened fire in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others. After a three-hour standoff with the police, the shooter, who had expressed allegiance to ISIS during the attack, was shot and killed by the Orlando Police Department.
Guns N' Roses' post represents a change in mindset for Axl Rose, who garnered controversy with "One in a Million," a song from 1988's G N' R Lies, whose lyrics featured racial and homophobic epithets. In a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone, he revealed that he'd had "some very bad experiences with homosexuals," including an attempted rape while hitch-hiking and that he occasionally taunted gays on the street from inside his car. But he also said, "I'm not against them doing what they want to do as long as it's not hurting anybody else and they're not forcing it upon me."
By 1992, however, all appeared to be forgiven, with Rose and Elton John duetting on Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert. A few months later, the two joined forces again to perform "November Rain" at the MTV Video Music Awards.
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