I’m gonna have two brothers tell you a story. Now, the veracity of this story is a bit hazy, mostly because these brothers disagree, and also because they’re both well on their way to being shitfaced. But I want them to tell it to you because they just handed me a can of Natty Light, and I had forgotten how goddamn good Natty Light tastes on a summer day in the middle of a scorching-hot parking lot. So I want to spend some time nursing this puppy while David and Mike tell you about the first time they saw Guns N’ Roses live, 24 years ago.

DAVID: First time I’d ever saw them was with Faith No More and Metallica at RFK Stadium. I was 9. I got lost.

MIKE: My mom said, “You cannot take your eyes off him. Don’t let him go anywhere by himself.” So it was general admission, so we’re fighting to get up as close as we can get. Next thing I know, out of the corner of my eye, I see this guy getting passed over me!

DAVID: I kept watching people go up and getting closer. And this big dude turns to me and goes, “YOU WANNA GET UP, LITTLE MAN?!”

MIKE: So he’s gone. I turn to my older brother and go, “We just lost David.” And he’s like, “Whatever. We’ll find him.”

DAVE: I must have [crowdsurfed] four or five times.

MIKE: We didn’t see him again till the end of the concert.

Did you freak out over losing him?

MIKE: (closing his fingers together) Poquito.

Did YOU freak out, Dave?

DAVE: All I remember is seeing these two giant fucking monster amps just blew up when the band came on.

MIKE: He’s telling the wrong story.

DAVE: No, I’m not.

MIKE: Yes, you are. Those were out for the whole show.

DAVE: Whatever. Those were awesome. Security was like, “YEAH, LITTLE DUDE!” And I was like [pointing to his brother], “I got closer than those fucks ever did!”

I think that’s a nice story to start this Guns N’ Roses story. Here, have your own can of Natty Light. Settle in. Dave and Mike and I and everyone here in this tailgate lot have been waiting a long, long time for this night, so we’re in no rush.

Slash in 1992 (L) and 2012 (R) Redferns

“I know it looks like I’m insane, take a closer look I'm not to blame”

In retrospect, this Guns N’ Roses reunion—dubbed the “Not in This Lifetime” tour—should have felt inevitable. What band hasn’t reunited? Someone always goes broke, and when that happens, all of the litigation and screaming matches and bad blood and stolen girlfriends are conveniently buried in order to pay off what needs to be paid off. You can always count on rock stars to live beyond their means.

But if any band’s original lineup was going to avoid that cliché and remain forever estranged, it was that of GNR, the biggest and meanest group of the 1980s. And it’s not because of the lawsuits, or because the lead singer fired everyone and then spent 17 years and a bajillion dollars on a wet firecracker of a fourth album, or because these guys should have all died of something a very long time ago.

No, this tour is the minorest of minor miracles because of Axl Rose and Axl Rose alone. Throughout history, he has been the most unreliable and difficult frontman in music. This is a man who has spoken openly about his mental instability from the start of his career—a manic depression that has manifested itself in horrifying ways. His first ex-wife accused him of violently beating her. His second ex-wife did, too. That tour with Metallica that our little friend David crowdsurfed through? That was a notorious shitshow, with Axl inciting a violent riot in St. Louis and Metallica frontman James Hetfield nearly burning himself to death in a Montreal pyrotechnics accident.

There has never been much romanticizing of Axl’s temperament, or his inability to handle a level of fame that took him and his bandmates from zero to Wembley Stadium in no time at all. You and I have long been aware of how frighteningly unpredictable he can be. Even Axl’s face—stretched and mutilated over the years by age and scalpels—is unreliable. The Axl you remember—wolfish, beady-eyed, strangely delicate—is gone for good.

LOS ANGELES - AUGUST 31: (L-R) Izzy Stradlin, Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler of the rock group 'Guns n' Roses' pose for a portrait on a flyer for their "The Band That Woudn't Die" show at theTroubadour on August 31, 1985 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jack Lue and Marc S Canter/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) Getty Images

So all of us here in the parking lot at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, have been doing the same thing ever since we rushed to buy a ticket to tonight’s show: crossing our fingers, hoping that it actually happens, that we’ll live to see Axl reunited with mortal enemy/lead guitarist Slash and bassist/expert stock picker Duff McKagan (although we’ve long since given up on the idea of founding member Izzy Stradlin, who quit the band in 1991, ever returning), that everything won’t fall to shit in the next three hours because someone served Axl the wrong cheese plate.