See Axl Rose + Tracii Guns Play Led Zeppelin With Shark Island in 1986
It wasn't unusual to see musicians perform with different bands in Los Angeles during the 1980s. Tracii Guns, who inspired the "Guns" in Guns N' Roses before he left the band in 1985, has shared a video of himself and Axl Rose playing Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" with fellow rockers Shark Island in '86.
The footage was taken by Marc Canter [via Blabbermouth], who spent a lot of time documenting Guns N' Roses' early days on the Sunset Strip, and was a good friend of Slash. The performance took place at Gazzarri's on April 26, 1986, so Guns was already out of GN'R by that point.
Guns recently shared a clip from the live collaboration on his Instagram, though he wrote that it took place in 1985, which is incorrect. See his clip, as well as the full video, below.
Shark Island were considered the "house band" of Gazzarri's during that time, and vocalist Richard Black later claimed that Rose had stolen his signature snake dance move.
"Many popular bands and personalities came to see Shark Island, that's a fact, and many took elements home with them for their stage show or album covers, or wardrobe... oh well, I'm flattered... nothing that could have altered the path of my career," Black told Melodic Rock in 2006, which was re-posted on MyGNRForum.
"But that good-for-nothing Axl Rose, he' really a piece of work for the dregs. As far as I'm concerned he's never done anything original in his life. Him and his cronies would come every week and watch the show."
On the same forum, Canter defended Rose, acknowledging that the singer was likely inspired by Black, but didn't rip him off.
"Axl had plenty of moves before he had even heard of Shark Island. Axl liked Richard and thought the band was very professional because they used to play 200 gigs a year," he wrote.
"The snake move was something that Richard did do and Axl must have been a bit influenced by it and picked up on it and at some point worked it in with all his other moves. It doesn't mean that Axl ripped him off. Lots of rock stars get influenced by something they see and use it somehow. Mick Jagger got a lot of them from Tina Turner."