Video footage of 1991 midnight release of record (Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion)

A trip down memory lane -- waiting outside a record store at midnight to pick up a new, hugely-hyped album on its release date!

I remember doing this, meeting other fellow fans in line and thinking, "I hope they don't run out of copies by the time I'm up!"

In this video, it's funny they are playing Mariah Carey over the PA -- like there was no better album to play on a night that the store opened specifically to sell a certain new album to fans of that band. Also, paying with cash and coins!

 

Can you believe that the store lacked the common sense of playing Guns N Roses on the PA?

 

I was with my buddy at the Bellevue, Washington Tower Records waiting to be let in.

 

1991 was a phenomenal year for rock music. Metallica, Nirvana, RHCP, Guns N’ Roses, etc.

 

Midnight sales for new releases are one of my favorite memories of my youth. It’s nice having all the music in the world at your fingertips, but it does diminish the magic of putting a new album by a favorite artist in for the first time, at least for me.

 

Awesome footage.

 

That week, Use Your Illusion I & II debuted at #1 and 2 on the Billboard 200... with II being the favorite.

 

I got mine for two bucks each. Thrift shop. 10:00 AM. Walked right in.

 

I was working at Turtles at the time and it was okay, there weren't too many folks there and we were free to sell everything new that was coming out the next day. If you bought both you got $2.00 off both discs on top of the sale price ( I want to say it ended up costing $21.98 if you walked out with both, a pretty good deal , for that time). I think we ended up selling a bunch of Ozzy albums too.) I'm thankful we didn't make a habit of the late night new release day sales, we were already open til 12 on Friday and Saturday.

 

I doubt it was the store having common sense, more like the staff having a laugh at the fans expense...I can't play the video with sound til later but if it was a chain store (like I worked at) they were probably not allowed to play parental advisory stickered discs. It's the kind of stuff we would have pulled at my store.

 

I feel like I just watched color outtakes from Clerks or something...