Tracii Guns opted to play a recent L.A. Guns show in Plano, Texas from a backstage bathroom after his panic disorder was triggered by the summer heat.
Explaining the move in a Facebook post prior to the show on Thursday (June 23), the guitarist wrote: “A lot of people know I have a panic disorder. While I have it 95 percent under control, heat is the remaining trigger and I simply cannot play in the heat. But we have found a solution for today’s show: I will be playing in a comfy bathroom directly behind the stage where there is air conditioning.”
Guns livestreamed his performance from the bathroom during the set, which attendees were able to watch on Instagram while viewing the stage. “I apologize for my crazy brain,” he added.
The guitarist stayed in the bathroom for the entire nine-track set – which included performances of Cannonball, Electric Gypsy, Speed, and even a cover of AC/DC’s Hells Bells. He did, however, emerge onstage when the show finished to throw guitar picks into the audience.
L.A. Guns are currently on tour with Cinderella’s Tom Keifer and Faster Pussycat. The band’s show in Plano, Texas was the first on the trek so far that Guns has had to resort to drastic measures to keep his panic disorder in check. The tour is scheduled to run for the remainder of the year.
The band dropped their latest album, Checkered Past, in 2021. As Tracii Guns explained to Guitar World earlier this year, all of his guitar tones were recorded digitally using an amp modeler.
“Everything I played was recorded direct through a HeadRush; I didn’t use a mic’d-up amp for anything,” he recalled. “You can get what you want much more quickly. I have a studio full of microphones and amps, but it gets tiresome to work through everything to get the sound I want.”
The guitarist also addressed L.A. Guns’ legacy and discussed their place in today’s world of rock and roll.
“I think [we’re] perhaps under-celebrated,” he said. “There’s something to be said, though, for making a little splash and carrying on doing that, rather than making a big splash at the start and then going away.
“I’d love to be like AC/DC or something so I could have my own tour bus and take my family on it with all the meals catered, etc, but besides that, playing huge venues all the time would make me nervous. I’ll take a nice 3,500-seater any day.”
