Guns n Roses just announced the dates and venues of their reunion tour, and the list includes NRG Stadium in Houston.
It’s the first time that the full lineup of GnR will play together on tour since the early 1990s. The final leg of that tour, more than 20 years ago, included the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill.
When Axl, Slash and the gang take the stage at NRG on August 5, they’ll become just the second act to sing at both the Dean Dome and the home of the Houston Texans.
The first? UNC men’s soccer player Nico Melo.
Melo is part of a quartet of student athletes—one from each school playing in the Final Four—who will sing the national anthem before the national semifinals on Saturday night.
Hard as it is to believe, this will be just the second time Melo has sung in public.
“I’ve been singing by myself a lot,” Melo said. “Mostly in the shower, but never in front of audiences.”
His first public performance was April 20 of last year, when he sang at the Rammy’s.
“It’s an awards show they have for student athletes at Carolina,” he explained. With David October, a teammate on the UNC soccer team, playing keyboards, Melo sat on a stool on the Dean Dome playing ourt and belted out John Legend’s Ordinary People in a performance that earned rave reviews.
We 💙 David October and Nico Melo!
— UNC RAMMYS (@The_RAMMYS) April 21, 2015
October earned an invitation to join a band on the spot. Melo had to wait a year to get his reward for bringing down the house at the Rammy’s.
The NCAA has a tradition of inviting athletes from each Final Four school to sing the anthem, so this March, each school still in the running for a berth in Houston was asked to submit its candidate.
“They decided to send me,” Melo said, “because of last year’s performance at the Rammy’s.”
That was it. No contest among aspiring singers in the different Tar Heel sports programs. In fact, Melo didn’t even know he was the choice until after the Tar Heels cut down the nets in Philadelphia last Sunday.
“I had no idea,” he said. “I got calls from a couple people asking me, ‘Are you going to do it?’ I was like, ‘Do what?’ I thought they were asking if I was going to do the Rammy’s again.”
“No,” he recalled his friends saying, “the Final Four! That’s how I found out. That was the day after we made it, so … Monday?”
In other words, five days ago. Needless to say, it’s been a hectic week for the redshirt senior midfielder.
“It’s been insane,” he said. “I’ve gotten to see everything—how it’s all set up here. It’s been an awesome awesome experience.”
Melo’s parents will be watching him from home. His sister, Natalie, who played on the Columbia University women’s team, is joining him in Houston for the performance.
Melo will be performing with Syracuse men’s track athlete Chevis Armstead II, Villanova women’s basketball player Karlie Crispin and Oklahoma volleyball player Madison Ward. The group met on Thursday and got to work.
“We’ve been rehearsing for the last three days,” Melo said. “We’re ready. We’re definitely ready.”
Obviously, this will be the biggest audience anyone in the group has performed before. “There were maybe 2,000 people at the Rammy’s,” Melo said. “This has been totally multiplied, today.”
Despite that, Melo is confident that he’ll be able to handle the nerves. “I think the nerves are gone,” he said. “We’ve been practicing. We sound great. We’ll be fine.”
Plus, he’s used to performing in front of crowds. However, he’s not sure that performing as an athlete will prepare him for facing the crowd tonight.
“I’m not saying it’ll be harder. I’ll say different,” he said. “I’ve done soccer publicly at a pretty high level, in front of a lot of people, but this is singing. It’s personal to me.”
“It’s definitely going to be fun,” he added.