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- Topics: Active | Unanswered
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Guns N' Roses to come to Australia in March 2013
I dunno...here in Melbourne....
Doors 5.00pm
Rose Tattoo 5.45-6.15pm
ZZ Top 6.45-7.45pm
GNR 8.15-10.15pm
Last trains on most lines leave around 1am.
Unfortunately the problem is the choice of venue.
In 2006 GNR played two shows in Melbourne at an indoor stadium....the second of these nights...Axl missed the 9pm start time and took the stage at about 11.50pm to START the show...and other than people complaining about waiting...there was no problem with that.
This time they've chosen to stage the show in an outdoor area that's close to residential areas...residents have negotiated with the venue that all live music shows MUST finish by 11pm.
That's for the melbourne show anyway. Not sure what the deal is in the other states.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Guns N' Roses to come to Australia in March 2013
Ron met fans at a local music shop here in Melbourne.
I'd been lucky enough to meet him before, but as usual he's a total gentleman and a lot of fun to be around. He let me have a go of this monster here....and then played some requests for me too. 
:mosh::mosh::mosh:
Full review of GNR tomorrow when I've slept cos I'm trashed....and heading back to do it all again with Metalalex tomorrow!
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Guns N' Roses to come to Australia in March 2013
Wow!!! The fretless looks scary..
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: Guns N' Roses to come to Australia in March 2013
First time in history, Ron's beard got defeated! 
- Me_Wise_Magic
- Rep: 70
Re: Guns N' Roses to come to Australia in March 2013
High class that 
Freaking lucky for you Monkey to play on that double neck. Such a cool structured guitar. Glad he was being awesome and can't wait to hear your review. Battle of the epic beards!!
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Guns N' Roses to come to Australia in March 2013
So I'm having a little private GNR festival here in melbourne.
My day started yesterday...had to get up bright and early to drive across town to Bumble's meet and greet.
Can't explain exactly how cool Bumble is. I mean he's not just going through the motions, he made a legitimate effort to talk to everyone who came, and hang out with us even. Autographs, pictures, song requests, letting me play his guitar, him having a little sing-along to an impromptu version of Catcher....he also demoed some of the riffs......to scrapped and a few of the other chinese songs.
As most of you know he's also uber friendly and very funny to be around, a lot of great jokes, and he's just dripping musical talent...he was making all kinds of jokes about the different sounds that can be made on guitar too......
Of course he was hammered with GNR questions from participants.
One fan asked why they don't play "Perfect Crime" and "Double Talking Jive", Bumble responded that he thinks Perfect Crime would be an amazing opener, and that there are a lot of great songs in the GNR back catalogue and that it would be cool if the band played. But he did caution us not to get our hopes up for sudden changes that night as they like to rehearse new tracks with the 3 guitarists and staging and that there's a process so to speak to adding songs.
Of course he was asked about new music, and he responded much as he did in recent interviews, he said he's hopeful that one day new music might happen because he'd love to do it, but that he also doesn't want to be falsely getting fan's hopes up, or bullshitting anyone about time frames and then letting people down, and so it's best not to kind of think about it too much.
To be honest I got the vibe from him that he feels the same potential in the band that we do - in terms of new music, setlist variance and all that stuff. And I think his answers were fair considering the situation that fundamentally he's not the guy in control of these things, but he sure seemed to recognise the fans way of thinking.
Anyway he hung out with us for hours, and at my request played for me (standing right next to me) - the whole solo sections of some of his more impossible to play solo songs - like the outro to "Turn Around" and the whole of "Guitars Suck"....the guy is a monster player...you probably have to play guitar to truly understand...but his skills are just amazing.
Anyway...so onto the show.
Terrible weather. Outdoor gig. Huge winds and rain. And very unlucky. We had 10 straight days of 30+ degree weather (86+ for you usa people) last week...but last night was more like winter with rain and storms and wind.
ZZ Top Kicked ass. Got to love my beard brothers. Something Special about a band that's been together for 40 years and can still rock it. Billy suggested maybe he should hang around and give us some Texan-BBQ after the show
Onto GNR.
The sound mix was pretty questionable from where I was, and not in the "can't hear Axl" way you might expect, actually all I could hear in some songs was Axl, Tommy and Frank...the top end seemed to be missing a lot especially the guitar solos in songs...I could see some seriously awesome shreds happening but it was kinda hard to hear. In fairness - this might have been cos I was so awesomely epically close...I think maybe I was actually standing forwards of the house PA - so maybe it sounded better behind me and I was just getting a weird...stage fold back mix. But what I lost in sound was made up in vision....
I had a fucking great night. I've never been so close at GNR!
Axl seemed to be in great spirits. He was interacting with the audience loads, not so much talking but pointing out silly things and gesturing to people and stuff. He brought out some kind of beer pouring device and set it up on the drums and was pulling beers for dudes in the front.
He was also having a lot of fun with the band...pretending to bump DJ while he was playing and stuff like that....there was also a rather unexpected moment where some kind of model clad in a leather jacket wandered out to Axl from off stage...he unzipped her top to reveal she was topless and proceeded to play some kind of game with her boobs - seemed to be trying to stick something over her nipples...I think it was some kind of food like peanuts or something but could be wrong...then tossed a handful of them into the front row.....the blokey aussie guy audience was suitably impressed I think 
Voice wise he seemed to be in similar form to the recent london boot. It was 'modern axl' in the sense that he didn't demonstrate the 2006 style screaming power...however...he did use a lot more rasp than I've seen on many of the recent bootlegs from the past few years....and he was definitely in form performance wise...moved around the stage a lot, seemed to be in a good mood and having a lot of fun, and was pulling out enough rasp for the key moments where it really needs it.
Obviously i've heard better, but i've heard a lot worse too, and the energy at the front was such that it didn't seem to detract in any way.
You guys probably saw the setlist...no real surprises....as i've said many times before...IMO the band comes alive during the chinese songs...the obviously don't get as much of a pop from the 80s fans in the audience...but they sounded amazing. Better was a highlight, as was This I love (which won over my eminem-raised fiancée who was losing her GNR cherry that night) and I was very happy to hear Catcher in the Rye.....
Not to sound like an Axl-appoligist...but I was a bit pissed off to read a review in the media this morning canning the number of chinese songs and saying they should have played more oldies. I mean seriously, the set has Jungle, ISE, Rocket Queen, Brownstone, Paradise, Nightrain, YCBM, SCOM, KOHD, NR, Estranged, Don't Cry....I doubt any casual fan could name a "hit" they didn't play. If anything i'd have argued for more Chinese not less....maybe in place of the seeker or something like that.
Anyway...so I'm guessing this show would have seemed boring when following from home....but I must say in person...and being dead centre and only 3 from the front... it was a great night....very exciting to see Axl so close after all these years.
I'm hung-over as fuck from not sleeping last night...but I'm trying to man up ready to go meet metalalex and do it all again tonight!
Also...Axl came on stage at something very close to 8.06pm...and he was in a fantastic mood all night it seemed!
- metallex78
- Rep: 194
Re: Guns N' Roses to come to Australia in March 2013
Tonight's the night Monkey, looking forward to it!!!!
