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Re: Nashville,TN Dec 4th Bridgestone Arena
Alright, snarky comments aside. Nobody is going to be able to play Slash's signature Gnr guitar tracks like him. The Civil War vid is very good but still doesn't match the way Slash plays it.
However, Axl sounds great and the band rocks it. That's all we can ask for these days.
Re: Nashville,TN Dec 4th Bridgestone Arena
Didn't see this one posted here yet. Imo the best version so far, at least in audio quality! Love it!
[youtube]spzvVLbN4G4&feature=channel_video_title[/youtube]
When some of you have whished for this song to be included in the setlist, I've thought "hm, not my first choice if I'd been granted a whish!" But after hearing this I'm stoked that it's been added.
Not gonna derail the thread with political debate, but thinking of certain situations that has happened in the world from when this song was last performed, made the hair at the back of my neck stand up during certain verses!! LOVE IT!!!
Re: Nashville,TN Dec 4th Bridgestone Arena
that alone should be reason to set aside your curmudgeonly suspicions & celebrate the peace it brings. the fanbase doesn't need it's civil war anymore let's celebrate what we got..
My "curmudgeonly suspicions"? 
How about you just stop with the stupid assumptions that people are bashing. Especially when I clearly stated it's an Axl Rose thing aknowledging the fact people are excited to hear Axl's vocals on the song. Funny how lately it seems you can't appreciate Slash's work anymore without hating the new band and Axl.
Re: Nashville,TN Dec 4th Bridgestone Arena
Wow. You're so right your opinions are so much more objective because I nitpick and have the nerve to compare the shows I actually saw over that entire time frame, not to mention boots I've seen. I guess according to you I need to think it's been out of this world amazing for the entire 11 years and how dare I fucking think what is currently going on is so much better. Yeah I nitpick. I'm an asshole.
You sure seem angry.
Your opinion is yours, and mine is mine. Try decaf, or maybe get some fresh air.
Re: Nashville,TN Dec 4th Bridgestone Arena
misterID wrote:though I liked Robin's SCOM solo better than the original If that makes any sense.
no.
it doesn't.
Wow, and you only had to delete "they still weren't as good because they didn't have that feel" between those 2 sentences to make that post. Congrats. Maybe one day you can be original enough without editting and pasting for a retort. 
Re: Nashville,TN Dec 4th Bridgestone Arena
According to Wikipedia, Guns N’ Roses had never played Nashville before*. So the band’s performance at the Bridgestone Arena Sunday night was a first for both of us – Guns were one of those bands I always kind of wanted to see, but never had.
It’s not that I’m a huge fan – my taste in male lead vocalists runs a lot less “screechy,” and I never had much interest in Use Your Illusion or Chinese Democracy — it’s more that they were one of the very first bands to capture my imagination. They taught me about the danger, the swagger, and the eternal rush that is rock and roll.
I was thirteen when Appetite For Destruction came out. That album was like my rock and roll bar mitzvah, in that listening to it made me a man. Thankfully I never got on the “night train” to alcohol abuse and a life on the skids, as I know my mother worried about (I had to hide my copy from her – it was illegal contraband). But it did wise me up to a whole other world, a world of sex and danger Slash-ian guitar solos.
Guns N’ Roses makes me think of summer carnivals hunting for girls, the heavy metal thunder ride that played hard rock hits, Seagram’s seven by the lake, stolen cigarettes, metal heads in my guitar class, iconic skull t-shirts, pilfered porn magazines, feathered hair and gin smuggled in hair spray bottles.
I remember clearly watching the video for “Paradise City” (the band’s third, after “Welcome To The Jungle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine”) with my best friend and future band mate, watching the live crowd in the video whip themselves into a frenzy. It looked like the most fun in the world, and possibly, the scariest.
By the time we heard “Patience,” we vowed to form our own band (Time Machine) and make our acoustic guitars sound like that. We read in awe the Rolling Stone cover stories about their troubled origins and life on the road, the tales of broken homes and rock star excess. As the years went by, the Guns legend grew. Concert hijinks. Coming on late. Axl’s gone crazy. Chinese Democracy. I outgrew my early obsession with the hair metal bands of the day (sorry, Cinderella), and moved onto better things.
I never ended up in a proper band (Time Machine split up after one talent show), but I did end up a rock journalist, going to countless concerts. I even met Slash once, at a gig with Les Paul in a jazz club in New York, where he was charmingly nervous. But I’d never been anywhere quite like “Paradise City,” and I never saw a crowd lose their shit quite like that.
Johnny Cash once sang, don’t take your guns to town, son. Leave your guns at home. But Axl Rose wasn’t listening. Guns N’ Roses, or the latest mutation of it, were here in Nashvegas (“do you know where you are?”) to make up a gig they’d cancelled back in 2007 – some things never change. I felt lucky to even have a show, since they’d cancelled ones before and after it due to “production issues.” The original lineup was a thing of the past, and while even the acrimonious members of Pink Floyd had deemed it okay to reunite, Axl and Slash (and Izzy and Steven and Duff) had not.
In their place were people like DJ Ashba, Bumblefoot — a guitarist with a double neck guitar and a crazy neckbeard — a new, fat drummer, two keyboard players (hey Dizzy, how ya doin’?) and Tommy Stinson, the replacement from The Replacements. And Axl version 3.0 – looking better than the paparazzi had painted him, and dressed in leather instead of embarrassing yellow. Definitely the Las Vegas version of Guns n Roses. And despite a host of reviews casting aspersions on the entire enterprise, these hired Guns could rock. What a pleasant surprise.
The band got started around 11. Forget all that “show usually starts around seven, we go on stage around nine” talk. I’d come over from the Judy Collins/Arlo Guthrie show across the street at the Ryman – a more bizarre opening act, you couldn’t hope for. When I got to the arena, Zakk Wylde was doing his thing. Okay, still not interested. Then there was the interminable wait for Axl to arrive, in which you could see people (many clad in the same shirts I remembered from school) starting to get drowsy, their fourth beer and too much tinnitus weighing them down.
Then the opening chords of “Chinese Democracy,” which lasted just long enough to adjust your eyes to the new band, and to check out the evolution of Rose’s slithering stage moves. Then, that familiar, menacing riff, and the serpentine scream – YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE? YOU IN THE JUNGLE BABY. YOU GONNA DIE!!!!! Oh, yeah. This was going to be fun.
The problem with the current G N R show is, it’s half filler, half killer. I’m pretty sure Axl knows this, and just doesn’t care. If he did, he would take out the nine instrumental interludes/bathroom breaks, and maybe the cover of “Sonic Reducer,” sung capably but quixotically by Tommy Stinson while Axl presumably checks his e-mail. The show runs about three hours long, but not the Bruce Springsteen kind of three hours that results in dozens of your favorite songs being performed. It’s the kind of three hours that makes room for Rose to sing “Another Brick In The Wall” at the piano. Which by the way, sounds really f’n cool.
I said “check his e-mail” because I don’t believe Axl is doing shots every time he leaves the stage, which is often. These guys seem as sober as Steven Adler on the last day of Celebrity Rehab, and Rose, once known for attacking his fans and security for pissing him off, seems oddly polite these days. “I’d like to thank you all for coming out tonight,” he tells the withering crowd, who will dwindle in numbers once the clock strikes midnight. He introduces the members of the band like he doesn’t secretly hate them, and his temper never seems on the verge of flaring.
And seeing them perform, you can understand why he’d rather play with these guys than his ex-bandmates, who he burned his bridges with long ago. The new guys are not just instrumental wizards, they’re enthusiastic showmen. At one point, DJ Ashba, who loves to straddle the railings on either side of the stage, sprinted all the way up the arena steps to the top of my section, peeling off a guitar solo right in front of me. His tributes to Slash (mini-top hat, smoking cigarettes on stage) are more endearing than off-putting, and he can pull off the same parts without much of an audible difference.
For the vintage Guns fan, they offered “Civil War” (during which a confederate flag was hoisted in the crowd), “Mr. Brownstone,” “Rocket Queen,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “November Rain,” “Nighttrain,” “Don’t Cry,” and the non-album tracks, but still essential part of their videography, “Live And Let Die” and “You Could Be Mine.” There was the cover of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” which really does sound better with Axl’s trademark moaning. Then there were a scattering of Chinese Democracy tracks, which sound like weird metal-meets-broadway-musical hybrids, and a couple of AC/DC covers.
That left two songs that had to be heard, the ones they always save for the encore. “Patience” was one. That was pretty good, but the electric guitar drowned out the acoustics, and where was the whistling solo? And the grand finale — “Paradise City,” with accompanying pyro and confetti cannons. The big f’n moment. The culmination of many years of listening to rock music and going to concerts. So how was it? The grass may not have been as green, but if definitely felt like coming home.
Re: Nashville,TN Dec 4th Bridgestone Arena
Well, it happened: Guns N’ Roses rocked Bridgestone Arena Sunday night — making it through a three-hour show free of meltdowns, riots and original members ... save for Axl Rose.
Indeed, today’s Guns N’ Roses is essentially an Axl Rose-fronted cover band. But as The Spin learned, the bullshit GN’R is pretty no-bullshit when it comes to nailing every nuance of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-nominated band’s classic canon with Guilty Pleasures-worthy precision. And with tickets prices, uh, slashed at the 11th hour to a measly $10 (for seats in the lower bowl!), spending a night out with Axl was actually cheaper than spending one with Guilty Pleasures.
We’re not gonna lie: By the time we made it downtown, we were pretty psyched to see Axl & Co. As rock fans, seeing an aging Axl’s Chinese Democracy-era Guns N’ Roses felt like finally feasting eyes on some long-overlooked, cult-classic horror film. That, or it’s the cock-rock-concert equivalent to a midnight repertory showing of Electric Boogaloo.
Hours before showtime, we noticed armadas of Affliction shirt-donner parties and post-pre-gamed hordes of heshers appearing ready to rock. Some perhaps a little too ready, as we were greeted with a carpet bombing of “hell yeahs!!” and other unintelligible loudmouthed musings. We noticed one bandanna-headed Axl look-alike slumped against the building, moaning and pathetically puking all over himself. It was a very Heyn-and-Krulik scene for a Sunday night in Downtown Nashville.
We figured killing time with a couple rounds at neighboring Paradise Park — where a cover band was churning out exceptionally spirited versions of “Fortunate Son” and “Purple Rain” for the three other bar patrons — would effectively find us missing an opening set by Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society. Unfortunately, despite entering the arena at damn near 10 p.m., we wouldn’t be so lucky.
What is the sonic secret that unites this so called society? To us, BLS sounded like an angry, over-driven Tommy Lee Jones screaming an Ozzy Osbourne impression over sludgy grooves and a muddy melange of riffs Dimebag wouldn’t have even saved for a Damageplan record. And was Wylde really garbed in an Indian headdress? That’s a bridge too far.
In between songs (?), the band would break to let an in-power-stance Wylde wank out unaccompanied, meandering solos while banging his blond mane from side to side like it would get the knots out. Seriously, Zakk Wylde jerks off into a flying V and it’s supposed to sound like music, but it actually sounds like Black Friday at Guitar Center? We don’t get it, and we don’t wanna get it. On their feet, with heads banging, the rest of the crowd — which filled up most of the half-curtained-off arena at about 8,000 strong — seemed pleased, however.
Prepared to wait indefinitely for Axl and his employees to take the stage, we were actually surprised when, after what felt like a relatively short interim (a single smoke-and-piss break) the house lights dimmed and GN’R circa-now came out to the sounds of the Dexter theme. Soon, DJ Ashba — a cartoonishly tattooed and asymmetrically coiffed Hot Topic scarecrow of a man, and one of the band’s two Slash stand-ins — led the band into the title track from Axl Rose’s answer to SMiLE, Chinese Democracy.
It was 10:59 p.m. and we had a three-hour show ahead of us. Could we go the distance?
Well, we did. And in the process, we enjoyed the piss out of ourselves (maybe even literally). That’s not even the diminished expectations talking. While we could have conjured a dozen potential openers (“My Michelle” maybe?) better suited than “Democracy” to more immediately galvanize the crowd, the headbangers seemed to need a minute to adjust and just bask in the enigmatic presence that is … Axl Rose.
Despite his caricatural appearance, Rose can still handily consume a crowd with his charisma — even when dressed like a glam-rock pimp daddy pushing 50. His voice more often than not sounded intact as he pushed his seething pipes to top register, propelling classic screamers like “Rocket Queen” and “You Could Be Mine.” And given the repeated, across-stage sprints the singer did, it’s no wonder he appears in better shape than he did when the tour launched in October. The singer’s side-to-side slither is tamer than it once was, but he still managed to sneer convincingly and angrily chuck his mic stand against the drum riser a time or two.
An early-in-set, pyro-punctuated, three-card-punch-par-excellence of Appetite for Destruction staples — “Welcome to the Jungle,” “It’s So Easy” and “Mr. Brownstone” — had us singing along like 12-year-old dorks, wholeheartedly convinced we were actually seeing Guns N’ Roses and it was actually kicking ass. Such moments, when the band was playing its household hits, were consistently rewarding throughout the marathon gig. Performed before a sea of rolling camera phones, “Sweet Child o’ Mine” might have inspired a marriage proposal or two, the fall-of-Saigon-worthy onslaught of explosions that rained hellfire during “Live and Let Die” made us feel like we were suddenly in a Michael Bay movie, and if “Don’t Cry” almost made us well up, “November Rain” sealed the deal. Near show’s end we even noticed a stone-faced, middle-aged security guard stealthily mouthing along to “Patience” with all the stoic sincerity of a Cormac McCarthy character.
While the more high-octane Chi Dem cuts seemed to work well amid the mix of hits, the album’s headier jams were mostly met with mass bewilderment and/or bathroom trips. Same goes for the spotlight guitar and piano solo moments interspersed throughout the set. Like when Axl would run offstage to change out his chain wallet or something and that Bumblefoot bro would wail on The Pink Panther theme and toss picks out into the crowd as if he were Slash and we gave a shit about catching one. Compensating for those moments were pleasantly unpredictable surprises such as an ever-under-appreciated epic “Estranged,” Tommy Stinson fronting the band through The Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer” and the first performance of “Civil War” since the Slash era.
Yet, all that wasn’t enough for Rose to hold the whole of the crowd in palm until show’s end. Perhaps because it was literally Monday morning by the time the band was breakin’ it down for a call-and-response sing-along during “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” the crowd in the already capacity-reduced arena had thinned out considerably. And by the time the band was sending us on our way with a finale of flare and fireworks during “Paradise City,” much of the confetti was falling onto empty seats. But the faithful — and The Spin — were nonetheless stoked.
Had it included some semblance of an original lineup (or even just Slash), GN’R’s sprawling, surgically precise pastiche of fiercely appropriate arena-rock clichés and scuzzy, note-perfect nostalgia we ate (and definitely drank) up Sunday would have probably ranked among the best balls-out RAWK! shows we’d ever seen. But at gig’s end, the scene onstage — while flawlessly executed — was still one of a bona fide rock icon giving cues to a bunch of underlings getting paid to play the part. They played it well. But when it comes to this kind of rock ’n’ roll, competent virtuosity and convincing cross-stage trots and kick-spins can never suffice for true star power.
Still, we had an awesome time watching Axl and his guitar-wielding goon squad try and make it work.
