Guns N' Roses - Jan 1 2001 - House of Blues comeback show

[DizzyReed63]

I went to this show. I was 19 years old and flew down from Canada. It was New Years Eve and the doors were scheduled to open at 1am. People were lining up along the walls inside the Mandalay Bay casino where the House of Blues is located for hours before that. Once we got inside everyone just stood around waiting until around 3:30am when the show started. There was a camera crew in front of the stage filming the crowd before the show. It was a small venue and the floor was really packed. I remember being really curious about hearing new songs and being surprised that they were playing all old stuff for the first half of the show. The Blues was the highlight out of the new songs for me but I thought they all sounded pretty good. I still like those performances and arrangements more than what ended up on CD. Show ended at around 5:30am and I remember walking out of the casino as the sun was sarting to rise. Probably my most memorable concert experience. I was running a GNR website at the time called the GNR MP3 Exchange, and later gnrlive.com, which were the first websites devoted to sharing live GNR mp3`s back in the 90`s. The guy who bootlegged the show got in touch and hooked me up with his recording of the Blues, which I put on the website and traffic went crazy. He released the full show a bit later on. RIR3 was a week later so hype for new Guns was at an all time high. That was the best time I can remember as a GNR fan.

To you and Matt - I remember those days pretty vividly, too. I used to run GnRForum dot com, which was another hot bed of constant action. Matt's right, every other band's forum was dwarfed by us GnR fans and the crazy shit and stories floating around. Fun fact: We used to run stories by Dizzy Reed's aunt in a private section of the forum, to confirm certain rumors. haha. People didn't really post songs in the forums yet, as you'd get most of them on Napster. I also was the source of the "phat boy" story, where Axl brought a CD of new tracks to a bar in LA late one night and invited people out to his car to listen. Blues, Riad and Madagascar. True story.

As for video, I think I remember seeing a few shots of this show in an MTV report way back then. Might be wrong, but I have an image in my head

Janabis - jealous you got to go to this. I was in the same boat where I just didn't have the funds and was just starting out in my low-paying career. This gig was annc'd last minute, if I recall, too.

Crazy to think so much has changed since then. Shit, I remember downloading my first digital GnR bootleg from Mrice's gnrunlimited dot com, sp1at dot com with "pepper" and trading cassette tapes with people.

This band had us fans and the music world so curious back then. Axl sort of had a window there of a free pass to try something new and get a fair shake. Like Matt said, I'd think you were crazy in '01 to say it'd be '08 w/ a bunch of a new players before this thing came out.

Thanks for posting this though, brings back some pretty cool memories, and that same feeling of excitement I think everyone who's a long-timer is feeling again right now.

Very cool! I totally remember that story about Axl bringing the CD to a bar. From what I remember, it was a strip club or something and he had the DJ play it over the house system after hours. Could be a different incident but definitely brings back memories. I remember your forum too! And the GNR unlimited site.

Crazy times. The download times back then killed me! Speaking of downloading... it pissed Axl off so much he even called all of us 'download mother fuckers' at shows. And he clearly followed the forums back then. Xozi's claim to fame was Axl calling her out at a concert! Talking about ass hole forum people spreading false rumors and thinking they know stuff when they know nothing at all. It was GLORIOUS for me... since I always trashed Xozi every chance I got. We eventually became friends when it became clear GNR wasn't amounting to much by 2002 or so. That's around when the old CD.com went offline briefly before being brought back by new people who still run it today I presume. That was the same time this forum started... it kind of took the place of the old CD.com. A lot of it's members came here. Xozi started a forum in South America somewhere... Brazil was it? Her home country. Wonder if she's still running it! I have no idea what the link is anymore.

And I wonder if Queenie is still there making haste.

Yeah, the strip club story was different and had a few more sources. I think that one was he gave the DJ the disc and the DJ secretly made a copy while playing it. The one I found out about was a pretty small one, which was just a few people gathered around his car in the parking lot. Crazy!

Also remember arguments about this one song called "Prostitute" that was supposed to be the BIG GUN! Then people were a little disappointed we only heard 3/4 new tracks at the HOB show.

[DieselDaisy]

I have a memory of the guy who recorded it, visiting the various forums and trying to sell the recording for a few hundred dollars (I cannot remember the exact figure but it was steep). He leaked Jungle and Chinese Democracy, and put the rest of the recording up for sale. His justification for this was that he wanted merely to recoup his travel and ticket expenses. I also have a memory of him saying that a lady friend hid the recorder under her apparel - that is how he got the machine past security.

I remember Axl looking awful in the pictures from, both this and Rio 3. He was dressed in these baggy tracksuit bottoms with open shirts and a big beer gut hanging out. If you have a bit of excess flab, you never wear an open shirt! He also had his hair black and Lennon glasses and consequentially rather resembled Ozzy Osbourne.

[Kaneda]

This shit makes me sad as hell. That's 15 years ago! And what since? Axl had so many good songs ready to go and just imagine if Prostitute was released then with an epic music video...But nothing ever happened. Once Bucket and Brain left the new band became a bit of a joke. Bucket & Axl could have been Axl & Slash...but it's almost as if he never wanted to give the new guys a chance to succeed. The delays, lack of support, lack of new material and the horrible way Chinese D was released (Best Buy really? with no interviews or promotion at all) was just sad to see.

[Russel Nash]

does somebody remembers the interscope/GNR official forum?

[DizzyReed63]

does somebody remembers the interscope/GNR official forum?

Yep - Gnronline dot com! It was more regulated than HTGTH. haha.

[Blackjacker]

Out of interest how easily obtainable were tickets for this show?

It's definitely the one that holds the most mistique for me anyway.

Tickets went smoothly for me. I'd heard about the show not long before the on-sale, maybe a week or so beforehand; pretty sure I first saw that on the dustnbones mailing list. Already had the annual NYE trip to Vegas booked, so this was a huge bonus. Logged in to the on-sale and got 2 in the balcony ($250/each as someone noted) and went right back in and got 2 more on the floor (don't recall face on those, I was thinking $200 but the $150 mentioned sounds reasonable.)

Some fragments from memory on that night, pretty much in order:

Driving to the airport in Vegas to pick up my girlfriend on the afternoon of the 31st, the DJ on KOMP 92.3 mentioned the show and GNR at every commercial break. They were also doing something with Steven (Christ... or was it Matt? Pretty sure it was Steven) - not sure if they were going to the show with him to get his impressions, or just bringing him on for an interview. Never heard what happened with that.

The four of us watched the fireworks from the middle of the intersection at Tropicana and the strip, saw a couple get engaged right there, then started down the strip to Mandalay Bay and got in line. It was snaked all through the casino, winding next to the slots and across aisles - crazy sight. My dad (54 at the time) loved that - he sat at a slot next to us in line and took a nap. Whenever they'd tighten the line up, he'd move to another slot next to us and go back to sleep.

Great vibe in line - combination of NYE and not knowing WTF we were in for I think made for quite an atmosphere. GF and I were PLASTERED, as was much of the crowd - the bars on the casino floor were right there next to the line, and 90+ minutes in line made for a lot of pre-gaming.

I was wearing a black cowboy hat with orange flames on it - purchased earlier at the Hard Rock in a drunken "gotta have it" rage - and managed to decline several trade offers for it while in line. I was also chomping on an extinguished half-smoked cigar that I never did get around to relighting, and when we walked out of the show I was still chomping on that thing.

I had reached out to JohnM before the show and let him know I was going to record it. I had a Sony Minidisc recorder - not the preferred DAT equipment of the time, but it's what I had, and certainly small enough to get into the show. My girlfriend was blessed with an enormous rack, so she shoved everything - the MD recorder, mic and extra blank MD - down between her tits. If they hit her with the metal detector she was going to use the "underwire bra" excuse, but she went through just fine.

For some reason, my folks used the floor seats while we used the balcony seats. Obviously I'm a horrible son. Although staying down on the floor probably kept dad awake. They stayed in the back, up next to the rail in front of the bar, and said everyone was super-nice and respectful to the "old couple" in the crowd while wading through for drinks. And they said later they did have a really good time, although it was a horribly long night/morning for them, and they weren't Guns N' Roses fans, per se, although dad did like Buckethead's quick dip into country stylings.

Balcony seats were fine - seemed like there was only like 8 rows in the balcony, and was a great view, right on top of the band. We were off to Buckethead's side of the stage, so you could see the digital clock backstage, which was great for figuring out when I had to change Minidiscs... and for confirming that we really were at a concert that was starting at 3:30 in the morning.

Show itself was fantastic, and given it was their first together almost unbelievable. After tearing through Jungle Axl seemed pretty loose the entire show, and sounded great. The 'Welcome Back' bit (and his reaction to it) was fantastic, and I loved how he handled the brief technical issue.

Leaving a concert and walking outside at 5:30 in the morning was a bizarre experience. My voice was absolutely wrecked. Cab line was out of control, so once we bumped into my folks we ended up walking to Excalibur (with my flaming cowboy hat and stogie) to grab cabs and to walk off some of the booze. Back at Hard Rock, first thing I did was check the recording, and saw that I had managed to plug the mic into the Line Out jack, so I had two MDs of perfectly recorded silence. Fuck! I was more bummed about that than I would've been if the gear had been spotted at the door - we'd made it in, and blew the opportunity. I'd gone through my idiot's checklist beforehand, even making note of which jack was which, but between the dark and the oh-so-many-beers... ugh. At the least, I got to play with my GF's tits on the way in and afterwards, but Jesus Christ... opportunity blown.

At HRH later that day, saw several ppl with the Chinese Democracy Starts Now shirts, and was bummed we didn't even see (or at least, didn't notice) the merch stand at the show. Got an email a few days later that they had a limited supply of the shirts that weren't at the venue available for mail-order, so I did manage to grab two after the fact.

And... that's it? Crazy, crazy event.

[Ak1nney]

This shit makes me sad as hell. That's 15 years ago! And what since? Axl had so many good songs ready to go and just imagine if Prostitute was released then with an epic music video...But nothing ever happened. Once Bucket and Brain left the new band became a bit of a joke. Bucket & Axl could have been Axl & Slash...but it's almost as if he never wanted to give the new guys a chance to succeed. The delays, lack of support, lack of new material and the horrible way Chinese D was released (Best Buy really? with no interviews or promotion at all) was just sad to see.

Yeah, 15 years of a lot of fucking around and not enough to show for it. I've been around for it, and there's just nothing good about it. CD was alright, but the random tours and lack of any real publicity and stuff for most of that time was just a depressing, speculatory,cluster fuck. I hope as of April 8, those days are over.

[donof]

Another memory I had was, I was right next to a girl that claimed she was Buckethead's sister. She was going crazy when he was doing his nunchucks routine. She was screaming right at me. That's my fucking brother! This is amazing! For the record, she was not cute.

Edited January 23, 2016 by donof

[maxpax]

This shit makes me sad as hell. That's 15 years ago! And what since? Axl had so many good songs ready to go and just imagine if Prostitute was released then with an epic music video...But nothing ever happened. Once Bucket and Brain left the new band became a bit of a joke. Bucket & Axl could have been Axl & Slash...but it's almost as if he never wanted to give the new guys a chance to succeed. The delays, lack of support, lack of new material and the horrible way Chinese D was released (Best Buy really? with no interviews or promotion at all) was just sad to see.

Yeah, 15 years of a lot of fucking around and not enough to show for it. I've been around for it, and there's just nothing good about it. CD was alright, but the random tours and lack of any real publicity and stuff for most of that time was just a depressing, speculatory,cluster fuck. I hope as of April 8, those days are over.

dude, Axl cancelled Kimmel. Duff and slash ain't talking as well. Nothing will change the next months except that slash and Duff are in board again.

[Ak1nney]

Another memory I had was, I was right next to a girl that claimed she was Buckethead's sister. She was going crazy when he was doing his nunchucks routine. She was screaming right at me. That's my fucking brother! This is amazing! For the record, she was not cute.

You could have put a bucket over hear head. You might have met the band.

[donof]

Haha yeah, she seemed to like me but she was very drunk. The bucket might not have helped much because she was a big girl lol.

[MrSoftie]

Haha yeah, she seemed to like me but she was very drunk. The bucket might not have helped much because she was a big girl lol.

Big girls need lovin' too.

[donof]

True, but 15 years ago i was young and decent looking. Now that I'm less picky, she can be my Bucketgirl lol.

[Ak1nney]

True, but 15 years ago i was young and decent looking. Now that I'm less picky, she can be my Bucketgirl lol.

Somebody has to eat that chicken before Buckethead can wear the bucket...

[life_247]

I've always made the joke that this gig is so awesome that even "Silkworms" sounded good.

Actually I think Silkworms isn't as bad as people think (I mean its not great) but they didn't really nail it at all at RiR III.

[rumandraisin]

about 30 seconds of Silkworms leaked a few years ago didn't it? along with OMG, a new This I Love, Going Down, Blood in the Water etc. The finished version of Silkworms is closer to the HOB show rather then Rio, Rio is much slower. But then there were timing issues at Rio with certain songs being either way too fast or too slow