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Chinese Democracy in 1988?


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Good find. As a guitarist I was going to say this is a really common chord progression..but the timing and rhythm and also the fret hand muting actually makes a really good case the original writer of the riff may have been listening to some GNR bootlegs at the time lol.

Theory: Weren't they going through all the performances to see which songs make it on live era? I believe Youre Crazy was from this show, so they heard it. Someone went "hey this riff is awesome" and there we have it.

Edited by StrangerInThisTown
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7 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Good find. As a guitarist I was going to say this is a really common chord progression..but the timing and rhythm and also the fret hand muting actually makes a really good case the original writer of the riff may have been listening to some GNR bootlegs at the time lol.

Theory: Weren't they going through all the performances to see which songs make it on live era? I believe Youre Crazy was from this show, so they heard it. Someone went "hey this riff is awesome" and there we have it.

Could be yes it's from live era

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It sounds like the intro (because of the start and stop style), but since they didn't play the intro the way it was on the album until 2006 (with 2001/02 having a simple intro), its  a little far fetched for me, unless Axl had Robin listen to random obscure bootlegs of GNR shows for hours on end. For me, instrumentally, the title track seems more inspired by Nirvana's Drain You for the basic riff pattern and the demo's drum pattern (likely originally arranged by Josh), and Smells Like Teen Spirit for some chord progression, the arrangement, and for one of the verse's leads

Edited by Mendez
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This is so neat regardless!  At first I heard it and on repeat listens for some reason not so much.  But after Axl speaks, theres a first burst of a few chords then a pause and its the next burst of chords sounds like Chinese Democracy intro to my ears.  

And at the end we can hear Slash segue into some chords form the turn around in intro of jungle.  So at very least these two 'lead off' tracks have a similarity that way - some chord progressions from same wheelhouse.

But also really neat about this concert being reviewed for Live Era.  Always so much between the lines!

And then Slash changed it for NITL?

What a band!

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7 minutes ago, Mendez said:

It sounds like the intro, but since they didn't play the intro the way it was on the album until 2006 (with 2001/02 having a simple intro), seems a little far fetched for me, unless Axl had Robin listen to random obscure bootlegs of GNR shows for hours on end. For me, instrumentally, the title track seems more inspired by Nirvana's Drain You

Perhaps but as @StrangerInThisTown pointed out this isn't just some obscure bootleg as they did use "You're Crazy" from this show for Live Era which was released November 23, 1999

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6 minutes ago, wasted said:

Maybe Slash was fucking around with the Teen Spirit riff which is a remake of the Jungle riff which is based on some Van Halen riff that was inspired by Boston's More than a Feeling. 

This is from 1988. So it can't be him fuckin with the Nirvana riff

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I love the current bands take of Chinese Democracy, it's the one song in the set that fits in with the older stuff. Most people don't know it but it's a good rocker and has some strong points. 

You get into Better, This I Love, Sorry and you feel a hiccup in the set...like this shouldn't be here...but oh well

really cool find by the way. With how weird Axl is I'm almost convinced this was a riff that they grabbed early on and said let's do something with this. 

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Finck said once that he did go back and listen to old Guns records and they were trying to write stuff that Axl liked to sing over. 

Chi dem does seem like a riff and kind of song a lot of bands have. Like Fight Song by Manson or U2's Vertigo. 

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