GNR Women's Discussion - Part 2

[Zoot]

5 minutes ago, Alja said:

Yes, I understand men in a way women usually don`t and if that makes me misogynist, I feel proud misogynist. 

Holy shit... you are the worst.

[Blackstar]

I'm out of likes... @money honey, what a great great read your review was! Thank you

[MillionsOfSpiders]

 

[Ratam]

45 minutes ago, money honey said:

My Slane story. Hope you guys enjoy it!

 

Everyone in Ireland knows two things about rock concerts at Slane Castle: the road in is long and slow, and the road back out is interminable.

By May 27^th 2017, I wasn't bothered by the prospect of a long day; I had already waited 30 years. That's how long it had been since – as an awkward, uncertain twelve-year-old school girl who spent her weekdays in a convent school uniform and weekends watching music videos – I first saw Guns n' Roses explode onto the TV screen in the corner of my parents' kitchen in our bungalow in South-East Ireland, in the video to 'Sweet child o' mine'.

Fast-forward to the moment last Saturday when I stood at the edge of the stage in Slane, soaked to the skin from earlier in the day when we queued as early as possible in torrential rain to make sure of a spot at the front. After standing for nine and a half hours, I watched Axl, Duff and Slash stroll out in front of 80,000 people like it was no big deal. Tears welled in my eyes. I looked at my husband beside me in disbelief. It was really happening. Guns were back in Ireland. They weren't on a screen or a page; they were ten feet away from me.

Stupid as it sounds, it blew me away that they were real people. When you read about a band or watch their videos, there's a tiny bit of your brain that suspects it might be all be fake. Maybe they're actors. Or maybe they're hamming it up. When the makers of the music you have listened to and related to for decades suddenly appear in front of you, it messes with your mind. They're flesh and blood. They're real.

It was around 7:30 PM, still daylight, when they came on. We could see them in the flesh with no fancy lighting effects. Their skin has wrinkles and rolls. Their hair is a bit thinner than they would probably like. They stride rather than sprint around the stage. They are real people who somehow managed to come together when they were barely adults and create music that becomes more timeless with each passing year.

And how clear that is from the crowd. Everyone around me knew all the words – and I mean not just to the hits, but the B-sides and lesser-known album tracks as well. People joyously shouted out song titles with the opening notes. Right from the irresistibly brattish nastiness of the opening song, 'It's so easy', the crowd was going wild.

Axl came over to our side of the stage for part of 'Estranged'. I looked up at him and listened to the lyrics I had heard so many times before. I wondered how someone can repeat such painful words so many years after a loss. Would he rather never sing the song again? Has he been able to distance himself emotionally from the subject matter? After all these years, is it just words?

'Welcome to the jungle' is a weird one. When it was released back in 1987, it did OK, but didn't set the world on fire. It's hard to understand now how anyone wouldn't be entranced and intoxicated by Slash's jagged, echoey, menacing opening riff. Since then, 'Jungle' has become Guns' calling card, a rallying cry for the disaffected and delusional.

We went insane.

Duff, Slash and Axl seemed to lap up our insanity. Axl said, 'Look at all you Irish motherfuckers'. We went even more insane.

As we moved through the set, something became apparent to me. 'Chinese Democracy' songs are meant to be performed live. They are fantastic. 'There was a time', 'This I love' and 'Chinese Democracy' itself – all sounded markedly more rocking and energetic than the recorded versions. Since I came home, I'm listening to this album with new ears.

About seven minutes in, security staff hauled out a man and a woman through the crowd to the ground in front of the barrier. Paramedics appeared in seconds and the woman was stretchered off, the man staggering along beside her. A bit later on, I heard mutterings from a huddle of security guards by the stage. They pushed through and a woman was escorted away. I have no idea why. The stern-faced head of security issued warnings a few times to individuals in the seething crowd. Although I was right up the front, clinging to the barrier, wedged in by people behind and beside me, I felt fine; I didn't feel any sense of danger.

I was on Duff's side of the stage. He is one cool dude. He's a born rocker with punk flowing in his veins. He is completely in control, completely aware all the time on stage, making eye contact with the audience, keeping an eye on his band mates, his rumbling bass line note perfect. Axl introduced him as “your fellow Irishman” and he sang 'New Rose', a fabulously punky number that contrasted nicely with the rest of the set. His voice is pleasingly unpolished, “raw and fucked up” as he would say himself. His body is lean and muscly, a testament to his teetotal, healthy, active lifestyle, and his face is fabulously lined, each furrow hiding a story.

Slash is the embodiment of music. When he plays, his body contorts and bends with the notes. His fingers writhe and slide. His hair moves with the breeze, his eyes blank behind sunglasses. He doesn't need to do anything but play. Slash is guitar; his place in rock music history is assured.

At this gig, the gold circle at the front was divided into two side-by-side sections, with no option to move between them. This meant that I didn't see as much of Slash as I would have liked, although he did make forays to our side of the stage. It was a pity to be restricted like this; apparently it is not the case at other shows on this tour.

Daylight faded and the band rocked on. A grand piano rose up out of the stage for Axl for 'November rain', then disappeared again. Axl's voice rings out like a tightly controlled instrument. It can scream as convincingly as it can lull. His phrasing is perfect, his articulation as crisp as ever. His inspired lyrics to 'Nightrain' ring out as clear as day. 'Rattlesnake suitcase' is an unforgettable phrase and he snaps it out with as much vengeance as he must have done as a twentysomething urchin in the clubs of 1980s Hollywood.

Nobody panics when the band leaves the stage. It's the internet age, we all know they'll be back for four more songs or so. When they return, it's to treat us to 'The seeker', a song I've only heard once or twice. The crowd around me laps it up.

Someone tells me later that people farther back started leaving before the encore to “beat the traffic”. We waited 25 years for Guns n' Roses to return to Ireland, and there were many years when it seemed an impossible prospect. Who comes to a gig like this to leave before every last note has rung out, every last breath heaved, every last drop of sweat shed?

The sky is completely dark now and the realisation that the band is about to leave sets in. The first notes of 'Paradise city' twang through the air. The roar that rises up from the vast mass of bodies is unbelievable. If joy has a sound, this is it.

When Axl, Slash, Duff, Izzy and Steven created those lyrics and that music, they were writing about themselves back in LA in the early 80s, street rats living off their talent and their wits, scraping and scrounging to get through each day so they could fulfill their vision of how rock music should sound. Here, thirty years later, on a vast stage beside a castle nestled in a valley in Ireland, they are twice triumphant, conquering the world for the second time, the embodiment of grit, graft, tenacity and pure, blazing talent.

They fling guitar picks and drumsticks into the crowd and they are gone.

My husband and I trudged through the mud, trying to avoid crashing into other concertgoers, skidding on discarded rain ponchos, gazing around at the sea of rubbish and pools of rain that cover the huge hillside that is Slane Castle concert venue. It looks amazing, but it's a fucking ridiculous place for a rock concert. I get the feeling it's more for the musicians than the attendees – it must be cool to play here, when you get helicoptered in, slip off stage to a comfortable backstage room with sofas and warm drinks, and helicopter off again. I imagine rockers telling each other, “Yeah, we played Slane Castle. Natural amphitheatre. Green, rolling valley. Beautiful place.”

It's a nightmare. The exits are narrow and the crowd moves with painful slowness. We walk for an hour to get to our car, and we were among the lucky ones; people in other car parks sit in their cars for hours before being able to exit. It's only worth it for Guns n' Roses, and I will only go back if they do.

Being home after the gig is strange. I feel different. I'm happier. Three people whom I have never met, whose music has played a huge role in my life, have become real to me. I have to say another stupid-sounding thing: life will never be the same again.

Out likes,excellent review,very emotional☺?

[Fourteenbeers]

Before this thread takes too dark turn, here's something I already posted on the Wacky world - thread. (we were discussing how Axl used to be so pretty that he could've participated in Miss USA pageant.)

I present to you: Axl Rose as Miss Congeniality

[Ratam]

26 minutes ago, Fourteenbeers said:

Before this thread takes too dark turn, here's something I already posted on the Wacky world - thread. (we were discussing how Axl used to be so pretty that he could've participated in Miss USA pageant.)

I present to you: Axl Rose as Miss Congeniality

St Louis ? Miss Riot'

[killuridols]

2 hours ago, Lumikki said:

Sorry, but this post is so full of toxic and misogynist nonsense I just had to comment on it. This whole "I'm not like the other girls, I'm different than all the other boring, superficial girls, so I only hang out with guys, because guys are more interesting" shit needs to stop.

1) Men are not more interesting to hang out with than women because just like men, all women are different and have different personalities and interests. Not all women are vapid idiots who only care about gossip, shoes and make-up or whatever you're implying here.

2) And even if a woman is into stuff that is typically considered feminine, so what? There is nothing wrong with that. You're perpetuating a value judgment here that is rooted in patriarchic society where everything male is normal and good and everything female is automatically inferior and less valuable therefore.

3) Having male friends is nothing to be proud of and certainly not something you need to change your "attitude and behavior" for. You either have male friends because your life circumstances worked out that way or you don't.

This post, combined with your other recent (and severely fucked up) posts about domestic violence here in this thread makes me think you suffer from a huge amount of internalized misogyny or something. Please inform yourself some more on these subjects, if only for your own sake. It's disconcerting to see so much negativity towards women from someone who is a woman herself.

 

[killuridols]

2 hours ago, money honey said:

Stupid as it sounds, it blew me away that they were real people. When you read about a band or watch their videos, there's a tiny bit of your brain that suspects it might be all be fake. Maybe they're actors. Or maybe they're hamming it up. When the makers of the music you have listened to and related to for decades suddenly appear in front of you, it messes with your mind. They're flesh and blood. They're real.

I can totally relate to this!!! and to almost every paragraph of your amazing review

It was also a shock to me to see the three of them as real people, humans in flesh and bones, because up to that point I had thought they were dolls

 

2 hours ago, Alja said:

You know, I did some work to find out who I am. Yes, I understand men in a way women usually don`t and if that makes me misogynist, I feel proud misogynist. 

how old are you?

[SerenityScorp]

2 hours ago, Ratam said:

St Louis ? Miss Riot'

[purplestargirl]

5 hours ago, money honey said:

My Slane story. Hope you guys enjoy it!

 

Everyone in Ireland knows two things about rock concerts at Slane Castle: the road in is long and slow, and the road back out is interminable.

By May 27^th 2017, I wasn't bothered by the prospect of a long day; I had already waited 30 years. That's how long it had been since – as an awkward, uncertain twelve-year-old school girl who spent her weekdays in a convent school uniform and weekends watching music videos – I first saw Guns n' Roses explode onto the TV screen in the corner of my parents' kitchen in our bungalow in South-East Ireland, in the video to 'Sweet child o' mine'.

Fast-forward to the moment last Saturday when I stood at the edge of the stage in Slane, soaked to the skin from earlier in the day when we queued as early as possible in torrential rain to make sure of a spot at the front. After standing for nine and a half hours, I watched Axl, Duff and Slash stroll out in front of 80,000 people like it was no big deal. Tears welled in my eyes. I looked at my husband beside me in disbelief. It was really happening. Guns were back in Ireland. They weren't on a screen or a page; they were ten feet away from me.

Stupid as it sounds, it blew me away that they were real people. When you read about a band or watch their videos, there's a tiny bit of your brain that suspects it might be all be fake. Maybe they're actors. Or maybe they're hamming it up. When the makers of the music you have listened to and related to for decades suddenly appear in front of you, it messes with your mind. They're flesh and blood. They're real.

It was around 7:30 PM, still daylight, when they came on. We could see them in the flesh with no fancy lighting effects. Their skin has wrinkles and rolls. Their hair is a bit thinner than they would probably like. They stride rather than sprint around the stage. They are real people who somehow managed to come together when they were barely adults and create music that becomes more timeless with each passing year.

And how clear that is from the crowd. Everyone around me knew all the words – and I mean not just to the hits, but the B-sides and lesser-known album tracks as well. People joyously shouted out song titles with the opening notes. Right from the irresistibly brattish nastiness of the opening song, 'It's so easy', the crowd was going wild.

Axl came over to our side of the stage for part of 'Estranged'. I looked up at him and listened to the lyrics I had heard so many times before. I wondered how someone can repeat such painful words so many years after a loss. Would he rather never sing the song again? Has he been able to distance himself emotionally from the subject matter? After all these years, is it just words?

'Welcome to the jungle' is a weird one. When it was released back in 1987, it did OK, but didn't set the world on fire. It's hard to understand now how anyone wouldn't be entranced and intoxicated by Slash's jagged, echoey, menacing opening riff. Since then, 'Jungle' has become Guns' calling card, a rallying cry for the disaffected and delusional.

We went insane.

Duff, Slash and Axl seemed to lap up our insanity. Axl said, 'Look at all you Irish motherfuckers'. We went even more insane.

As we moved through the set, something became apparent to me. 'Chinese Democracy' songs are meant to be performed live. They are fantastic. 'There was a time', 'This I love' and 'Chinese Democracy' itself – all sounded markedly more rocking and energetic than the recorded versions. Since I came home, I'm listening to this album with new ears.

About seven minutes in, security staff hauled out a man and a woman through the crowd to the ground in front of the barrier. Paramedics appeared in seconds and the woman was stretchered off, the man staggering along beside her. A bit later on, I heard mutterings from a huddle of security guards by the stage. They pushed through and a woman was escorted away. I have no idea why. The stern-faced head of security issued warnings a few times to individuals in the seething crowd. Although I was right up the front, clinging to the barrier, wedged in by people behind and beside me, I felt fine; I didn't feel any sense of danger.

I was on Duff's side of the stage. He is one cool dude. He's a born rocker with punk flowing in his veins. He is completely in control, completely aware all the time on stage, making eye contact with the audience, keeping an eye on his band mates, his rumbling bass line note perfect. Axl introduced him as “your fellow Irishman” and he sang 'New Rose', a fabulously punky number that contrasted nicely with the rest of the set. His voice is pleasingly unpolished, “raw and fucked up” as he would say himself. His body is lean and muscly, a testament to his teetotal, healthy, active lifestyle, and his face is fabulously lined, each furrow hiding a story.

Slash is the embodiment of music. When he plays, his body contorts and bends with the notes. His fingers writhe and slide. His hair moves with the breeze, his eyes blank behind sunglasses. He doesn't need to do anything but play. Slash is guitar; his place in rock music history is assured.

At this gig, the gold circle at the front was divided into two side-by-side sections, with no option to move between them. This meant that I didn't see as much of Slash as I would have liked, although he did make forays to our side of the stage. It was a pity to be restricted like this; apparently it is not the case at other shows on this tour.

Daylight faded and the band rocked on. A grand piano rose up out of the stage for Axl for 'November rain', then disappeared again. Axl's voice rings out like a tightly controlled instrument. It can scream as convincingly as it can lull. His phrasing is perfect, his articulation as crisp as ever. His inspired lyrics to 'Nightrain' ring out as clear as day. 'Rattlesnake suitcase' is an unforgettable phrase and he snaps it out with as much vengeance as he must have done as a twentysomething urchin in the clubs of 1980s Hollywood.

Nobody panics when the band leaves the stage. It's the internet age, we all know they'll be back for four more songs or so. When they return, it's to treat us to 'The seeker', a song I've only heard once or twice. The crowd around me laps it up.

Someone tells me later that people farther back started leaving before the encore to “beat the traffic”. We waited 25 years for Guns n' Roses to return to Ireland, and there were many years when it seemed an impossible prospect. Who comes to a gig like this to leave before every last note has rung out, every last breath heaved, every last drop of sweat shed?

The sky is completely dark now and the realisation that the band is about to leave sets in. The first notes of 'Paradise city' twang through the air. The roar that rises up from the vast mass of bodies is unbelievable. If joy has a sound, this is it.

When Axl, Slash, Duff, Izzy and Steven created those lyrics and that music, they were writing about themselves back in LA in the early 80s, street rats living off their talent and their wits, scraping and scrounging to get through each day so they could fulfill their vision of how rock music should sound. Here, thirty years later, on a vast stage beside a castle nestled in a valley in Ireland, they are twice triumphant, conquering the world for the second time, the embodiment of grit, graft, tenacity and pure, blazing talent.

They fling guitar picks and drumsticks into the crowd and they are gone.

My husband and I trudged through the mud, trying to avoid crashing into other concertgoers, skidding on discarded rain ponchos, gazing around at the sea of rubbish and pools of rain that cover the huge hillside that is Slane Castle concert venue. It looks amazing, but it's a fucking ridiculous place for a rock concert. I get the feeling it's more for the musicians than the attendees – it must be cool to play here, when you get helicoptered in, slip off stage to a comfortable backstage room with sofas and warm drinks, and helicopter off again. I imagine rockers telling each other, “Yeah, we played Slane Castle. Natural amphitheatre. Green, rolling valley. Beautiful place.”

It's a nightmare. The exits are narrow and the crowd moves with painful slowness. We walk for an hour to get to our car, and we were among the lucky ones; people in other car parks sit in their cars for hours before being able to exit. It's only worth it for Guns n' Roses, and I will only go back if they do.

Being home after the gig is strange. I feel different. I'm happier. Three people whom I have never met, whose music has played a huge role in my life, have become real to me. I have to say another stupid-sounding thing: life will never be the same again.

That was beautifully written.

[purplestargirl]

4 hours ago, Fourteenbeers said:

Before this thread takes too dark turn, here's something I already posted on the Wacky world - thread. (we were discussing how Axl used to be so pretty that he could've participated in Miss USA pageant.)

I present to you: Axl Rose as Miss Congeniality

Axl clearly saw a weapon and tried to protect people from it.

[SerenityScorp]

This Slaxl

Edited May 30, 2017 by SerenityScorp

[Tori72]

9 hours ago, Lumikki said:

 

This post, combined with your other recent (and severely fucked up) posts about domestic violence here in this thread makes me think you suffer from a huge amount of internalized misogyny or something. Please inform yourself some more on these subjects, if only for your own sake. It's disconcerting to see so much negativity towards women from someone who is a woman herself.

 

 

Thanks @Lumikki for everything you said about mysogyny and being friends with whoever or not. Very well said and I'm glad you made this point. This is also why I really love this thread! <3

@money honey Thanks so much for your report. That get's me so bloody excited for Munich. "By May 27th 2017, I wasn't bothered by the prospect of a long day; I had already waited 30 years." This sentence made my old eyes wet, love you for it! I am really in love with everything your wrote, with your thoughts on how they are real people and how stupidly surprising it is ( I know it will be to me, too. Felt the same with Bruce Springsteen), how you saw them on video as a 12 year old and hardly believing seeing them now, about how they wrote those songs being barely adults and the blast those songs are still today to the crowd. I could feel the happiness and joy, the wet socks, the energy of the crowd and I could feel the little sadness when the show was over.

I can't wait for June 13th and hope I'll be half as lucky and get somewhat close to the stage, too.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Tori72

[SerenityScorp]

[Frey]

11 hours ago, killuridols said:

I didn't mean that he's been bad to women lately.... I'm just saying we don't know about that, either good or bad, we don't know anything because he's chosen to keep his private life... private, lol-

2006 last year he misbehaved?

No, sir. There's still the L.A.X. incident with paparazzi in late 2009 and I remember in 2011, in Rosario, he was pretty mad at someone when he arrived to the airport. Then in 2012, he had that model stealing his jewelry and he was getting late to the shows probably until 2014.

It is not been a long time since he was acting like an asshole.... just like people don't give credit to Steven about his sobriety, I'm not sure about giving a lot of credit to Axl about his tamed self. I think his hands and feet are tied with multimillionaire contracts that will send him straight to bankruptcy if he breaks any of them. And I'm 1000% sure TB are working their asses off so that nothing goes wrong for him so he doesn't have any reasons to flip out.

Yeah, but like I said, I think it's pretty safe to assume he's doing well. Feel free to make me eat my words if different information comes to light, but until then I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt and believe he changed for the better.

I purposely left out the 2009 LAX incident because going after papparazzi is pretty standard celebrity behavior and barely registers on the Axl scale of weirdness. Also, what does a model stealing his jewelry have to do with this? Doesn't really reflect negatively upon him, except in the sense that he probably should be more careful with his stuff.

And yeah, Slash and Duff probably have Axl by the balls legally speaking, but like @Lumikki said, he seems like a completely different person a lot of the time these days, so I don't think it's all just down to that.

 

11 hours ago, killuridols said:

Those are the pics I was talking about before and to me they just show he was out with that woman a couple nights and no more.

I think Sasha had accepted the terms of their relationship while she was more steady with him. It is obvious she did and this is no strange Axl behavior. He wanted to have the same with Erin, actually, he cheated on Erin more than on anyone else and she knew about it. Not that she was fine with it but there was nothing she could do.

Things with Seymour were the same and she had her own flings as well. Hypocritical as it sounds, Axl had trouble accepting this and he had to rant about it at the shows

So basically, that's the way he is and women who want something serious with him have to accept him like that. Apparently, no one has been able to deal with that shit for too Long.

I don't disagree about Axl being a giant hypocrite, I was just saying I'm not convinced he and Sasha ever really had anything close to a real romantic relationship.

 

9 hours ago, Alja said:

Too complicated and when I am accidentally involved, sick. Sugar coated shit. Or poison. Women tend to be backstabbing more often than men.

Do you realize you're proving @Lumikkis point about internalized misogyny here? Like, that's the definition of it. Even I can see that.

--------------

@money honey Great review!

--------------

1 hour ago, SerenityScorp said:

This Slaxl

Snort. You are the worst

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2017 by Frey

[SerenityScorp]

9 minutes ago, Frey said:

 Snort. You are the worst

 

 

 

What?  You prefer Slash>Axl instead of Axl>Slash, Chairman?? 

Hope its okay to post tht since its not editing N'from real video

Edited May 30, 2017 by SerenityScorp

[SerenityScorp]

Always love this 

Curious what are They talkin' about 

 

Its amazing to see Them do the same pose unconsciously after more than 20 apart

Edited May 30, 2017 by SerenityScorp

[Tori72]

33 minutes ago, SerenityScorp said:

Always love this 

Curious what are They talkin' about 

Slash's chuckle nearly is as infectiong as Ricky Gervais'

Edited May 30, 2017 by Tori72

[SerenityScorp]

 

 

"Saul" from Pasadena *Slash in disguise* call on radio interview, Fan Q&A of Axl

Anyone know what They said especially Slash? 

https://borntobeafan.tumblr.com/post/147553296847/saul-from-pasadena-calls-in-during-a-radio

Edited May 30, 2017 by SerenityScorp

[Carlycosmos]

On 2017-4-27 at 10:19 PM, killuridols said:

GN'R Official Facebook account posted this today:

A month left!

Who's going from here??

I know @Andy14, @Lumikki, @MillionsOfSpiders, @dgnr, @money honey, @giuls will.........

What about @Carlycosmos?? I havent heard from her in ages!!

 

I'm going the 4th to the Madrid show!!!! so excited!!
I know I haven't posted in a looong while but since I'm working and studying I don't have a lot of time... but I see there is second part of Women's Discussion... SOOOO AMAZING 
Hi everyone!!! 

Edit: Okay I just find out the reasons of the "second part"  29th May 2016... the day we created the original thread... omg the comments were gold back then 
"Ladies, it has been a privilege posting with you tonight" 

Edited May 30, 2017 by Carlycosmos

[dgnr]

According to the Bilbao thread Axl is at soundcheck...again 

[SerenityScorp]

Okay so before,  Slashcon posted AFD on announcement thread now nando dando *Credit to @Frey* holding a AFD cassette on his IG story

Are these a hint or what? 

 

Edited May 30, 2017 by SerenityScorp

[MillionsOfSpiders]

Why are they doing this to us

I hope they called Izzy 

[SerenityScorp]

1 minute ago, MillionsOfSpiders said:

Why are they doing this to us

I hope they called Izzy 

A hint AFD reunion on AFD anniversary maybe? 

[tifalucis]

23 minutes ago, SerenityScorp said:

Okay so before,  Slashcon posted AFD on announcement thread now nando dando *Credit to @Frey* holding a AFD cassette on his IG story

Are these a hint or what? 

 

Gosh, Seren. I don't know it anymore