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Am I the only big Chinese Democracy fan who feels that Axl should drop the CD songs now?


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9 hours ago, RONIN said:

I think it's cool but I wish Duff and Slash were retooling the songs more. They're sticking fairly close to how those songs sound on the album - which I guess might be out of respect for Axl. Madagascar could really use some of that Slash magic though.

On certain songs I agree with you.

Better is the best example of them retooling it to make it more 'Guns sounding' if you will.

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On 10/11/2017 at 2:52 AM, Towelie said:

I loved Chinese Democracy when it came out. I still like it now, although I haven't really played it in a good number of years, as I'm a little worn out on GNR's back catalogue.

The last time I was genuinely interested by anything this band did, was watching Slash play on the CD-era songs for the first time. It was surreal and kind of fun watching him tackle songs like TIL, Better and the title track, but the novelty soon wore pretty thin. And now, instead of increasing the amount of CD songs in the set, I really feel it's time for Axl to let go of that era in his life.

Maybe keep the title track in the set, as it's an easy song to sing, and God knows he needs every one of them he can get. But 2016-17 should really have been about focusing on the original band. Songs like Bad Obsession, Locomotive, Dead Horse and Breakdown should've been played before anything on Chinese Democracy. Not to mention that a great deal of CD-era tracks are very hard to sing, and he struggles doing justice on most of them these days. All of those UYI tracks I just listed would be far easier on the voice for Axl to perform, and yet he insists on keeping songs in the set that he struggles with on a nightly basis.

By 2017, the album has more than had it's fair share of coverage by the band, Axl has done everything he can to get these songs known and appreciated in a live setting and the band should now focus on moving on from that chapter. If Axl still gets a buzz from performing newer songs live, then here's a radical idea, release a new fucking album with this lineup.

Depends what replaces them.

seeing the same setlist for the fourth time next month, I’d be happy with most any change

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11 hours ago, ericy210 said:

Depends what replaces them.

seeing the same setlist for the fourth time next month, I’d be happy with most any change

They could pick a few from these

Think About You
Reckless Life
Nice Boys
Move To The City
You're Crazy.. Fast or slow.. Preferably slow
Mama Kin
Pretty Tied Up
Dust N' Bones
Bad Obsession
Back Off Bitch
Down On The Farm
Don't Damn Me
Dead Horse
Get In The Ring
Breakdown
Locomotive
So Fine

 

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On 11/10/2017 at 4:52 AM, Towelie said:

Songs like Bad Obsession, Locomotive, Dead Horse and Breakdown should've been played before anything on Chinese Democracy. Not to mention that a great deal of CD-era tracks are very hard to sing, and he struggles doing justice on most of them these days. All of those UYI tracks I just listed would be far easier on the voice for Axl to perform, and yet he insists on keeping songs in the set that he struggles with on a nightly basis.

I have to disagree on this one (more about locomotive, don't really know about the other songs). I was listening to a bootleg a few days ago where they played locomotive and you could tell, even through an AUD recording, how tough it was for Axl breathing-wise, and he was 30. Now, Axl is out of breath for almost the entire concert, sometimes he finishes a verse and literally opens his mouth like he's dying. Maybe he can pull it off, but i'm sure it will be an "uncertain" song like coma is now, where we never know if he will safely finish the song or be so out of breath and start to mumble words that we can barely understand

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32 minutes ago, rendestroi95 said:

I have to disagree on this one (more about locomotive, don't really know about the other songs). I was listening to a bootleg a few days ago where they played locomotive and you could tell, even through an AUD recording, how tough it was for Axl breathing-wise, and he was 30. Now, Axl is out of breath for almost the entire concert, sometimes he finishes a verse and literally opens his mouth like he's dying. Maybe he can pull it off, but i'm sure it will be an "uncertain" song like coma is now, where we never know if he will safely finish the song or be so out of breath and start to mumble words that we can barely understand

Agree.  There's a reason the setlist is what it is and hasn't changed - these are the songs he can deliver.  So many of the UYI tracks, particularly deep cuts, are vocally demanding and he had a hard time singing some of them back in the day, never mind now.  

Also the current set list songs are the ones a crowd of mostly casual fans will respond to.  Bad Obsession is the rockiest rocking song I ever had the pleasure of listening to, but it ain't going to go over well to a crowd of 50k. Ditto Dead Horse and Breakdown. 

I don't know why on earth they don't do an instrumental of Locomotive in the style of Paris jam with Jeff Beck.  It would give Axl a much needed rest, it's up-tempo and rock enough to keep the crowd happy, and there's plenty of scope for improv for the players and for Slash's noodling urges.  

 

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On 14/10/2017 at 8:42 AM, Tom-Ass said:

They could pick a few from these

Think About You
Reckless Life
Nice Boys
Move To The City
You're Crazy.. Fast or slow.. Preferably slow
Mama Kin
Pretty Tied Up
Dust N' Bones
Bad Obsession
Back Off Bitch
Down On The Farm
Don't Damn Me
Dead Horse
Get In The Ring
Breakdown
Locomotive
So Fine

 

They could play any of those and still play Chinese Democracy material.

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  • 1 month later...

When they played this I love, I went for a piss break. Other than throwing in a CD song here and there I wish they’d just drop them all.

i used to play CD a lot when it came out, now if I even try to listen to it I just cringe at how over produced the thing is, the novelty of hearing axl for the first time in many years has well and truly worn off.

it doesn’t live up to the legacy of original gnr. Bury the thing and pretend it never happened

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On 15.10.2017 at 3:39 PM, MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle said:

Agree.  There's a reason the setlist is what it is and hasn't changed - these are the songs he can deliver.  So many of the UYI tracks, particularly deep cuts, are vocally demanding and he had a hard time singing some of them back in the day, never mind now.  

Also the current set list songs are the ones a crowd of mostly casual fans will respond to.  Bad Obsession is the rockiest rocking song I ever had the pleasure of listening to, but it ain't going to go over well to a crowd of 50k. Ditto Dead Horse and Breakdown. 

I don't know why on earth they don't do an instrumental of Locomotive in the style of Paris jam with Jeff Beck.  It would give Axl a much needed rest, it's up-tempo and rock enough to keep the crowd happy, and there's plenty of scope for improv for the players and for Slash's noodling urges.  

 

Maybe Axl feels it would make him look bad, like, people wondering if he was unable to sing it. Which would be right. :D

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On ‎15‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 2:39 PM, MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle said:

Bad Obsession is the rockiest rocking song I ever had the pleasure of listening to, but it ain't going to go over well to a crowd of 50k.

 

Sorry, but this is a crock. So according to you, Bad Obsession wouldn't go down well to a crowd of 50k but Prostitute does? Get real. I wager WAY more people in an average GNR audience own a copy of UYI1 than Chinese Democracy.

People are going to these shows because they want to see Axl and Slash perform the songs Axl and Slash made famous. It's only out of sheer stubborn arrogance that Axl continues to include so many CD songs in the set. You say that the crowd wouldn't be responsive to the deep cuts from their heyday, but you do realise that practically every song on ChiDem is a deep cut? Or did I miss This I Love topping the charts and becoming a worldwide smash hit back in 2008???

Edited by Towelie
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6 hours ago, Towelie said:

People are going to these shows because they want to see Axl and Slash perform the songs Axl and Slash made famous. It's only out of sheer stubborn arrogance that Axl continues to include so many CD songs in the set. 

Pretty much. I like Chinese Democracy but they need to either rearrange them with Slash and Duff and give us new renditions - or retire this stuff. 

 

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On 10/11/2017 at 12:52 AM, Towelie said:

The last time I was genuinely interested by anything this band did, was watching Slash play on the CD-era songs for the first time. It was surreal and kind of fun watching him tackle songs like TIL, Better and the title track, but the novelty soon wore pretty thin. And now, instead of increasing the amount of CD songs in the set, I really feel it's time for Axl to let go of that era in his life.

He can't let go because he's creatively frozen in the mid to late 90's/early 00's - I would bet good money he pretty much stopped listening to new music after that time period. I bet he's still listening to moby, NIN, Jane's Addiction, and Korn albums. 

Quote

Maybe keep the title track in the set, as it's an easy song to sing, and God knows he needs every one of them he can get. But 2016-17 should really have been about focusing on the original band. Songs like Bad Obsession, Locomotive, Dead Horse and Breakdown should've been played before anything on Chinese Democracy. Not to mention that a great deal of CD-era tracks are very hard to sing, and he struggles doing justice on most of them these days. All of those UYI tracks I just listed would be far easier on the voice for Axl to perform, and yet he insists on keeping songs in the set that he struggles with on a nightly basis.

Ego. Needs to justify to the world that the last 2 decades weren't an utter trainwreck and failure. He broke up the biggest band in the world...for what? What was accomplished since? He has to save face by playing this stuff to an indifferent crowd night after night in stadiums. But it won't change the reality. You can lie in front of a mirror as many times as you want but the truth is the truth. And it hurts. Don't you agree?

Quote

By 2017, the album has more than had it's fair share of coverage by the band, Axl has done everything he can to get these songs known and appreciated in a live setting and the band should now focus on moving on from that chapter. If Axl still gets a buzz from performing newer songs live, then here's a radical idea, release a new fucking album with this lineup.

There's nothing new about Chinese Democracy. The newer stuff was first created in Axl's laboratory in '98 and '99. It's a fossil like the rest of the back catalogue by now. But I guess playing Madagascar is somehow less painful for Axl than Locomotive. Because 20 years of failure with Chinese Democracy is somehow easier to digest than the band at its creative peak conquering the world in 1991 w/ Use Your Illusion. 

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7 hours ago, Towelie said:

People are going to these shows because they want to see Axl and Slash perform the songs Axl and Slash made famous.

And they get what they want. Axl n´Slash are playing ALL the songs that made them famous so I dont get your point. The only ones who have serious problems with the setlist are the few hard core fans who chose to make a Holy War against CD songs or those who are never satisfied and always look for a way to cry for something. Wanting more deep cuts everyone wants, including me, but making too much drama about it is embarrassing.

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8 hours ago, Towelie said:

Sorry, but this is a crock. So according to you, Bad Obsession wouldn't go down well to a crowd of 50k but Prostitute does? Get real. I wager WAY more people in an average GNR audience own a copy of UYI1 than Chinese Democracy.

Yeah, that's what I think.  Bad Obsession is...how to put this...a tad Country.  It has a Country vibe.  The worst you can accuse Prostitute of is being boring otherwise it's fairly inoffensive.  I can imagine a scenario where mostly casual fans hear Prostitute for the first time and they might tune out during the verses, but wake up when Slash goes off and at the end, they think wow, Slash was awesome.  And promptly forget about it.

Hearing Bad Obsession for the first time?  I can imagine they'd look at each other in confusion and say, 'the fuck is this shit?'  That's what I thought the first time I heard Bad Obsession.  All I could hear was twangy guitar, harmonica and honky tonk piano and immediately skipped it for a few years.

I think you're overestimating casual fans' knowledge of UYI.  Even if the casual fans own both albums, they only listen to like, 4 songs from them and we all know those are. I strongly suspect they will have been skipping songs like Bad Obsession for years - that is, if they have even bothered to listen to UYI since it was first released.  They wouldn't even recognise it if they heard it played live.  I'm not saying this to be difficult or start an argument or anything, I genuinely believe this to be case for the vast majority of casual fans.

And sure, people want to hear the songs that Slash and Axl made famous - Bad Obsession is not one of them.  Neither is Prostitute but I'd say it'd go over better than Country and honky tonk.  

To be absolutely clear, I've always said that the CD songs shouldn't have featured on this tour; it should have been about AFD and Illusions. I didn't want covers or TSI songs either.  But we've got CD songs and all the other ones and thankfully, Slash and Duff are breathing new life into them.

Edited by MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle
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Dizzy has played Bad Obsession at the Hookers N' Blow shows for a couple of years now - why he couldn't convince his band mates in GN'R to play this particular song?

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I wouldn't mind hearing Sorry, TWAT and TIL on the next show I'll attend. But I don't need the rest TBH. I would love it if they drop some of the covers (first of all BHS and The Seeker) and play some deepcuts like Reckless Life or even a bit VR/Slash... like Slither and Anastasia. I would love hearing them doing Anastasia

2 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

'Bad Obsession' was a staple of the gigantic Use Your Illusion tour, of Guns N' Roses's biggest period of touring, so I'm not sure it is an outright unknowable deep cut to be honest. 

It's not and it's better than like any CD song

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On 11/10/2017 at 1:44 PM, double talkin jive mfkr said:

haha duff and slash learnt or asked axl what songs he wanted cause they fucking know how obssessed he is about CD no other reason and are sensitive and in tune of axl's sensitivity towards his baby mama cry baby album 

duff interjected in the brazil interview re: CD to a question that actually meant to be about healing wounds, completely did not answer the question and went on a cringeworthy CD tangent

its like every question can be answered with CD such as what axl likes to play, being fan of the most failed lineup etc and on and on pumping up a failed album of proposperous proportions im not perfect but axl could've fed a few villages with all the money he squandared on that shit and still wants to keep it in the spotlight 

if he actually wanted the respect of any die hard he would shut the fuck up about CD and the whole failed nugnr era and write some new shit with slash and duff but they suck so much together they cant 

hence where is izzy 

Yeah? Maybe?

Maybe they like the record?

"The most failed lineup"? It's not a competition. Those CD lineups did very well and yes, it's obviously important to Axl that CD is part of the live show... why wouldn't it be? Is it so hard to believe that Slash and Duff like the record? They are fans of what Axl brought to GN'R, clearly, of course they're going to like some of the stuff he did on CD. The same way he likes some of the stuff from VR.

Many "die hards" love CD too... not sure what you mean by that. I'm a "die hard" and love that album, many others too, he should shut the fuck up because you don't like it?

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17 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

'Bad Obsession' was a staple of the gigantic Use Your Illusion tour, of Guns N' Roses's biggest period of touring, so I'm not sure it is an outright unknowable deep cut to be honest. 

People underestimate how big Guns N Roses wee and how many records the Illusions sold.. Of course the average casual fan may not know the songs but there are another level of casual fans and rock fans in general that would.  As for Cd, the album just isn't good enough to be playing 5 or 6 songs a night from it.. 3 max... Having 2 during the encore of my last show was very deflating. 

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2 hours ago, Tom-Ass said:

People underestimate how big Guns N Roses wee and how many records the Illusions sold.. Of course the average casual fan may not know the songs but there are another level of casual fans and rock fans in general that would.  As for Cd, the album just isn't good enough to be playing 5 or 6 songs a night from it.. 3 max... Having 2 during the encore of my last show was very deflating. 

THIS 100% 

put a survey out there guarantee even casual fans don't wanna hear CD maybe some die hards here and there but it's mostly all there to please Axl's failed legacy 

and yes fire Frank 

 

 

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On 23/11/2017 at 7:34 PM, RONIN said:

I bet he's still listening to moby, NIN, Jane's Addiction, and Korn albums. 

I don't think he listens to stuff like that now. He probably listens mostly to music of his time (70s) and older.

In an interview from 2012 (I think) he said his favourite album of the year was by The Black Keys.

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Axl includes the ChiDem songs because he likes performing them live. He's already said they're his favourite to sing. He'd been performing them live for years at that point, so I don't see why he'd remove them if he enjoyed singing them. 

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