RNRS

Anyone thinking he'll answer the bigger questions like "When will Chinese Democracy come out..." "Are you going to play new songs..." is delusional. It's all up to Axl, the entire band wants to play shitloads of stuff but it's Axl who's holding everything back. He has a vision and the rest of the band will have to follow it, including Axl's insecurity and other issues regarding whether certain songs are still good enough to be played live. Thinking any of the band members have any say into any of the more important questions is just kidding yourself by thinking it's an actual band, because in the end it isn't, and it's the sole reason why every original member got out, and I don't get why you'd be excited to chat with Bumblefoot. Sure, he might be a nice guy, but it's not as if he means anything to the bigger picture.

--Do you young ones realize, that about 90% of the outfits out there cannot reproduce their music live, without an incredible amount of pre-recorded parts, full-on Auto-tune, and don't even really play live half of the time>

Neither can Axl.

Do NOT insult Guns N' Roses, their management, their family or all of the above. I know you want to be able to shit all over everything the band does now, but come on... This site is sill being made! It's like judging Chinese Democracy off the drum tracks alone. You have been revealed for what you are... a hater.

Do not insult them, or what exactly? They didn't exactly release just the drum tracks of Chinese Democracy now, did they? Don't be daft, the site is a joke and even for an unfinished product it comes across as a date Geocities project from 2003.

Well tours are more looked at as measures of success in recent times and despite touring several cycles before and after the album release and making it clear who is and isn't in Guns N' Roses and the various obstacles and Axl apparently being a washed up laughing stock with little bother in promoting, Guns are doing rather well...

Or...They've been touring several cycles and with every cycle fewer people show up and tours happen on a smaller scale every time they hit a certain country despite there now actually being an album out to promote the tour. That's not doing well, and only indicates once more that of those 5.000.000 people that bought Chinese Democracy not that many show up to see the band. That's not doing rather well in my book.

Cheers! I was looking for that but couldn't find it. So funny how the perception is that it was a "worldwide" flop.... pfft

Yeah, because it's all about putting things in the right perspective. Something that cost 13 years and zillions of dollars to make is supposed to be going over the counter a lot more often than just 5.000.000 times. Denying that it's not a flop is just trying to fool yourself and making those 5.000.000 mean more than they actually do. Chinese Democracy flopped on any level. Critical acclaim, acclaim from die hards, acclaim from the average joe, sales numbers, and in the end on a financial picture. There's nothing about it that actually points out that it was a success, apart from the select few on this board that declare it the masterpiece that the rest of the world expected it to be.

I'm not willing to pay for the full ticket price alone while I know that most members of the band will be onstage for 3 hours, let alone paying the full price for 1 song which has the risk of Axl running off stage during the solo.

Don't be daft by saying that 5 million copies sold is a great thing in regards to Chinese Democracy. This is an album that was 13 years in the making, Axl build up huge expectations by delaying the album release time after time and claiming he wanted it to be this or that. If after 13 years of supposedly writing and recording you only manage to sell 5 million copies that's considered a failure in any book. It's the reason why Michael Jackson's Invincible was also claimed a failure, despite it selling 10 million copies. In the end it means that your huge fanbase bought the album, and the rest just didn't care. It's for the same reason that the Greatest Hits album sold that many copies as well. People buy it for the name, and not for the actual quality that's on it. I doubt there's many people of those 5 million copies sold that gave Chinese Democracy many spins, just like no one really plays Michael Jackson's Invincible anymore nowadays.

Our biz is dominated by gay people and Jewish (not against this, I got lotsa gay and Jewish friends, and I love them, I'm just giving a fact), gays still don't like Axl, Jewish people are, for the good of their biz, always after the people that they can make money out of (they like their Slash and push Slash more instead of Axl) , in Axl's case, bcuz he's anti-corporate, not synch and SMP friendly, people who are not gay or Jewish also don't care about him bcuz he doesnt do marketing, pr,synch or anything, that's why they dont want to spend their time on Axl.

This is quite honestly one of the most retarded theories as to why Chinese Democracy has failed etc. that I have ever heard. Putting the blame on the fact that the business is dominated by gay people and therefore they don't like Axl makes absolutely no sense, it's where the entire hatred towards Jews and Gays in WWII stemmed from. The Jews had the power, therefore the Jews are to blame for everything is wrong. Further on, first you blame the Jews and Gay people, and then it's the others that don't like him either. It's a dangerous theory you're writing out there but frankly I don't really think you understand what you're saying yourself.

Are you sure its almost sold out? Cause my friend is going and I wanna go too but I can't afford a ticket until next month as I just bought a ticket for the German show today

I don't recommend you to wait until next month! It's going very fast with the dutch tickets this time.

I wouldn't worry, there's still plenty of tickets available. Anyone saying it's going very fast is talking out of his or her ass, because no one can look into the tickets database, not even 3FM.

Thanks, Interesting to hear form someone in the industry. Can you expand a bit? What are the general things that people say about him? IAlso is it his old rep influencing this opinion or his attitude nowadays?

It's both. If fans are frustrated about the lack of a new album, how do you feel someone who has to finance a new album feels? If fans are frustrated about Axl always showing up late, how do you feel a promoter feels about it, realizing he'll have to get everyone to work overtime and pay a crew a lot more money than anticipated?

I agree about the coverband and all, allthough they are very good. Ofcourse I prefer old line up, but since I am a fan of those, I never miss a show of Slash or Axl. Really don't understand a fan of old or new line up would miss one. About the monday thing.......you are very early to ask for tuesday off, don't understand why that should be a problem . And yes, we all agree that the old line up would sell way more, but that's discussed many many times.

Taking a morning off means missing out on at least 6 hours of work for me, which means the tickets costs 65E + at least 10E per hour I won't be making. It'll make the ticket at least twice as expensive simply because Axl can't show up on time.

No I do not. However, if you think there isn't a monetary correlation to airplay then you are mad son!

Like I said, call your local rock station and request a CD track. You tell me how that goes...

Don't be silly, that has nothing to do with there being some conspiracy, but all to do with radio stations having playlists on them compiled with the most popular and requested songs by their listeners. If any song that's being requested by any listener is not on the initial playlist to start with, it won't get played. No radio station is going to play a song like Better to please you while they could play Welcome To The Jungle that'd please pretty much everyone. The risk of them losing 60% of their listeners is too high and no listeners means no advertising. If 500 listeners change the station during Better how big is the chance of them coming back? They won't be checking every minute to see if the song has finished, because by then they've probably found something else they like. A loss of 500 listeners might mean a loss of 10% of their audience, yet a commercial is based upon a certain amount of listeners, and the price a company has to pay a radio station to get their commercial played is based upon a certain amount of listeners. If there are fewer listeners, the radio station won't be able to ask as much money as they used to. It's once again a business thing, and not some conspiracy.

all people I tell I will visit a GNR gig are like...WTF, are they coming to Holland? I need to check that out.

Funny, all people I talk to are saying "Axl is coming? With Slash? No? Ah, no interest then, he probably won't show up either."

I'm not trying to start a Slash/Axl debate but Axl still not being on time and Slash not being there is the reason why there's a little over 10.000 people now and 85.000 people in 1993. There's really no one I talk to that even remotely cares about this and frankly I can't blame them. I live 30 minutes away from the venue but think 65E is quite steep for a lead singer with a cover band, no matter how good they really are. I realize this'll spark some controversy around here but I know I'm not in the minority with this, judged by the decreasing amount of people that go out to see Guns N Roses tour after tour. I'm sure they'll put on a great show for some, but I just don't care for it. And frankly, the show is on a monday and I can't afford the risk of staying up til 2 because Axl couldn't be arsed to start the show on time again. I'd be completely screwed the next day at work and I've got responsibilities to others.

Ok lets see here...

AC/DC Black Ice

Promoted to the point it was shoved down our throats

Metallica Death Magnetic

Decent promotion, TDTNC pushed hard as a single

Foo Fighters Wasting Light

Already has two singles over played on main stream radio

Van Halen A Different Kind Of Truth

If I hear Tattoo one more time i'll fuckin' stab the first person I see

Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball

I love the new single "We Take Care of Our Own" but 15 times a day on main stream radio? come the fuck on

My point is why was CD put on the back burner? The album IMO is 1000000 times better than all the albums I mentioned.

Did Axl piss off the man that much to deserve this shit?

They didn't promote Chinese Democracy because no one apart from the select die hards on this board gave a fuck about Axl's album anymore. Everyone still gets excited about Metallica and AC/DC because both bands are capable of generating excitement themselves. With Bruce people know they can expect a great tour to follow, so people look forward to it.

Now you tell me, what was there to look forward to regarding Chinese Democracy? The album failed to live up to anyone's expectations apart from, once again, a select few die hards on this board, Axl, for whatever reason, decided not to promote it himself and even nowadays there's not a single promo shot of the entire band available. There was no real tour anounced to promote the album until over a year after the album had been released, so really, what was there to promote? No one cared, not even Axl, it seemed.

Don't blame a record company when the man himself isn't available or willing to do anything apart from playing the odd string of shows for which he once again isn't willing to do promo work. The failure of Chinese Democracy is entirely to blame on Axl. 13 years of "working on it", you can't expect a record company to spend money on a promo tour that'll never give them back the money they spend on it. In the end a record company is a business just like every other company that tries to make money. Axl is an employee they can't rely on, has only cost them money, thus are not willing to spend more money on. The sole purpose of a promo campaing started by a record company is to make people buy the album so it'll cover the costs of making that album. When no promo campaign can cover those costs, they won't start one in the first place, because at most the only thing it'll do is cover the costs of the promo campaign. It's a business model, not some conspiracy.

I've got a feeling most of you lot who post suggestions consider your work out of the day adjusting your chair so you can reach out your bag of chips. Madagascar, seriously?

And what exactly is so special about this? Axl does a half assed howl, is out of breath, can barely finish a "you could be mine" and then tops it with some helium fueled sound.

The good thing is that it's over.

GNR has so many good fucking songs that they don't play, I'm sure they could go another three hours on just their own material.

No they can't. Axl barely survives the 3 hour shows they're doing now and that includes about an hour of solo's. They're not there to give the musicians a chance to shine, they're there so Axl can catch his breath and give his voice a rest.

Almost every band I've seen has played between 80 to 90 minutes. That runs the gamut from (a few off the top of my head) Bon Jovi, Poison, Death Cab, Motley Crue, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Scorpions and many more.

People complain about the high ticket prices (and I did too), but you know what? I paid $100 to see U2 in 2005 and they only played for probably around 90 minutes. Even at the $50 I paid to see Bon Jovi, they played 90 minutes. That's around half as long as Gn'R for half the price.

You must've been unlucky. U2, and Bon Jovi all play well over 2 hours every show, with Bon Jovi topping them playing well over 2,5 hours on their last European tour. And that's without 15 guitar/drum/piano/banjo/bongo solo's. Whether you like Bon Jovi or not is out of the question here, they do deliver, as do U2. As for other acts that play close to 3 hours on a tour...McCartney, Rush, Dream Theater, Pearl Jam...

I'm not sure if it's changed over here but I'd rather get a 2 hour show without the solo's than a 3 hour show without any flow whatsoever, no matter how good the quality of the solo's is. I see a show for the songs, I'm not there to see a guy prove what technical skills he has.

This fake interview is funny and pretty much shows how ridiculous Axl's rants actually are.

No idea if it's been mentioned in this topic, the search function says it hasn't, but GnR will play Arnhem, Gelredome XS on June 16, 2010.

How do you know? There are a couple of dates for different shows thrown around that have not been confirmed by the Gunners camp...

I have inside information to a ticket company. GnR is listed for June 16.

No idea if it's been mentioned in this topic, the search function says it hasn't, but GnR will play Arnhem, Gelredome XS on June 16, 2010.

They haven't released a b-side in over 15 years. :|

Regarding the date in Holland; Gelredome is split up in half this year. Rotterdam Ahoy (an arena that holds 8.000 people) is closed for mainenance and they're enlarging it, so every gig that's supposed to be played at Ahoy is played at Gelredome. So GnR playing there makes perfect sense.

And DON'T enjoy the show you're at at all! Just film the whole thing for us, bitch!

Ha!

Actually fuck that screen and fuck the band. Just film the hot girls dancing to that shit.