mwillmz

St. Louis 1991

I vividly remember them starting the show with Perfect Crime. Axl ran out on stage wearing a kilt and chest protector and started screaming the lyrics. No one had ever heard the song before. Pretty cool. Saw Izzy sing Dust N' Bones and 14 Years. They played November Rain and Axl mentioned it had probably gone platinum as a bootleg or something. After a bunch of solos, they kicked into Rocket Queen and the rest is history. I actually left (as many of us did) before the riot. I would have liked to stay but my friend nagged me to leave. I heard a rumor that a guy I knew from high school ran on stage and kicked the drum kit. Who knows?

Chicago 2002

I remember Axl saying something like..."People have been calling this a reunion tour. I guess I've got enough pieces of my mind back together to call it a reunion." Pretty funny. Good show. I think Axl nearly impaled himself on a guitar while running across the stage. He doubled over for a second or two. Got to see Buckethead in concert.

New York (First show at Hammerstein) 2006

At one point, I seem to remember Tommy pulling Finck out of the way before he got torched with pyrotechnics. (Live and Let Die?)

Saw Axl and patted him on the shoulder at an after-show party in New York.

Stood next to Finck and Bach too. It was at a nightclub in the lower east side. Awesome night to say the least!

I don't know if this has been discussed before.

Kind of funny.

- red hair

- cornrows

- baldness issue

- goatee

- cut off arms on shirt

- shape of the face

You be the judge.

I stripped it out and pasted it here.

Enjoy.

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Appetite for AXL: Guns N' Roses frontman continues to fascinate fans, even without any new music

Heath McCoy, Calgary Herald

Published: Saturday, December 02, 2006

The last definitive date was November 21. That was the day the eternally promised Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy was supposed to hit stores.

But absolutely nobody was shocked when the disc was nowhere to be found. In fact, it was laughably predictable -- just another spitball fired from the belligerently kooky world of Axl Rose.

If anything, the G N' R frontman's camp seemed to mock the promise in a press release for the current Chinese Democracy tour, which stated "there are 13 Tuesdays between now and the end of the year." In other words, the album may appear on one of those release dates. Or, it may not.

Since then an off-the-record source from Universal Music told one journalist that the album's release would be delayed until at least February 2007. Later the record company denied any such statement was made.

In truth, it will be infinitely more shocking if and when the record actually arrives. Sure, Rose has been threatening to release his masterpiece (or is it his albatross?) -- now $13 million and at least in a decade in the making -- since 1999. But, if you haven't clued in already, here's the bottom line: Chinese Democracy will come out when Rose is damn good and ready. Will he ever be ready? One gets the sense not even he knows for sure.

It speaks to the enduring appeal of Guns N' Roses that fans and the music press alike still care as much as they do. Despite reports of poor ticket sales in some centres, the Chinese Democracy tour -- which hits Calgary for a sold-out Saddledome gig on Wednesday -- remains the talk of the rock world.

That's a powerful bit of buzz for a band whose only original member is the singer, hasn't released an album of new material in 15 years, and is touring in support of a nonexistent album.

The air of mystery and elusiveness surrounding Chinese Democracy may be a big part of Guns N' Roses continued draw. There's an argument to be made that this near mythical platter has become the most eagerly anticipated album of all time. Fans are hungry for the record and Rose has starved them, continually teasing them with bogus release dates, creating a feeding frenzy of the curious.

It has lead to all sorts of speculation into the mental state of Rose, his spending habits and his plastic surgery choices.

But rocker Sebastian Bach, who has been opening up for Guns N' Roses, swears the singer is at the top of his game, and he defends Rose's actions.

"Listen, the guy hasn't lost his mind," Bach told a reporter recently. "(Rose) is trying to create a record that lives up to Appetite For Destruction, one of the best albums of all time, and that's taken a long time. . . . He doesn't explain that to me because he doesn't need to. It's his album and his art."

The mythology and anticipation that has built up around Guns N' Roses wouldn't exist if not for the band's enormous impact when they exploded onto the scene in the late '80s with Appetite For Destruction. At a time when the slick MTV-saturated landscape was dominated by the pious, pure-hearted likes of U2 and the tame, glossy chick metal of Def Leppard and Bon Jovi, G N' R brought a genuine, much-needed sense of danger back to the rock world.

Appetite was one of the decade's best albums. A raw slab of blues-based hard rock meets punk fury, it was vicious and nihilistic on the surface, but desperately romantic at heart. They followed it up with a handful of uneven albums that contained enough standouts to maintain momentum.

Meanwhile, their increasingly chaotic ways both internally and in public kept fans transfixed. Who would leave the band next? Who would wind up in jail? Where would they provoke the next riot? Who would OD?

And then, around 1994 they disappeared, retreating into the studio to begin recording their first album of original material since the dual Use Your Illusion discs of 1991.

That album, eventually entitled Chinese Democracy, has yet to see the light of day. In the process of recording it, perfectionist Axl has managed to fire or drive away all the original band members, including his key creative foil, guitarist Slash. He has since replaced them with a revolving door of musicians, including at one point a masked axe-slinger who wore a bucket of KFC on his head, named, appropriately enough, Buckethead.

All the while, the singer continued to work and rework Chinese Democracy.

Perhaps the only comparable scenario is to Smile, the Beach Boys' followup to Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson began recording that album in 1966 and had a mental breakdown in the process, finally shelving the thing until 2004. But by then, the public had long since given up on the record.

Other albums had been hotly awaited and way too long in the making -- the followups to Michael Jackson's Thriller and Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, for example. But Jackson and NIN's Trent Reznor made fans wait five years while they tinkered -- not 15.

It's interesting to consider that in this time, six albums of new material have been released under the name Tupac Shakur since the hip-hop hero's death a decade ago.

In a 1999 issue of Spin magazine, rock writer Marc Spitz suggested that "the longer (Axl) stays away, the larger his legend grows." But now, the reclusive wildman is back in the public eye. He's been seen living it up at trendy hotspots, even getting in a fight with Tommy Hilfiger in a New York City nightclub back in May. He was also a presenter at this year's MTV Music Awards. And he's been on a full-fledged world tour since May, playing to mixed reviews. Still, the buzz has yet to wane.

Unlike in 2002 when a tour was aborted after Axl failed to appear for a couple of shows, sparking a riot in Vancouver, the singer has actually gone through with his current sojourn. For the most part anyhow. There was that cancelled show in Portland last month, where Axl pulled the plug when told he wasn't allowed to drink alcohol onstage.

In a mock review written for Chinese Democracy in May by Spin magazine's Chuck Klosterman, the writer stated that after all this buildup there's only one way for Chinese Democracy "to avoid utter and absolute failure. It needs to be the greatest rock album ever made."

Pretending to have heard the disc, Klosterman riffs: "Had Axl released his album after a silence of, say, 11 years and two months (at a cost of, say, $11.5 million), Chinese Democracy would be an undeniable masterpiece, but considering the circumstances, some of this work seems shoddy."

Will Klosterman's satirical prediction come true? Can Axl Rose possibly live up not only to his own monumental reputation, but also the impossible expectations he's created for this album? And if he doesn't, will his legend finally be deflated?

Only time will tell. Or, if Axl keeps going back to the drawing board, maybe it won't.

hmccoy@theherald.canwest.com

© The Calgary Herald 2006

Obviously the 2002 tour was very brief. But I'm curious to see how sales compare between 2002 and 2006. With still no album or official singles to stir up casual or new fans, I'm guessing the 2006 sales are equal to or lesser than 2002.

Other than the wardrobe changes (and departure of Bucket), some of the fans that saw the tour in 2002 may not feel as compelled to see this tour. I guess GN'R may be picking up some new fans through press releases, word of mouth, demo releases (whoops, I mean "leaks"), and rumors of a 2006 album release. But the resulting ticket sales seem to be the same.

Seems like a long, moody, epic album, no matter how great it may be, won't put people in the seats. I wonder if GN'R has been trying to write a hit rock single this year in order to help their cause. One that's catchy (like the old days) and ripe for massive download on iTunes. I can't see them bursting out of the gate with "Better" or "The Blues." Maybe that's what the new drummer and Bumblefoot had been working on in the studio.

Were the leaks a calculated effort to measure which songs and styles would be a hit? No doubt they've gotten a lot of feedback from this, and the other, boards. Has the feedback we've given on the leaks shaped which songs will go on Chinese Democracy? Maybe us fans deserve a production credit in the liner notes.

7 Tuesdays left.

The most advantageous for GN'R being Nov. 21.

It's amazing how we're possibly this close to the release yet the silence, waiting, and speculating hasn't changed whatsoever.

They played songs like 'Paradise City' and 'Live and Let Die' in the stadiums at the end of some innings and pitching changes. Perhaps that was the arrangement.

Totally freakin' cool!!!!

WOW.

You didnt go and talk to him and get his autograph?

I wouldnt care if he thought I was a psychopath stalker as long as I got his autograph and shook his hand!

And you touched Axl. I envy you.

Yeah, it was a little weird. You'd think you'd want to get in his face but it wasn't my natural reaction. It was really cool enough for me just to see him there.

A handshake and a hello would have been really cool but an autograph seemed out of the question in the moment. It was best to just stand around and seem unaffected.

Before the show, word spread of a post-show party where the band was reported to appear. A while after the concert, my partner-in-crime and I took a cab down to the bar (around 3am) to take a look around. The idea of actually finding the band seemed kind of remote to me but it was worth a shot, right?

So we approach the door of the club and expected to be denied by the doormen for not being on the list. But they let us right in. The club was very, very dark inside and pretty well jammed with people. (For any of the guys who saw the show from the floor on Friday, you may recall a gal in the first balcony with long brown hair and wearing a bustiere and jeans, immediately to our left...she was there.)

We maneuvered our way downstairs just to check it out, figuring the band wouldn't be there. This is no glamorous place either. They had a Playboy bunny logo behind a small DJ table...dimly lit...some mirrors here and there. I glanced down the room (which was well-packed with a cool mixture of people——it was kind of a hip-hop and club-music crowd...most people probably unaware of GN'R). Down at the end of the room, sitting in the booth was a dude with gold braids and kind of hunched over talking to somebody. Axl freakin' Rose...30 feet away!!

We walked to the back of the bar and hung out near him. There were a bunch of people gathered around. Some guy was monopolizing his time so it was hard to approach him. He had on the brown leather jacket we've seen in recent photos and he still had on the black ring with diamonds from the show. He didn't really have anybody standing around protecting him. Bach was sitting in the booth and Finck was standing nearby. Axl eventually got up and made his way upstairs. He's not big. He's the world's biggest rockstar on stage but not a large man.

He stopped along the way to take pictures with the ladies who approached him. We followed him upstairs and he eventually sat in a booth. Bach sat next to him. Axl was constantly being approached by girls (and a few guys). He was good enough to greet them and so on, which was cool. Finck was standing around talking with friends; he had a Bing Crosby-like hat. Very cool guy. The DJ played a song from Appetite when Axl sat down.

Axl eventually got up and made his way to the front door. It was pretty crowded around him so I positioned near the front door. I would have liked to shake his hand but he shot out the door pretty quick. He had some body guards paving the way too. I patted him on the shoulder as he walked out.

There were a few semi-recognizable actors outside and we shot the breeze with one of them. Can't remember his name but a very cool guy. (He let us know about the party in the first place). Baz took off with a friend in a cab. Axl took off a little before that.

As if seeing GN'R's first comeback show wasn't cool enough, catching Axl at a club afterwards was freakin' cool as hell. An amazing scene and unforgettable time.

I might have 1 extra for May 12th. I should know by this weekend. If so, i just ask to buy me a few beers or something. THanks. Birk You can email me @ Birkoner@aol.com Oh and it is a floor ticket.

I may be interested in this ticket. I also emailed you as well (mwilliams902@hotmail.com)

Thanks,

Mike

A few things to consider:

1. Axl needs to perform all the shows in Europe without a hitch to prove he isn't a total flake. This will help make him to book shows in the U.S. one day.

2. GN'R as headliner at festivals gives Axl a chance to play in front of huge crowds. Rocking large stadiums is good for the ego.

3. My prediction is that GN'R will play classics along with the leaked songs. I would be very surprised if they played, say, 5 or 6 new songs no one has heard whatsoever.

4. I actually think Axl looks much more normal and healthier than he did in 2002. He's hitting the streets and having his picture taken; I think he wants to get out and prove he's the man. He's been playing his disc for people and has been getting positive reactions. I suspect a huge weight is off his mind and he may be feeling frisky. Book a summer tour in Europe, starting with Rock In Rio and get some momentum going.

5. Touring will gain him publicity in Rolling Stone, and probably on MTV News. Drop a U.S. single in the summer, then release CD in late summer/early fall. If it's a hit, he can book a tour in the U.S. and rub it in Clear Channel's face.

Or not, of course.

That was a good April Fools joke. They made it the main review, had an album cover, and made references to real songs. They got me at first.

....the legend grows....

I suspect a couple of things are motivating him.

Here are my top 5 reasons why Slash is "promoting the release":

1. Closure. Guns N' Roses was his life and since he left, CD has yet to be released. Now that it's close, he's excited to hear the results. (He needs it to be out there.)

2. 2007. 20 year anniversary of Appetite. He'd like to cash-in with a reunion tour and never have to think about money again. CD is an impediment. Release of CD gives him the opportunity to congratulate Axl and begin a new and constructive dialogue. (He benefits from having CD out there.)

3. Detox. He's probably not as loaded as he once was (dope and anger). He probably can't remember the stuff that made him angry. He's had a measure of success with Velvet Revolver (plus he's got a family) and now feels comfortable enough to just be supportive. The venom is gone. I think VR helped that. (He's decided to support his old buddy.)

4. Genuine interest. He sees this as strictly the work of Axl and wants to hear the product. Artists like to hear other artist's work. This piece has particular meaning to him and he's not hiding it. (He wants to hear it as much as we do. It's well beyond rivalry at this point.)

5. Favor. Maybe Slash has been told that Axl is afraid of his criticism. By repeatedly loosening his attitude, maybe it's intended to make Axl feel comfortable enough to release it. Maybe Slash is being paid by Axl's label to say these things. Maybe his lawyers and/or management have advised him to repeatedly speak kindly. (It helps someone's cause somehow.)

Who knows.

My opinion: No conversation between Slash and Axl will happen before the release——no matter what Slash says.

When the levee breaks

agreed. 'When the Levee Breaks'

Check out The Supersuckers, "The Evil Powers of Rock and Roll"

it is rock.

Aside from GN'R/Project, the only four bands I at least find interesting are...

1. Radiohead

2. The Strokes

3. The White Stripes

4. Coldplay

Pretty sad.

No NuMetal, RapMetal, RageMetal, etc.