johnnybebad

11 hours ago, El Guapo said:

So far, Axl's been doing the opposite though.

The stage clothes, the merch, the music. The skeletons.

This.

Older artists like Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan had huge late-career renaissances because they embraced the gifts that age had provided them with. While other artists are stuck milking their own nostalgia (Axl, Brian Wilson) and always being held to their past achievements because they keep wagging those achievements in their audience's faces, it is possible to keep the muse and the music alive, but he probably won't see the same payday that Appetite For Destruction 32nd Anniversary Tour will provide. Axl is not some kind of fountain of youth superhero like Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney, but even they know how to work within their own unavoidable age-related limits. 

3 hours ago, James Bond said:

Paul definitely had a good run with his voice. My KISS fandom peaked around 2009/2010. After they tuned down the sets got shorter, Gene carried the show, and I mostly checked out. The weird thing about his voice isn't so much that he lost range but that he can barely sustain a note anymore. At best he just barely gets away with the Soul Station stuff.

I think pride got the best of him. He was always so careful to preserve his voice as much as he could and I think it's incredibly hard for him to accept that he can't quite do it anymore.

Pride, and they probably haven't sold one less ticket despite the quality of his voice. Kiss has never hidden the fact that they are a business first and musicians second. As long as the money keeps rolling in, why stop it? I mean... how many farewell tours have they done now?

Unfortunately, I'm starting to get the same feeling from GNR. I think the days of any artistic merit behind this beast are long gone. The pay day must be enormous to just get on stage with a few guys playing for a few hours and then getting treated like royalty. There's worse ways to make a living! 

1 hour ago, Sweersa said:

I love how he feels it necessary to mention this. 99% of the audience have no idea who the fuck he is. 

So an audience member is more likely to pass from covid than know who Jarmo is.

It's because Axl lives in a very strange version of reality. The paranoid behaviour that leads him to deleting all videos online, refusing interviews, etc. goes hand in hand with surrounding yourself with "loyal" hangers-on, censoring his own fan-sites and rewarding the people that say "yes, good idea sir!" 

For the rest of the world not on planet Axl, it's a little hard to follow. 

43 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

On the UYI albums you could say that Dizzy was not needed. He has some writing credits on CD though. He's needed on tour for playing the piano parts, so that Axl can be the frontman without having to sit on the piano for many songs.

Melissa's role is adding effects, making guitars sound thicker, playing backing tracks, etc. Most bands have someone for these things, they just have them hidden behind the stage.

I'm a guitar player and I guarantee that Melissa is not "making guitars sound thicker." What does that even mean?

She's dancing, singing some backing vocals and adding a keyboard line here and there. Otherwise, she's triggering samples that could easily be done by a computer without a human flailing about on stage (not that they're even needed...) There is definitely not a single person at a concert that would miss her contributions or lack thereof. 

She is there because Axl wants her there and this is the Axl Rose show. 

Dizzy I could understand. The Illusions had a lot of piano parts, so it made sense that they needed someone else rather than having Axl sitting behind a piano all night. But then we got Teddy as well....?!

Remember how Slash and Duff were supposedly holding Axl back from recording such forward-thinking music in the 90s... Remember how much those stories dictated the narrative for twenty years or so? 

This is that progressive music. 

This has to be Slash and Duff's attempt to show Axl that they're on board with his ideas to hopefully convince him to go into the studio. I feel embarrassed for them that they 1) had to learn this song 2) had to let their wives/kids/friends watch them playing this song. 

But then I remember that they're making millions upon millions of dollars to get up there on stage with Axl... so... congratulations...? 

I cannot believe that this song was pulled from the watery grave that it rightfully deserved. This song was absolute hot garbage in 2001 and the fact that people are calling a twenty fucking year old song a "new" song shows how absolutely fucked the entire universe surrounding this "band" is and has been for decades.

This is the kind of thing that any band member would be ashamed of if it surfaced, even if they wrote it in high school with some buddies in their mom's basement. Pussy. Full. Of. Maggots. Seriously?! And there's like 4 lines in the whole song?! This is what a band that's raking in hundreds of millions of dollars can come up with?! 

The fact that Axl convinced Slash and Duff to play this song written fully convinces me that Guns N' Roses is still just Axl Rose + Associates. This reunion has not been a new chapter. It's just a continuation of the Chinese Democracy tour. 

2 hours ago, SWINGTRADER said:

Anybody who bought/experienced the release of AFD in the 80's should not be buying this shit. This is for the young suckers that do not know any better.

 

 

How many young people have a spare $1000 kicking around? How many people under 35 have surround sound systems to listen to the 5.1?

This is totally for the 50+ crowd. The same people who buy certain signature Les Pauls to hang on their walls, never played.

On 6/21/2018 at 10:59 AM, smiley said:

Wasn't it the show that was broadcast live on PPV? Hence it was already pretty well recorded /edited... easy to release... 

Being GNR, I'm still surprised it actually got released. 

The Paris '92 show was the big live Pay Per View event. It was a much better show and it was the one I was most familiar with because it used to get shown on Much Music all the time. Until the DVD release, the Tokyo shows on VHS were pretty rare as far as I can remember (but I was pretty young...)

I think Tokyo was just a cheap release for the band. I believe it was filmed in Japan by a Japanese crew for Japanese TV, so the band just released it worldwide without much fuss to make an easy buck. Why else would it be released as two separate releases?? Even when it was updated to a DVD release, it's basically just a straight transfer from the VHS.

I had never heard the DJ Ashba version of this song before watching this video. I stopped paying attention to the band during his tenure...

My god... 

How did he possibly get the gig? That is some of the worst guitar playing on a professional stage that I have ever seen. It just reeks of the kid at guitar centre who is trying to show off.

"Actually" actually adds nothing to a sentence. Actually.

Lots of good info, but lay off the "actually"

If they make a DVD (does anyone still buy DVDs?), I pray they keep the audience shots to a minimum. I want to watch the band, not some douchebag whose daddy paid $1500 so he could sit up front and drunkenly pump his fist in the air to songs he doesn't know.

I can't believe how pathetically this reunion has been rolled out.

Except, it's GNR... so it's 100% believable. 

I mean... It's Axl, Slash and Duff reuniting!!! Aside from maybe Led Zeppelin, this is probably the biggest rock n' roll tour ever (and how many bands that came around after GNR would get this kind of attention/demand?) But the rollout has been just a giant shit show. Confirmation of the lineup through instagram? No REAL announcement that there IS a reunion? So lame, yet so expected. 

And to just rub salt in the wound, all of the wind of the reunion has been taken out of the sails by the stories/reality(?) of Axl fronting the entity calling itself AC/DC now. 

The biggest reunion of the decade, and Axl is going to front two bands at once? He couldn't even front one properly for the past 20 years. 

Utterly disappointing, yet completely familiar.

This was an epic night. I was in my mid 20's at the time so it's all very vivid in my memory. This was around the same time that internet file sharing was really catching on (Napster... ICQ... etc.). The world was still stuck in dial up internet at that time. SUPER slow by today's standards, but for the time, magical. I don't even think DSL was out yet (the level up from dial-up internet).

I was on GNR forums from the get-go. Was one of the first CD.com members and that forum at the time was like this place. It was the place to go for GNR news, chat and info. Had some legendary members... Xozi, Queenie... the battles I had with those two clowns were epic. Kanada, probably known to most on this forum and others as one of Axl's biggest nut-swingers today, was at the time one of the biggest Axl/Nu-GNR bashers/'cupcakes'... if not the biggest. At every turn Kanada criticized Axl and NuGuns. I used to destroy him too through the years as, at the time, I was one of Axl's biggest supporters.

Anyway... those are stories for another time. The night of this show and the hype leading up to it was epic. The forums were on fire the entire time. I remember snippets of new songs showing up on Napster and forum members passing links back and forth to download the stuff. Now, a download of one song took HOURS. Again, at the time though it was magical to even have that kind of tech. The first song I was able to download was The Blues. I was instantly in love with it. I think the next day I was able to get Madagascar downloaded and also liked it. Eventually the entire show was leaked one way or another and people started making bootlegs of it on CD's and were selling them on Ebay. I still have a copy that I bought.

Deep down though, as much as I was supporting Axl and his vision, it didn't feel complete. The void Slash and the old band left was noticeable (I grew up on the original GNR). But, Axl had lots of promises of a new album and supporting tours. Each year a new release date came and went. And somehow, someway, we were all strung along for years and years. If you would have told me at the time (2001) CD would not come out until 2008, I would have laughed at your face.

But, alas, the NuGNR saga was just beginning. And it was all very, very painful. Starting with the first tour being cancelled one show before I was supposed to see them in DC. Albeit a few bright spots popped up along the way (Hammerstein, CD's eventual release and some regular touring). But it became painfully obvious by about 2009 that NuGNR wasn't going to ever reach the summit like the original band did. That's about the time I started to turn on NuGNR and started calling for a reunion.

Not that my voice mattered much.

But it was certainly a very unique journey for clearly unique people. Or should I say deranged people?! Lol. No music fan should ever have to endure what GNR fans like myself had to endure for 20+ years.

I just hope that the reunion proves to be a huge success and the old guys churn out 2-3 solid albums in the next decade, cementing a legacy of one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Right now GNR is just an interesting footnote in the history of rock. Kind of like Bo Jackson in the sports world... an absolute beast of a baseball and NFL football player... legendary. But his career was cut very short due to a devastating injury leaving many to speculate how incredible his career in both sports could have been. Some say he would have gone down as one of the best if not the best of all time in either sport. GNR has that same kind of legacy. The, 'what if' legacy. Had the original band stayed together and managed through some tough times, we may be talking about THE greatest rock band of all time... at least on par with a band like the Stones.

Instead, we all ask ourselves, 'what if'?

Well, we'll never know. I just hope they have some magic left in the tank and at least cement a legacy and pump out some good music for a few years and prove to us that, yes, they can now be mentioned in the same breath as Zeppelin, Queen, Aerosmith or The Rolling Stones as being among rock's elite.... and not just an interesting footnote.

Honestly, the band reuniting has brought back some of that 'magic' feeling from 2001... a certain excitement for what's to come. I just hope it's not the same nightmare us hardcore fans had to endure for the better part of two decades. I'm not as invested in it as I was when I was younger. There are far more important things in life, like my family and providing for them and watching them grow. But it's fun none-the-less to follow GNR news again! But if the shit hits the fan, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it anymore.

I just hope for you newer fans that the ride goes much smoother.

Wow, thanks for taking me back. I used to check in on GNRonline message boards all the time, along with the other sites like CD.com and 2000 Intentions. I was 14 then. That is crazy. "Make Haste." haha

I was a kid who was so excited to see Axl back. I thought the new songs were so cool, and was very excited by the totally new direction Axl was taking his band (whether or not it was really GnR didn't interest me in the least - at least there was progress.) I remember downloading the show and thinking that the old songs sounded pretty cool, but it was the new stuff that I was way more interested in. After the cancelled tours and the overall dictatorship vibe coming from Axl, I gave up. Life is way too short, and there was way too much good music out there to waste my time caring about this sad excuse of a band. By the time Chinese Democracy was actually, begrudgingly, released in 2008 (with many of the key players from 2001 already having left the band), I had lost all interest, but I do still like to peek in and see that the madness continues.

But for a little while in 2000-2001, it really seemed like Axl and his new band were really doing something cool.

Funny how fast it all fell apart...

And that 15 years later, as a grown adult, I still want to see where it goes next.

Thanks for the great post

Slash can't play Shackler's Revenge's solo

Good. The less that "solo" is ever heard, the better.

Duff has a lot of learning to do.

Yeah, it would be next to impossible for him to learn all those new songs GnR have released since he last toured with the band 20 years ago...

Cult albums become cult albums when bands from the future cite the album as an influence.

Velvet Underground & Nico, Raw Power, etc.

I really can't imagine any scenario where you read a young band saying "we were really influence by Chinese Democracy era Guns N' Roses"

Anything Goes is embarrassing compared to the quality of the rest of the songs on Appetite For Destruction.

I never cared for the version of You're Crazy on that album, but the Lies version is great.

Get In The Ring should have never made it past the conversation stage of "hey, I have a great idea for this new song!"l

Shotgun Blues is pretty bad...

Back Of Bitch sounds like it was written by 13 year olds.

If The World is shockingly bad, in my opinion. Same goes for Scraped. I just can't understand how anyone could like those two songs.

I always loved that Tom Petty & Axl video. There's a moment in there where Tom looks at Axl after some crazy impressive vocals with a " ... Holy Shit!" look on his face. I think he absolutely knew he was being upstaged by Axl, but it made for a great memorable performance!

How did GNR survive grunge? They put out their last studio album the same month that Nevermind came out. Then they went on the most bloated tour ever, while Nirvana and all the other similar bands of the day championed what was pretty much the anti-GNR image. If anything, '91-'93 GNR was the last dying breath of the 80s rock star.

It seems most people forget about how much of a joke The Spaghetti Incident was seen as at the time. Guns may have been huge up to '93, but I think The Spaghetti Incident was the nail in the coffin of any sort of future relevance.

For all anyone knows, the "re-recording" could have just been a live run through of the album recorded at rehearsals. They played 10 AFD tracks at the first comeback shows in 2001, plus Axl said he would like to add Patience and YCBM instead of Anything Goes and You're Crazy, which weren't played at the time. I think people make this re-recording out to be much bigger than it ever was.

Todd was the singer and guitar player in the band The Age Of Electric. They were pretty big here in Canada for a while in the 90s. If you've never heard them, check out their stuff! Especially their second album, Make A Pest A Pet.

And on a side note from that... the other guys from The Age Of Electric went on to play in a band called Limblifter, who were also awesome!

"http://youtube.com/embed/rtG4FfXB7zk

http://youtube.com/embed/EI-sCxuAWGM

"http://youtube.com/embed/Cr9GZlA6CCw

When "Live Era" came out, all signs pointed to the new GNR album being just around the corner. The official website existed, and had a very strong message board, so there were always little tidbits of news. Plus Oh My God was released at exactly the same time, so there was lots of talk about Axl's big return. I saw Live Era as a way of stirring up interest in a band that was finished, but also starting over.

The amount of mystery and excitement surrounding Axl and his new band at the time of Live Era was incredible.

But... It would be 9 years before that new GNR album was actually released.

A lot of the vocals are out of rhythm with the music on CD. It's a side effect of cutting together different takes of every single line, or sometimes two vocal takes used on one word, as in the case of Scraped. It's distracting...

I was in Grade 9 in 1999. I used to check the GnR Online forum everyday. Then Oh My God and Live Era came out, there were interviews, and the ball seemed to be rolling. A lifetime has passed since then, and look what the band has done in that amount of time...

I still check here every now and then to see what's happening, out of curiosity more than anything, but I have absolutely no interest in this band anymore. Axl doesn't owe anyone anything, but his fans definitely don't owe him their money or their patience either. And with the way this band presents themselves, it astounds me that there is anyone still hanging in there.

I HATE Buckethead's damn solos in Better.

I hope that crap isn't there in the final version