Powerage5

I don’t get how this is a “cloud of uncertainty”. It’s not commonplace for B-sides and bonus tracks to be released in streaming. Loads of other artists have vinyl-exclusive tracks, and you never see them explicitly saying ahead of release “you won’t be able to stream this, so you better buy the physical release!”. Some artists like to have vinyl-exclusive tracks, and I think that’s a great thing to keep the tradition of physical media alive. In a way it’s really grinding my gears because I don’t see other fandoms have this level of outrage when a single track isn’t released on streaming. Yes, I get that GN’R fans are particularly starved for new music. But I saw plenty of similar complaints (albeit to a far lesser degree) about the Japan exclusive bonus tracks on the UYI reissues, and the hidden cassette in the Locked N Loaded AFD set. There’s a tradition of artists giving Japan in particular bonus tracks, and having hidden goodies in big, expensive box sets. There’s no reason to abandon some of these practices just because 99.9% of new releases get put on streaming services. I don’t agree with TB on almost anything, but situations like this really give credit to Beta’s infamous “complaints, complaints, complaints” comment - GN’R fans have such a dramatic way of twisting every single positive into a negative.

I've seen them 7 times since 2016 (2016 x2, 2017 x2, 2021 x2, 2023 x1). In those 7 shows I've seen 46 songs played, not counting solos and jams but including Duff songs. It's So Easy x7 Knockin' On Heaven's Door x7 Live And Let Die x7 Mr. Brownstone x7 Nightrain x7 Paradise City x7 Rocket Queen x7 Sweet Child O' Mine x7 Welcome To The Jungle x7 Chinese Democracy x7 November Rain x7 You Could Be Mine x7 Estranged x7 Civil War x7 Double Talking' Jive x7 Better x6 The Seeker x5 Coma x5 This I Love x4 Patience x4 Don't Cry x3 My Michelle x3 Slither x3 Used To Love Her x2 Yesterdays x2 You're Crazy x2 Absurd x2 Black Hole Sun x2 I Wanna Be Your Dog x2 Raw Power x2 Wichita Lineman x2 Madagascar There Was A Time Whole Lotta Rosie Anything Goes Attitude Bad Obsession Dead Horse Down On The Farm Hard Skool New Rose Out Ta Get Me Perhaps Pretty Tied Up Reckless Life TV Eye

I went to Hell & Heaven Fest last year. Granted it was a few weeks later last year, but my experience was it was gorgeous during the day, and extremely cold at night. The festival is outdoors (Obviously, since it's a festival), and it's in Toluca which is at a higher elevation than Mexico City (I think it was around 9,000 feet if I remember right). The festival runs quite late - the headliners don't finish up until around 2 AM. The daily high was around 70-75 F, but once the sun went down it was brutally cold. While KISS was on as the Sunday night headliner my phone said it was 38 F, which is about 3 C. I was wearing three layers and a winter hat and still shivering all night, and that's coming from somebody used to 120 inches of snow every winter.

When I saw Mr. Bungle the other day they covered the Pesto Bismol jingle. Who's to say GN'R can't cover The General jingle?

Love Motörhead. Lucky I got to see them I think five or six times. Highlight was when I won a spot on the Motörboat in 2015 - got to see them twice on that, and they ended up being some of the last Motörhead shows. The band did a meet & greet on the cruise also, and it was really great just to be able to thank Lemmy for all the great music however brief it was. I'm not gonna pick favorite songs or albums, but I will say one which I think is severely overlooked is Inferno. There's some great tunes on that album, and it's one of their heaviest efforts. In The Name Of Tragedy is probably the song that got me hooked on Motörhead.

It was definitely Dexter by the US in 2011.

Needs more scented candles and beach towels. I love the middle design but wish it was centered. I think that's a great logo though.

Stones fans too, go read IORR sometime. GN’R fans are definitely the craziest, but not the most overly-critical.

I have to say Brian actually sounds better there than I was expecting. Is it amazing? No. But he’s got more of the gravel in his voice than he’s had for some time, and his pitch is better than it’s been on any of his one-off outings since his hearing issues. But I’m glad to see they’re at least rehearsing one of the deep cuts they dusted off with Axl, it was a shame this one got played so little since Bon died.

Anybody who is flying to see a concert should be well aware there is always a possibility of that. Hell, I went to China for a couple concerts back in 2016 and I didn’t even know if the government would allow the shows to happen The best outlook is you can still have a nice holiday in a different city if everything goes wrong. Does it suck when a gig gets canceled and you e flown to the city? Hell yes. But it doesn’t meant you can’t still enjoy yourself.

Don’t think so out of that list. HV pops up very occasionally.

Assuming McCoy is @The Real McCoy, he still posts. Good call on Pappy.

For me, Prequelle is right up there with Meliora as my favorite. Think it speaks volumes to the strength of their discography that there’s probably an argument to be made for any of their albums as being their best.

I don't really understand this narrative that it would be tone deaf to release it as a vinyl exclusive track. It's not some new concept for physical releases to have exclusive tracks whether it's a B-sdie, an LP bonus track, or a bonus track on a Japanese release. This stuff used to happen all the time, and plenty of bands still do it that way. I don't think it's really fair to say that it's harsh for the band to not make this mythological song readily available to everybody - we are the ones that built up this myth after all for a song that's only been mentioned in an official context a handful of times over 20 years. On the contrary, I kind of like that GN'R are doing this the old school way if it's true it won't be availably digitally. I love opening a new record and being able to dig into a bonus track that I know I can't hear otherwise.

I've been digesting the show I saw in Syracuse a couple weeks ago, and I have to say...I really didn't enjoy hardly anything about it, or about the Impera era now that I've seen a gig during it. For starters, the album just never clicked with me - it's not terrible or anything, but it's certainly their most inconsistent IMO. Spillways was fantastic - one of my favorite Ghost songs. Call Me Little Sunshine, Watcher In The Sky, and Respite On The Spitalfields are all quite good. I like the sound they were going for on Kaisarion better than I like the song. The rest is all pretty "meh" for me, except Twenties which is atrocious. Phantomime didn't do much for me either - I absolutely love We Don't Need Another Hero, but none of the rest really stands out to me even amongst their other covers. As for the show I saw...the banded sounded fantastic, as good as ever. And that's really all the good I can say about it. The biggest thing to me is just none of it actually felt like a Ghost show anymore. The whole production design seemed off. The visuals have just completely lost the religious subtext I feel like. The stained glass backdrop looked great with it now being a physical prop, but it didn't mesh at all with the sleek, modern look of the foreground of the stage. The light design was less atmospheric and more flashy and modern looking. The wardrobe just didn't suit Ghost at all. I don't understand the Ghoul outfits at all - the Spaceball-meets-gasmask look isn't ghoulish at all, nor do the militaristic garb they wear. As for Papa...none of it looked like Ghost. These sequined smoking jackets with ruffled shirts, the bat wings, the top hat...give me a fucking break. Papa III did wear some more secular clothes but it at least looked like Ghost still. This doesn't. The religious outfits looked great, but they just weren't present enough. In a 19 song set, only three songs featured Papa in a religious outfit - one in the full papal robe with hat, one in the papal robe without hat, and one in the priest robe. That's not enough for a band that built their imagery on this type of stuff. Besides all that, I just don't think amphitheaters are right for Ghost. They completely lack any atmosphere, and the crowds that Ghost is attracting nowadays don't help. It feels so out of element that there's these teenage TikTok-ers screaming bloody murder to the point that the music isn't even enjoyable, complaining that their cosplays are getting ruined in the mud, and sexualizing the Ghouls to a disturbing level. I've seen Ghost about 40 times going all the way back to the Papa I era, but this was probably the least enjoyable Ghost show I've seen - even ahead of the one where I cracked two ribs.

Is it? I saw one video that’s 1:48 long, but haven’t seen one that’s the full show.

Finally can settle down and write out my thoughts on the show properly. Spent the holiday weekend up in Canada with my girlfriend, and I managed to convince her we should go see GN'R while we were in Toronto. She knows some of the songs casually, but wouldn't go so far as saying she's a fan so I was happy she was willing to fit that into our schedule. I wanted to see them again this year after seeing one atrocious show in 2021, and one much better, but fairly tame show. The setlists have been quite good - a number of songs I'd never seen live most grabbed my attention, but also Axl sounding better (Or at least more confident) from the bits and pieces I've heard. Add on the fact that they released Perhaps, and I was really itching to catch a gig again. I'm not a fan of Rogers one bit - it's congested, the facilities aren't that great, and the sound is atrocious. Last night was no exception on any of those fronts, but the band more than made up for it. The sound was seriously bad where we sat (In the lower level on Slash's side, straight in line with the side PA's maybe 40 feet away?) - there were times I couldn't hear anything at all except Duff and Axl, and I barely heard Richard all night unless he was playing a solo. But I knew what I was getting myself into at Rogers, and I can't specifically complain about that - it's just the nature of large, cavernous indoor stadiums. The setlist surpassed my expectations, even with a rough idea of what I'd get. None of the songs reintroduced to the set this year got dropped, first time seeing Hard Skool and Perhaps live, and on top of that we got Maddy, TWAT, and Coma all in the same set - what more could I ask for? Out of 30 songs, eight were new ones to me, and two more I haven't seen in the NITL era yet. Standout songs for me last night - Bad Obsession, Hard Skool (Just the idea that I'm seeing them play Checkmate live after all these years still blows my mind), Pretty Tied Up, Down On The Farm, Civil War, There Was A Time. It was pretty wild to see Reckless Life and Anything Goes from a sheer wow-factor point of view (Never expected either of those), but I'm also fine if I never see either again. In terms of performance and effort from the band, there's not much I can critique. Does Axl sound absolutely perfect? No, of course not. Some songs sound better than others, but it's so clear he's at least putting in the effort and I feel like that's all you can really ask. TWAT for example was pretty rough through the verses, but he was going for it on the outro and that's fantastic to see. Slash was probably the best I've seen him since the reunion. I've been quite vocally critical of my thoughts on his takes on the CD songs especially, but fair play to him TWAT was absolutely sublime. He maintained the contours of the solos, some of the key licks, but also put his own spin on them - that's all I've wanted of him playing CD songs. The rest of his playing was top notch also, but his takes on the CD songs stood out to me more than anything. The rest of the band was in fine form as always, not a whole lot of comments to make. The other big thing that stands out to me is just how lean this show felt. Yeah it was 3 hours 10 minutes, but it didn't feel bloated one bit - no endless solo spots, no rehearsed jam sessions, the only random cover was Wichita (Which I personally love), and not even much talking from Axl. KOHD even felt a lot better than normal, and RQ was the only moment in the show that felt like it dragged on for me. Other than the rapid-fire hour and 40 minute set I saw at Governors Ball in 2013, this was the most concise and tight show I've ever seen from GN'R. This was a well oiled machine like I'm just not used to seeing from them. All of that considered, the real highlight of the day for me was meeting up with @James Bond - it's been years since we've seen each other. Thoroughly enjoyed meeting up to hit some breweries, spend the afternoon together, and go to the gig together. It's always great to have good company for a gig and it really added to the atmosphere of what was already a fantastic evening. It was certainly one of my most enjoyable GN'R shows, probably my favorite all around since the UCAP show at The Ritz.

This is such a great night. Best GN’R show I’ve seen in ages.

Axl is wearing a Trailer Park Boys shirt, love it

I’m here with @James Bond and we’re on the piss drinking $18 Bud Lights through a straw and having a blast. Rock n’ roll! can’t wait for the live debut of Margaritaville

I have quite a large Iron Maiden collection - tour shirts, vinyl, stage memorabilia (picks, wristbands, set lists, etc). But it’s been pretty stagnant over the last few years as Iron Maiden hasn’t really been as big a part of my life. The collection I’m more currently focused on is football kits. It’s primarily West Ham (The club I support) and national team shirts, but there’s also some other random clubs mixed in. I’m hoping to get a kit from every FIFA-affiliated national team in the world, and so far I’m at about 75/210. On the West Jam front I’ve got some vintage kits, some rare kits, and even a few matchworn kits.

We've decided to remove the link to her OF account due to the nature of it, however we are fine keeping this thread open for discussion's sake.

I wouldn't go that far personally, but for me the Ozzy era is firmly my third favorite, behind Dio, and Tony Martin v1. The heavier stuff resonates with me a lot more along with the more operatic vocals, and I think some of Tony's most inspired guitar work comes from those albums. That's not to say I don't like the Ozzy era, but for me only a spattering of songs after Master Of Reality really hooks me. Anyways, my list: 1. Falling Off The Edge Of The World 2. Sign Of The Southern Cross 3. Under The Sun 4. Headless Cross 5. War Pigs 6. Heaven And Hell 7. Computer God 8. Symptom Of The Universe 9. When Death Calls 10. The Shining

Sounds like a plan!

What? I literally do not give a fuck about the lithos. I haven’t bought a single one, and I don’t plan to start now.