themadcaplaughs

There seemed to be an idea before that Buckethead and Robin met and played together on that Ghosts of Mars soundtrack. The two of them worked on that completely separately. From what I've been told, Buckethead and Robin never formally met or started playing together until the band started rehearsals for the Las Vegas and rock in Rio shows. 

53 minutes ago, soon said:

Wasnt able to follow the band closely at that time.  Some friends tracked me down excitedly to tell me the rumour was that NuGNR would play the VMAs that night. They weren't really fans, so when they had me over to watch it and were all loud and partying, I went to another room with a tv to watch on my own.  I got so excited as Fallon announced them.  Needless to say I wasn't impressed.  I was surprised that Finck was wearing his NIN garb.  And Tommys outfit made me plain embarrassed to be a fan.  I couldnt wrap my head around Axl - not his voice, not the clothes, not the performance.  Apparently it was a huge shock to my system as I fell asleep shortly after right there in my friends parents tv room.  Normally would've gone back to the party room for a few more hours.  Same friends were very happy and relieved to hand me a CDR of VRs Set Me Free sometime later - we all felt washed clean of the VMAs.

Also: the talking point is always how NuGuns were taking requests back stage at the VMAs... hmmm, now who requested an appetite medley with Madacascar in the mix.  No one.  The answer is no one.  And if they did, the band wouldn't just magically know where to transition from one song to the next.  Sigh.  Why would Axl and co feel the need to make that up?  Cant be due to bad performance because Fallon even floated it in his introduction.

I always assumed that was a joke Fallon made. By all accounts, the band planned the medley during rehearsals. In that 30 secondish video from rehearsals, you can hear Axl talking about how long the band will play "Madagascar" before transitioning into "Paradise City." 

I think this would be one of the trails involving Steven Adler's royalties in 1993. 

8 hours ago, soon said:

When i first heard it I loved it and would get pumped when the video came on.  And the sound effects blew my mind.  Now the song doesn't really do much for me.  The main riff seems to lack direction to my ears - its like a non-riff riff.  The chorus is good rock n roll and performed really well by everyone singing (actually it reminds me of how the refrain of There Was A Time captured this cool, swagger, with various voices, in a similar way).  GOE has yet another great guitar solo too.

In ways it epitomizes the UYI era:

The mix: The Duff talking part really highlights how scooped out the sonics were - how the music was robbed of audio frequencies and volume to allow for talking over a metal song.  

The guitars:  Anyone got a booklet handy - did Izzy even play on this?  The rhythm track is blatantly Slash's rig (but maybe Izzy's just even more buried?)

The videos:  In a thread recently just about the video it was found that there was at least three versions of this video.  One with streamer and no bouncy ball lyrics, one with bouncy ball and no streamers and one with both.  And thats on top of making this video being an after thought while on set making yet another video for different song (yesterdays I think).  Over indulgence was the hallmark of this era.

The booklet lists Izzy as playing rhythm, but it definitely sounds like Slash playing all over the track. I loved this one a lot in my youth. Today, the cheesy "whoosh" sound effects make me cringe. Is it a guitar or synth making that sound effect? I've never been 100% sure. The 1989 rehearsal, however, renewed my appreciation for the song. 

15 hours ago, downzy said:

Just got back from the show.  

Probably in my top five of GNR shows.

Axl sounded the best I've heard him since 2010.  Was a lot stronger and raspier than the two times I saw him in 2016 and in Buffalo this year.  Seemed like he was enjoying himself.  The rest of the band was on point. Didn't pick up any mistakes but wasn't really listening for them this time around.  

THEY PLAYED PROSTITUTE!!!  With that I've heard every song from Chinese Democracy performed live.  I think I might be the only person not employed by the band to make such a claim.  Great song live, enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.

Other highlight was My Michelle.  Axl sounded fantastic and it was great hearing it live as it's been awhile for me.  

He killed TIL, especially the chorus.  Definitely won the crowd over by the end of the song.

What a difference an earlier start time makes for a Toronto crowd.  This was the fourth time I've seen the band play the ACC here in Toronto (2002, 2006, 2010, 2017) and this was the most energetic crowd I had seen.  Everyone was really into it; a lot of dancing in the stands.  

Again, nothing to complain about this show.  Took my brother as his birthday present; he hadn't seen them since 2002.  He thought it was the best concert he can remember seeing.  

Now just got to find some way of convincing my eight and a half month pregnant wife to let me go tomorrow...  

 

That is badass about seeing every Chinese Democracy song live. Just out of curiosity, where did you hear the "rarer" songs from the album?

-If the World
-There was a Time 
-Scraped 
-You mentioned Riad n the Bedouins in Detroit 
-I.R.S. 

I consider myself lucky to have heard "Silkworms," "Oh My God," and "Riad" in Vegas (01/01/01), but I would honestly trade those for a chance to hear some of the other songs you have seen! 

Yea, a ton of stuff has leaked over the years. Cuomo made an "official" version of Summer Songs 2000 (a lot of the songs he played in 2000 right after the band started playing live again that did not make the cut for Green Album) and when they were recording Maladroit, Cuomo released demos of a ton of the songs on MP3. You can easily find most of this stuff on YouTube. I strongly suggest listening. It makes a really cool "alternate timeline" Weezer. 

Weezer remains one of my favorite bands, despite the slowly declining quality of their music from 2001-2010 (luckily the appear to be on an upswing now). They prove a lesson GN'R fans could take for granted: more music does not always mean good music. 

Knowing what I do about Cuomo, I would guess he was trying to make some kind of statement about the crowd being rude. At this point, he was super into being critical of crowds, and purposefully not playing pleasing set lists; thus, playing a lot of unreleased songs. At this point, the band's 1996 album Pinkerton, which had been a failure when it came out, had undergone a massive resurgence in popularity and critical evaluation, and Cuomo made a point out of only playing one or two songs a night from it (some nights he did not play any). For Weezer fans, it would be similar to if Guns N' Roses only played one song off Appetite for Destruction. 

Sorry to go off topic. Anyway, I remember some websites like Blabbermouth reporting that Axl apparently really liked the Weezer guys, and even talked about a side project with Rivers Cuomo. Both of them sort of play into that "mad genius" archetype. Either way, Axl thanks Weezer in the Chinese Democracy liner notes, so I do not think they burned any bridges. Also, their last music video for "Feels Like Summer" was a tribute to Guns N' Roses and the "Paradise City" music video. 

3 hours ago, allwaystired said:

Yep. They were good- but went down pretty badly. Played a weird set, largely based on material that was unreleased, and is still unreleased! The singer said something along the lines of "out first gig was opening fir a Guns N Roses tribute band and we thought this would be a bit better....we're not sure" or something along those lines, that the crowd took to be a bit 'off'. I think he was joking but it was a stupid thing to say really! 

Both shows were surreal, in so many ways. 

Ya, that was at the phase of Weezer's career where Cuomo would say provocative shit just to look cool. 

35 minutes ago, Derick said:

I wonder if that accusation of plagiarism is not why they never play this song.

It could be Axl personally did not want to play it for that reason, but even with the intro intact, the band would legally be able to play it live. Any venue Guns N' roses plays would pay a yearly license fee to the major performing rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC) which would allow them to play virtually any music they wanted. It could be Axl lost interest in the song. I also know DJ mentioned in a chat that he never learned how to play the main riff. 

1 hour ago, RussTCB said:

Again, I have no idea why that couldn't be applied to a male or female friend. 

For the record, I never said they wouldn't play CD songs. The only ones I've ever said I didn't think they'd play were Riad and The Blues. 

Riad because they never played it past 2002, so it just seems gone for whatever reason. The Blues because I wholeheartedly believe it's about Slash. 

Sorry, I definitely knew you never said the band wouldn't play Chinese Democracy songs. I was just attempting to give the forum's general vibe over the last few years. I really think "Riad" would be the only thing off the table entirely. 

1 hour ago, RussTCB said:

Exactly. I've never believed Sorry is about Slash but I really believe The Blues is. 

I'd love to hear his take on it too, I just don't think it'll ever happen. 

I agree with most of your opinions, and don't even deny "Street of Dreams"/"The Blues" could be about Slash, but - as others have pointed out - the general public seems to view "Sorry" as being more directly about Slash, and they have played that a few times. We'll get "Street of Dreams" at some point when Axl feels ready for it. I mean just look at the timeline regarding this lineup and Chinese Democracy until now...

January 2016: The band officially announces Slash and Duff rejoined the group.

MyGNR Board: They aren't going to play any Chinese Democracy songs

April 2016: Troubadour and Vegas shows: Band plays "Chinese Democracy," "Better," and "This I Love."

MyGNR Board: Ok, they might play some of the staples of the album, but we surely won't hear anymore songs from this album.

April 2016-August 2016: Mexico and North American stadium tour: band plays "There was a Time," "Catcher in the Rye," and "Sorry." 

MyGNR Board: Ok, we DEFINITELY won't hear anymore from this album. 

October 2017: Band plays "Madagascar," "Prostitute," and makes "There was a Time" a more consistent song in the set list. 

This is not supposed to be cheeky, just to be shown that Axl clearly considers these songs on equal footing with older Guns N' Roses material and nothing seems to be off the table. I consider nothing an impossibility, but the songs that would truly surprise me would be "Shackler's Revenge" (very different from anything Slash has played before) and "Riad n' the Bedouins" (only because this has not been played since 2002, and was only played occasionally then). Who knows, "Shackler's Revenge" may not even be that long of a shot since we saw Duff play it in 2014 . 

On 7/18/2017 at 12:36 PM, RussTCB said:

I remember how back then EVERYONE was am "insider". 

Someone was always claiming to have heard clips, knew when the release date was, knew what was going on in the band. 

So many rumors had legs for so long because we never had any way to prove anything wrong. We all had to hope/guess that the latest BS'er actually had some info would eventually be true. 

It got so bad that when an actual insider posted the lyrics to Sorry years before the album came out, we all shit on them! Lol

I feel like it was even a few months before someone even recalled that thread and realized the poster had the lyrics correct! 

"Prostitute?" Nice. That and "Better" were the two songs from that album I was most interested in seeing Slash play. Also, out of sick desire to witness a car crash, I would not mind seeing Slash take a go at Ron's "Shackler's Revenge" solo. 

21 hours ago, Gackt said:

One of Stinson's nicknames was General, presumably given to him by Axl; story goes that Stinson & Del James were dicks to most people backstage, and made conditions that much worse for everyone already frustrated with Axl having zero presence with the band outside of shows.

For all the time he spent with the band, I can't name one positive thing he did for GNR besides stepping down so Duff can jump back in.

From what I've heard from people who know Buckethead, Tommy was a "love him or hate him" kind of guy. Apparently Robin, Josh, Dizzy and Richard really liked him. Buckethead and Bumblefoot were not so keen on him. . I don't know how he got along with DJ, but I see that they have chatted a few times over Twitter since they left the band. Brain thought he was annoying, but put up with his shit and thought his attempts to control things were funny. In that interview Brain did a few years back, he mentioned how during his first rehearsal, Tommy gave him a lot of shit, and the whole time Brain was thinking "you motherfucker." 

Although I do not agree with the way Tommy treated Buckethead, I can understand why Tommy did not like Buckethead. Tommy comes from a punk/alt-rock background, and probably found Buckethead's whole shtick the complete opposite of that scene. I love Buckethead (loved him before he joined Guns N' Roses), but acknowledge he was not for everyone. 

I do know Tommy's drinking causes problems with just about every band he has every played with. I've told this story before, but a friend of mine in Atlanta worked at a festival where The Replacements played in 2014. Tommy apparently showed up so drunk he could hardly stand, and the festival organizers and band legitimately worried about whether he could stand up, much less play a whole show. To his credit, they said he rallied about 10 minutes before taking stage and ended up being one of the most solid members of the group. 

Tommy worked for a brief period as a telemarketer before joining Guns N' Roses. No matter what you think of his role in Guns N' Roses, he seems to be very humble regarding his role in the band, gives Axl props for taking a chance on him, and acknowledges that getting to play with Guns N' Roses let him stay in the music business when it appeared all other avenues had dried up. Additionally, he never seemed threatened by letting Duff take the stage, whether it was when Duff played "You Could Be Mine" in 2010 or when Duff took over for a part of the South American tour in 2014. 

Too cool hearing the Bucket talk about his influences and inspirations. 

So far, nothing Guns N' Roses related, but I'm posting it here for the importance. Apparently, he has been battling some serious health problems.  

https://www.thetoolsbook.com/podcast/

Episode 4 

It was a risky tour, playing arenas that big with a whole new lineup. The Las Vegas shows were going to receive rave reviews and heavy attendance because they were playing small venues to rabid fans. A festival show is also not the most accurate gauge of interest because you have people there for other bands and people who just see a music festival as a "place to be." 

As someone who worked in concert promotion at the time, I remember the general consensus was that the band bit off more than it could chew with those shows. Obviously, there were some sell out shows, and the Madison Square Garden gig was a cool surprise, but a lot of the shows sold very sluggishly and the band seemed to pick some truly bizarre places to play. I have to assume Clear Channel's hope was that, as the tour picked up momentum and shows got good reviews, more people who were initially hesitant to see the band would buy tickets at a later time. Unfortunately, the trifecta of the disastrous VMA performance, the Vancouver riot, and the pretty terrible reviews at the Tacoma show (which ended up being the de facto first show of the tour) really turned off the general population. 

As the tour went on, the reviews did get better and better, and after Madison Square Garden, I remember there was genuine media interest in that lineup, but for Clear Channel I'm sure it was too little too late. A lot of the initial shows undersold, and they were probably looking for any excuse to pull the plug on the tour. When Axl bailed on the Philly show, they wasted no time in cancelling the whole thing. 

So, after tonight I have this as the list of Chinese Democracy songs played since Slash and Duff rejoined...

-Chinese Democracy
-Better
-There was a Time 
-Catcher in the Rye
-Sorry
-Madagascar
-This I Love 

We have officially heard Slash and Duff on half of that album 

On 9/22/2017 at 8:40 PM, Sosso said:

 

You realize I was being sarcastic, right? 

I thought it happened. How else do we have this awesome picture? 

When you used to go to "big box" retailers that started selling CDs and cassettes (think Media Play, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, etc.). a lot of times they would set up televisions with different music videos playing. I would guess this was just another one of those to get Guns N' Roses some more "air time." 

19 hours ago, Liquor & Whores said:

No, I asked for interviews with people who worked on ChD, Duff didn't

You sure are being demanding for asking a favor. 

I would estimate I listen to both albums - beginning to end - maybe once every year-and-a-half to two years. I think the last time I listened to them all the way through was right before I saw Guns N' roses last July. More often, songs just play on my iTunes or Pandora (unfortunately, work blocked Spotify). "Bad Apples" came on shuffle the other day, and while I usually considered that one of the weaker UYI songs, I truly enjoyed it on the last listen. 

Regarding Gilby's other commitments, people forget that for a "working class" guitarist like Gilby, reliability means everything. He plays lots of dive bars and county fairs, but these pay money and rely on the acts they hire being dependable. I'm sure Gilby would have loved to bail out on whatever it is he was doing, and jam with Guns N' Roses, but it would have hurt his reputation if he had to cancel prior obligations to do so. Furthermore, I'm sure Gilby realized the GN'R thing would have been iffy at best. Look what happened to Steven, a classic member, he got to play one or two songs at a couple of shows, had to pay his way to the overseas shows, and did not really get to interact with any of the band. 

4 hours ago, Tom-Ass said:

Just read the article.. Pretty cool and might check out his album.. Kenny Arronoff is an amazing drummer. 

Kenny played with Smashing Pumpkins when I saw them in 1998. I do not now if he was the best fit for that band, but no one could deny he was a killer drummer.