2 hours ago, Millions said:

To me, this is like asking - what's the favourite shit you've ever taken? It makes absolutely no sense. Although I get that its probably just because as fans, there's not much else to talk about.

But this is a band who have lacked creativity and any kind of artistic value for decades of doing nothing. Why would we encourage that with mediocre cover versions???  I want less cover versions. I actually think its pathetic and a bit cringey that the band still does Live And Let Die, and Knockin On Heaven's Door. Its a sad reflection of their own output. 

 

Cover songs have their place but in Guns place I get it because they annoyingly put a bunch of them in their set at the expense of their own songs.

3 minutes ago, rockphantom said:

Frank is a major issue for me too. The reunion would have been so much better with Steven and/or Matt. I know the GNR catalog inside and out, after hearing these 30+ year old songs tens of thousands of times over the decades. 
It's very easy to spot Frank's mistakes on the NITL live recordings. His most well-known fuck-up was when he fumbled the end of Nightrain on the Harlem Apollo SXM live broadcast. Frank has improved since April 2016. However, he is still a bar band level drummer supporting a stadium level live rock production (I don't consider GNR to be a true band these days). Sure, Steven and Matt may have aggravating personalities gauging from what we've heard/read over the years, but they were both integral parts of GNR's Golden Era, and should have been given a chance to redeem themselves by sharing drumming duties during the Reunion Era. 

On the flip side, In 2016, I heard that the 4 "additional musicians" supporting A/S/D each receive a salary of $50,000 per WEEK while on tour. Can anyone confirm/deny this?

If this is true, I don't blame Frank for sticking around. Only a complete FOOL would give up that kind of income. 
I bet if Frank quit the band, that Brian Mantia would be offered the drum stool, just to further stick it to Steven and Matt. 

Your point about this not being a "true" band is interesting because it reminds me of stories of Bruce Springsteen and Prince who wouldn't put up with shoddy musicianship.

Prince one time noticed a single bad note from one of his guys and just glared at him for the rest of that performance.

It shows that Guns isn't really a tight unit if you have Frank doing this and Slash doing what he wants for Chinese Democracy songs.

I never listened to I Feel Good before and its one of those songs that feels like it shouldn't work but somehow does. I feel like it mostly just confuses the audience not expecting the band to cover James Brown.

9 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

I've never really liked their BHS cover. I Feel Good, Wichita Lineman and The Seeker were way better at the last Vancouver show.

A bit off-topic but I never dug Black Hole Sun live even from Soundgarden themselves. Chris Cornell's voice always sounded a bit weak live compared to the studio version and they could never replicate that guitar sound.

There's a live recording from 1994 where even someone in the crowd complains that they can barely hear Chris Cornell.

Chris also added some higher vocals to the chorus live where the Guns version is actually more faithful to the album version.

6 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

I wish I could also forget their cover of Black Hole Sun...

Black Hole Sun was fine and a pretty faithful cover, the problem was still covering it like 3 years after it started as a tribute.

This has probably been a topic before but with the amount of covers the band has played past and present I'm wondering what people find as their favorites? Mine is Dust in the Wind, when I first heard about it I thought it was a cover of the Kansas song.

It's actually a cover of a Todd Rundgren song that I like better than the original. It seemed to replace It's Alright by Black Sabbath and was performed during the Skin N' Bones tour.

4 minutes ago, Ratam said:

Slash and Duff was always GNR spokesman, in the old days too.

They were but Axl would also occasionally speak and give interviews. Even from 2001-2014 he'd occasionally do TV, print, and radio interviews.

He'd be on Jimmy Kimmel and That Metal Show or make appearances at awards shows but he just doesn't do those things anymore.

Its why I roll my eyes when anyone other than Axl gives interviews regarding the band because none of them are in the driver's seat.

14 minutes ago, PatrickS77 said:

When would anyone ever get a chance to ask Axl something regarding GNR?? He doesn't do interviews. Slash does interviews about himself/conspirators. He's no spokesman. Just has his own life besides GNR.

Guns N' Roses is literally his band though that he strong armed back in the day to take control over. Compared to other artists its pathetic how little he actually communicates about the band. He was better with this during the Nu Guns era but outside 2016-17 we really haven't heard from him outside social media posts. The fact is he doesn't have to because touring every year is a money making machine.

Another thing: After having such a grudge against him for so many years Axl is seemingly content with letting Slash be the spokesman of the band. Axl never talks or gives updates on the progress of the band. The captain of the ship has no direction outside touring and if he does its not communicated. Its also pretty nuts that in nearly 7 years together again we haven't had a joint Axl/Slash interview.

My least favorite thing is Slash and Duff just going with the flow and realizing the band is just their meal ticket now. They don't want any conflict with Axl so the band that they made successful is purely a touring band while their side bands are where they channel their creativity. 

19 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

To me, the really disappointing thing was that the "reunion" happened at all. There were some movement towards releasing the follow-up in late 2014/early 2015 and I fear the "reunion" squashed that. I never wanted to see these guys come together for a cash-grab, nostalgia trip, so this was never for me.

That being said, I think it has been much better than I feared. I think the touring has been more extensive than expected, things have been happening without any glitches and been really professional, the guys seem to genuinely enjoy each other (and its nice to see hatches get buried again), they have continued playing CD material and Slash has for most part made an effort to treat that material with respect, and they have even released a couple of new singles where Slash and Duff have added to unreleased songs from the CD sessions.

So in the case of reacting to a half full glass, I reckon I am more of the, "Hey, this is not water at all, this is lemonade, and that's a 'meh' for me."

 

I feel like whatever follow-up in 2014-15 had to be out of desperation as the band was becoming less and less popular and people still wanted to see a reunion which eventually came. I can't imagine another few years of the Nu Guns without any material would go well.

1 minute ago, Gnrcane said:

Hopefully there will be a new single or 2 and they play those, keep Absurd and HS and replace covers with the new ones.

That was the hope last year but nothing happened. They're a band that really doesn't care that they're just touring for money, there's no purpose attached to it that makes it truly necessary when they've been touring every year since 2016. They even managed to play some shows right up to the COVID lockdown in 2020. 

19 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

If Corey Taylor had done an album with Velvet Revolver, it would probably be regarded as the best 'GNR side project' album. Hopefully we hear some of those demos someday. He's played It's So Easy with Slash a few times and it sounded great, I think he's done a couple other GNR covers too.

I was listening to Stone Sour cover Outshined after Chris Cornell died and Corey Taylor did a great job on it, he's a great singer.

41 minutes ago, B5Redeye said:

For sure they “run” things. Ni argument there.
 

That said anyone and everyone is free to come up with a new online ticket platform to try and cut into that monopoly. 

Coming up with a new business from scratch to compete is really not as simple a solution as it seems when Live Nation acts as an effective monopoly and likely lobbies to keep it that way.

Pearl Jam challenged Ticketmaster before the Live Nation merger in 1994-95 and nothing really changed except Ticketmaster having to disclose fees as the Justice Department decided not to press it any further.

27 minutes ago, B5Redeye said:

Maybe change professions or at least who you work for if they don’t value you.

I don’t think it is greed at all. At least where I am (the US) it’s a free market. something sells when the consumer feels the value for the product is at least equal to, if not greater than, the price asked. All you have to do is not buy.

Something is worth what someone is willing to pay.

Just my opinion.

 

I think this ignores that the concert and ticket selling market are monopolized by Live Nation who owns Ticketmaster though. Like 95% of consumers transactions are dealing with one company which doesn't seem like a free market.  Edit: I'll take back that last part because it is a free-market but it shows that unregulated mergers and lack of competition aren't a good thing. We need some form of regulation and its why we see so many industries that operate like monopolies and have undue influence on governments to keep it that way.

7 hours ago, drlaban said:

But nothing came out of it. Instead we got Slash's Snakepit.

In terms of real progress I agree which is why everyone eventually left. Part of me wonders if they could keep it together if Axl was willing to tour at all during that period. You look at 2016-present and it seems like such a waste that we got literally no touring from 1994-1996 when Slash and Duff were still there and they were still in their prime. It was a different band that actually cared about moving things forward and not touring the same songs. 

I'd so love to see live footage of Garden of Eden, they played it at the Austin show to start the tour and two days later in Alabama but never again though there's audio. Garden of Eden got the better treatment being played 21 times and having live footage of it.

20 minutes ago, drlaban said:

And that wasn't GN'R resuming.

In terms of activity and getting them in the same room yeah. They had Zakk Wylde jam with them and Izzy and Duff worked on songs that year among other things.

1994 was basically some activity in the Spring where Slash recorded stuff that was rejected by Axl & Duff and then a whole lot of nothing until they record Sympathy for the Devil.

I feel like Slash said that in the most diplomatic way possible to explain why Izzy and Steven were no longer there. 1994 is such an interesting year where the UYI tour is over, they don't know what to do next and tensions really start to develop. Outside the early part of the year nothing really happens until SFTD around October and things don't really resume until 1995.

On 2/19/2023 at 11:42 PM, -W.A.R- said:

Axl had a persecution complex and those shirts were his statement. He even grew a beard to fully send the message

Am i joking? I don't know.

The guy had some black and white pictures where he looks like the Western depiction of Jesus.

But will Dizzy Reed be part of the pit crew?

2 hours ago, Ratam said:

Thanks, i was sure it was in Russia, just don't recall wich year was.

I flip flop between thinking this is a picture of an arm or a leg.

2 hours ago, HWolllert said:

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another." Immanuel Kant

In easy words: "Dare to know!" "Have courage to use your understanding!" - "Kill your Idols" - https://donelan.faculty.writing.ucsb.edu/enlight.html

 

 

No, not necessarily, it's more about (organized) religions and it's possible consequences onto peoples minds and lifes.

 

That's my understanding put in a nutshell.

   

Axl could have straight up been a hard-ass comedian when you look at these rants. There's such a hard outer shell to him in this video for a guy who clearly had a lot of outer pressure and inner turmoil.  This version of Axl so seemed like he was heading to an early grave and seems a million miles away from the current version who at some point found some inner peace and just seems like he enjoys life.