Seb91

Find the Tommy bashing a bit odd to be honest. He’s obviously great with fans and happy to talk about Guns and sign GN’R stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if he and the other guys from that era signed NDAs and so are restricted in terms of what they can say. Re Bucket, it does seem Bucket is always ‘on’ and in the Bucket persona, whilst the guy is a guitar wizard I can imagine that could get grating after a while, especially if you just want to rehearse. I think the key thing is ultimately that Tommy left GN’R the best part of a decade ago and probably last recorded with the band the best part of two decades ago. I mean, recording’s recording as well, not as many anecdotes about that compared to shows/tours etc. In terms of not listening to Perhaps, I don’t find that odd at all. It’d be pretty unhealthy if he follows everything his old band is doing. The guy seems to have the right idea re his relationship with GN’R and is having fun playing music.

Fully agree with everything that’s been said re Roger. I mean, in some respects it’s fun that I got to see a show that will go down in Floyd history, albeit for all the wrong reasons It was crushing though - saw Roger and Nick on the DSOTM tour at Hyde Park in 2006 as a kid and it was incredible. Due to that show I got interested in bass playing (hadn’t given it much thought beforehand and was firmly just a guitar guy). The first bassline I ever learned was In the Flesh. Ended up mainly just playing bass in bands as I got older. To see Roger ramble like a madman and get heckled was pretty soul destroying. I think the Dark Side tour was the best modern Roger tour really. Thought it was just childhood nostalgia but watched a bootleg recently and it was incredible - the band were super tight, Roger’s bass playing was great and there was no subtle as a sledgehammer political posturing. Don’t get me wrong, I loved The Wall shows I saw as a kid but I wonder if that tour had an unhealthy impact on his ego and he figured political posturing was the way to go. He also seemed very different in those mad lockdown videos he put out.

Was at the show on Sunday and the first half was genuinely the maddest shite I've ever seen. The guy's completely lost the plot and it's tragic to see. He read from his memoirs for the vast majority of the first half and it was incoherent madness. He talked about eating sausages as a kid, where one of his school friends lived, his pet cat and how one of his friends had found the cat on a run, taking his kid's gerbil to get put down and his pet duck. I genuinely thought I was hallucinating as I couldn't square that it was the same guy I'd seen do some of the best shows I've seen. I'd be surprised if anyone publishes his memoirs without some heavy editing because the excerpts he read were all rambly and incoherent. The only fun part was the audience making quiet funny remarks. My favourite part was when some guys in front of us, completely aghast at what was happening, couldn't believe what was happening and when he got onto the duck story and talking about his groundskeeper one of them quipped "It's fookin' Midsommer Murders now like!" Thanks to that guy for actually providing some entertainment in the first half! My Mum and I started laughing during parts as it was so mental. I was genuinely worried for Roger's mental health. He did seem so off and wired that I did wonder if he was on anything. The Redux part was great though (could have done without the twenty minute video of Roger explaining what every song on Dark Side meant though!) and the band sounded phenomenal, the mix sounded much better than the Redux album I thought. In spite of how great that was though, it didn't change that I'd paid over a hundred quid for half a show. I can't believe he thought it was acceptable to fill a show with incoherent ramblings and a pre-recorded video. Only two songs were played pre-interval (The Bar and Mother). What's also so frustrating is that due to my health I go to much fewer shows as going to shows wipes me out fatigue wise, travel's a pain where I live and so a hotel is a must which is an added cost and often getting wheelchair tickets is a pain due to how few there are. In short, a show's got to really excite me to go. I was so excited for this as the idea of seeing Roger do a stripped-back set in a small venue was amazing. I figured we'd probably get a couple of deep-cuts due to the nature of the show. I never imagined we'd get his mad ramblings!

Yeah, I'm with you re DJ. I actually liked him in the band back when he first joined. I remember Robin getting a fair amount of flak for how he'd play the Slash stuff and DJ was a lot more polished live playing the old stuff. I'd also seen Robin with NIN on the Wave Goodbye tour and it was great seeing him back with Trent so I wasn't massively upset. I've always seen Robin as Trent's Mick Ronson really. I think the key thing for me was that in the DJ era, Ron was also there and I've been a massive fan of his since he joined so I feel that as it wasn't just DJ it worked. I agree the sloppiness really set in from 2012-2014 and it really was astounding how ropey he could be. I mean, Robin could have some bum notes in there but DJ was a whole rung down sloppiness wise as time went on. I also have no idea what he was thinking with that Patience solo - I mean, if any song really doesn't need a Heartbreaker style solo in it, it's Patience - completely ruined the vibe of the song. It did give us the Tommy clapping meme though so it was at least useful for something I think the thing with DJ is, the cliched rockstar stuff aside and all the marketing stuff, he came across alright and fans have positive things to say about him. The issue is that guitar players with DJ's chops are a dime a dozen, there's nothing special or innovative about him when compared with the other guitarists in the band - I mean, I saw Richard do a show with Thin Lizzy in 2011 and it showed he could play rings around DJ technique wise. In some respects though, I've never seen that as DJ's USP really - he's a producer and writer first and foremost really and that was main input with Crue and Sixx:AM. I guess given new material was never going to happen with the NuGuns guys that was the issue really, without the producer/co-writer role DJ was essentially just a guitarist covering other people's parts with diminishing accuracy as time went on. I think Ron and Richard could easily have just carried the guitars together in NuGuns as there's no drastic difference with two guitarists in the current era, especially as NuGuns had (and GN'R still has) two keyboard players to fill out the sound anyway.

Main thing for me would be to see Bucket live but given he’s unlikely to come to the UK and my health limits my ability to travel not sure if that’s really on the cards. I feel fortunate in that I’ve seen Guns and numerous members live outside Guns. The big thing for me which I never thought would happen was the Replacements reunion. That was a major bucket thing for me especially as I never thought Tommy and Paul would do the rounds again and given they’re not that well known over here I doubted there’d be UK dates. The show I saw at the Roundhouse was a real pinch yourself moment. It was also fun that Josh was in the band - made a hell of a rhythm section with Tommy - pleased some of the early Chinese songs leaked so we could hear them together in a GN’R context.

I think trying to claim Bucket isn't a phenomenal guitar player is pretty ridiculous really. In terms of full mastery of the instrument re musicians that are still around there's him, Steve Vai and that's about it really. Now obviously technical ability and complexity isn't everything, Jack White's one of my all time favourite guitarists (and the only guy, other than Slash to really nail that Jimmy Page vibe whilst making it his own in my opinion) and one of my favourite guitar solos is in Disorder by Joy Division which is incredibly simple. Trying to compare Bucket to Slash is very much apples to oranges though. Both are very different players with different styles. Undoubtedly Bucket's the best guitar player GN'R ever had technical chops wise but obviously Slash is the GN'R guitarist in people's minds and played and co-wrote all the iconic songs. Slash's sloppiness is part of his style. Listen to Zeppelin bootlegs and Page wasn't note perfect all the time and that's what happens when you improvise. Equally Hendrix had better nights than others when you listen to the live stuff. As for John Mayer, I can see he's super talented but really not to my tastes as I feel his playing really lacks grit. I think Robert Cray does the whole clean blues solo thing better in my view but I get it's all a personal taste thing. Regarding the mask/costume thing - Slipknot, Ghost, Sleep Token are all bands which wear masks and they're super successful. Lots of musicians have an outfit/stage persona. Heck, look at KISS and Alice Cooper who really started that whole thing.

Will echo the comments about Stones shows - they're just so darn good at what they do. Seen them twice (2006 and 2013). Depending on venues could be tempted to go again. Super excited about the record - Wyman back on some songs - McCartney and Ringo guesting. Can't wait!

Yeah, I mean Myles has the vocal chops no doubt about it but something is lacking there. Whilst Jimmy Page is the guitarist I've most wanted to see live and was gutted when the Zeppelin guys didn't end up doing a VR thing with Myles, given how he performs the GN'R stuff, I'm sort of glad we didn't get his take on the Zeppelin catalogue. I remember saying to Zeppelin fans at the time that the only guy I think could have pulled that off was Chris Cornell. The guy was an absolute powerhouse vocally and his passing was a really tragic loss to the music world. Yeah, it's the performance over the chops for me any time. I went to see Dream Theater a few years back, love the music and they're phenomenal players but I found the show pretty dull. I'd much rather see someone raw like Jack White giving it his all and putting on a great show. I've been to see John Cale a bunch of times (one of my all time favourite musicians) and I've always mused that the guy must just do it for the love of music because he doesn't do big tours anymore and often they're quite spread out. He also has quite a sizeable band. I figured that he really mustn't make much of a profit on his shows. Something that really highlighted how slim the margins are for some acts was when Ministry had to pull the plug on a European tour last year because a festival had been cancelled. I mean, I think the main reason for the Axl/DC thing was so that AC/DC weren't liable for the cancellation costs when Brian Johnson had to sit it out. I wonder if he overworked his voice in that Axl/DC run. I thought we'd long since heard the last of raspy Axl and he comes out and kills it like it's 2006. It was absolutely phenomenal to see but I wonder if that has had a negative impact in the long run.

I think the key thing with Axl's voice is that it just isn't feasible to do three hour long shows on long tour legs anymore. The closest vocal example I can think of in terms of vocal theatrics is Robert Plant and when he became Axl's age he was doing 90 minute to two hour sets and he'd throw a fair few acoustic songs. The one full on balls to the wall hard rock show he did was The O2 reunion and a fair few songs were detuned a whole step. I feel the time has come for Axl to take a similar approach - detune some of the songs and do shorter sets. There's no shame in it, I can't think of any of the hard rock guys who in their 60s were doing shows of a similar length to Guns. The thing is though, in spite of the vocal issues I really do applaud Axl's efforts on stage. The only other guys who do shows of a similar length are Springsteen and McCartney and whilst they're significantly older, they're not hard rock guys. The thing with Axl is that he's a phenomenal performer, he's living those songs and you can really see that (and the fact he's sung them a gazillion times and is still like that shows how great he is as I have seen bands phone it in who've been doing similar sets for a few years). I mean, Axl/DC really proved that to me, they weren't his songs but he was fully connected to the material and was living it. One main point of comparison would be Myles - dude can hit all the notes but I've never really felt like he's fully connected to the material. Ultimately, I'll take a great performer over a great singer any day. I mean Ozzy got flak for his voice as he got older but I've always left an Ozzy show feeling amazing. The dude's just a phenomenal performer and can work a crowd. I'm not massively bothered by Axl's voice for that reason. I think the issue is though that more reviews like that will pop up.

I'll echo the comments that it's trippy how these songs had already existed for a whole prior to the 2001/2 comeback. I'd always imagined they'd worked on stuff as time went on whereas songs which never got a live airing before the release like If The World and Prostitute were good to go around a decade before the album dropped. The locker leaks really changed my perception of that whole era. It fully agree that it's like they're out of time - I mean they're dropping individuals singles now like the the Pumpkins did with Teargarden over a decade ago (and there was a general vibe that albums were over). That phase has long since died out though and it's all about albums again. True that! I mean, Bob Dylan's not a virtuoso guitar player by any means but he's arguably the best songwriter of all time. It's a very different skill I feel. It's hard to get an all-rounder in music - great writer, great musician, great singer - Lindsey Buckingham and Richard Thompson are two guys that spring to mind that I'd put in that bracket. The interview quotes there really chime with the locker leaks. Not releasing it earlier was a massively missed opportunity.

Horders be like

It's an amazing channel! Would also love a Guns one. One of my favourite GN'R things is the little mini-magazine Classic Rock Magazine put out with an issue about the making of Chinese when the album came out. Would love an up to date one!

The release plan is why I think there will be no more music after the Chinese leftovers. It seems they're really spreading it to maintain interest in the touring over a prolonged period and so releasing two songs every two years is a way to that, plus there's another release there if do another compilation after they're all released in a decade (assuming there is an album's worth of leftovers). At the current pace the band will be in their 70s by the time all the leftovers have come out, which whilst no age at all now really, I can't see Axl deciding to hit the studio properly for the first time since his 40s when it's got that far down the road. It would make sense to just put the leftovers out and start from scratch given most of the current lineup had no real input in crafting the songs but then we were saying that with the 2009-2014 band. I think another factor is that Slash has a hugely successful solo band as an avenue for new music and as he can play decent sized venues himself with sets filled with his own stuff, the dude has no need to do new music with Guns as a creative outlet. I mean, he's able to play more of his stuff live in a solo tour than he'd be able to do in a big stadium tour. The Pumpkins have just finished putting three albums' worth of a rock opera out but their sets are still primarily comprised of the back catalogue. I also think Slash and Duff would probably be a bit anxious about hitting a studio with Axl to record from scratch again. They're in a good place friendship wise, I could see them not wanting to jeopardise that.

I think the intro to Chinese worked really well as a live opener. I do like the version on the Village Leaks with the condensed intro though.

Musing on it some more, I think the question is would the band actually gain all that much if Steven and Izzy were to rejoin? Izzy's stated that he didn't take part due to how the money was divided and being members of the classic lineup, Izzy and Steven would expect to be paid more than Frank and Richard. The band can play huge venues without them and whilst it would create more buzz and boost sales there probably wouldn't be a net gain to the current main three. It's why I figured Bill and Mick Taylor weren't more involved with the Stones 50th - Bill was annoyed at how little he played and turned down the opportunity to do a regular spot like Taylor did on tour. What's interesting is that Keith did an interview where he gushed about the opportunities of having three guitar players and being able to change the arrangements to being more like the records but the tour rolled around and Taylor was still mainly just doing Midnight Rambler. My guess is someone in the band didn't like the idea of reincorporating the old guys back in properly because then eventually questions over money would come up and they didn't need them in terms of ticket sales. I guess it's probably the same with Guns. Plus, GN'R is still very much Axl's baby and this in real terms is a continuation of the band rather than a reboot, getting the old band back together completely would change that. If there was any desire to do a full reunion, I imagine Gilby at Matt would be involved.

It definitely would I feel - look at the insane hype over Roger Waters coming back to Floyd for Live 8 or the buzz when Christine McVie came back to Fleetwood Mac. The Zeppelin reunion was also a much bigger deal than the Page/Plant stuff. Personally I'd have been much more excited by the reunion in 2016 if it had been a proper return to past lineup so it felt like like a full-on reunion rather than Slash joining NuGuns. Even if it had been Matt and Gilby as Steven and Izzy never seemed like it was properly likely it would have been more exciting (no disrespect to Richard and Frank intended - big fan of both of them). My view in 2016 was that I'd had my fill of seeing Axl singing those songs by that point and whilst adding Slash and Duff into the mix was fun, I didn't think it was worth the price of tickets. If there had been the added novelty of other past members I'd probably have caved in spite of the prices. Axl/DC was more exciting to me that year because it was a chance to hear Axl sing different material (and ticket prices were cheaper than Guns). Regret not going then to be honest though as going to shows is harder now for health reasons. That being said, fast forward to now and I'm happy with how things have gone. One of the reasons for my lack of enthusiasm for the reunion was I thought that was the final nail in the coffin re the Chinese leftovers and yet we'll have had four songs by the end of the year. Hoping I get a chance to see the band next time they come to the UK.

I think Perhaps has done well all things considered. Barring some notable exceptions, classic rock isn't exactly setting the world on fire in a big way and it's like Alice Cooper said, bands basically put stuff out for themselves and the fans that follow them. Deep Purple have put out a ton of albums over the years but they've never had the same impact as Machine Head or Burn. I think the days of GN'R being able to really have a huge radio hit are long gone (would love to be wrong though!) and the last chance was the 2000s. Whilst it's nice to see my favourite bands do really well, so long as they're ticking along, putting great music out and doing great shows I'm happy. Often my complaint is that there isn't enough new/recent stuff in bands' setlists (Deep Purple would be an example of that) but I get why they are cautious about doing it. Having said that, I do really dig it when people like Bob Dylan and Robert Plant focus on more recent stuff.

Nope, not annoyed at Izzy at all and don't get how anyone could be - he left the madness and is happy doing his own thing. Not all musicians want the limelight in a massive band. The guy's put out a ton of music since leaving GN'R and he's done some fun guest spots with the band over the years. Re interaction/social media, I don't think musicians owe us fans anything in terms of access and they're entitled to privacy. Obviously in the social media age some are keen to interact with fans (Bumble was by the far the most open in GN'R re access and interaction and that's really cool) but it should ultimately be their choice. Izzy's a quiet, private guy. It's a shame he wasn't part of the reunion but if it was a division of money thing then I totally get his reasons for not doing it.

It's very much a rough sketch. It certainly could have gone somewhere though with more work. I guess if it does come out in some form then we'll know the Chinese well has been truly exhausted at that point

An old song which was rejected from the latest Bond movie. It was all going okay and luckily Brain was able to make it fit the title of the movie by lifting ‘no’ from the vocal track of another unreleased track for the chorus so Axl didn’t have to do anything in the studio but Fukunaga wasn’t happy they replaced Robin Finck’s guitar solo - “I don’t care if you included the first couple of bends - no Finck, no deal!” I heard it from a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who walked someone’s dog who went to school with a person who installs TouchTunes jukeboxes.

Agree re the Pumpkins comments! I think one difference is that Billy had Jimmy in the initial comeback which lended it more legitimacy as Billy and Jimmy were the studio band. If Billy had done the Pumpkins comeback thing alone in the 2000s I imagine it would have been greeted with even more scepticism. I'd also say Paul Westerberg reminds me of Axl somewhat in that he goes to ground for long periods.

Each to their own I guess re Bumble. I loved him in the band and was gutted when he left (I totally get why he did though). Personally, I love a lot of his solo stuff - I was relistening to Normal and Abnormal the other day and it was great to revisit them. I think that if the 2009-2014 band had gotten together and worked on stuff then they could have put a great record out. Axl didn't seem to have any interest in working on stuff from scratch though. As for DJ, well the guy could have written a radio hit for Axl I feel. It will have probably been super emo and aged like milk but I'd have probably loved it as a kid and I imagine it would have done relatively well.

One of the things that surprised me about the leaks was how good to go the 1999 tracks with Josh were. I mean, whilst no Buckethead guitar wizardry they do sound better to my ears production wise than the finished version - far less bloated (and the bass is properly there!). In terms of the reunion, I do wonder if that would have been an inevitability if things had gone better. I think a lot of it hinges on the chance meeting between Axl and Duff in 2010 and them reconnecting, eventually leading to Duff supporting Guns on tour and then filling in for Tommy. That chance reunion still could have happened (and if Tommy still would have had to leave then maybe Duff would have rejoined) but if Axl had been able to cement a lineup and put new material out at regular intervals from the late '90s/early '00s then I don't think he'd have needed Slash to come back. I mean Guns were still a big draw as far as 2010 after two major missed opportunities ('02 and '06) and that's with Axl turning up late etc. I imagine had more been done early on things would have been even better. Whilst maybe not on this scale, bands have managed to make a success of it with lineup changes (thinking of Deep Purple, Yes and King Crimson as examples with major lineup changes over the years). I think if things had gone better we may have gotten a Floyd at Live 8 deal with Slash coming back for a one off show like Waters did but not a prolonged reunion.

Yeah, I mean I like the new singles but agree this is different from other bands. I mean, the closest example I can think of is Stevie Nicks, she's not averse to going back through old demos and doesn't seem to keen on writing new material but even then the demos are demos. With GN'R these songs were good to go but weren't released for whatever reason.

Yeah, he is one of the most dedicated musicians out there I feel. The amount of music he puts out is unreal, had he stayed and Axl been keen to put out music, he'd never have been short of song ideas with Bucket around that's for sure! I think the point about Oh My God is an interesting one - reception seems to have been negative at the time. Given we now know thanks to the locker stuff Axl could have released an album in '99 or '00 had he wanted to, I wonder how much that knocked his confidence and caused him to rethink things.