Pedrolg

There are little things more atrocious than Mickey Mouse YCBM and Welcome to the jungle. I'd throw Paradise City in there too. It's been quite a while since the last decent live performance of those songs.

I'm new at this forum, and sort of tried to defend Axl's performance, or, at least, give him a bit of time after the Rio show, but this is it. There's been three shows now, plenty of footage.

He sounds like shit. Many can say "it's not that bad" or "it's the decent". He certainly stills sings well for an average human, sings much better than me, but he is Axl Rose, and for Axl Rose this is shit. I don't think it's worse than the past 3 years - he's been shit in all those years. Moments of brilliance though seem to be less and less frequent with each year.

I'm not even going to rant on about new songs as I always knew better than to expect any of that. Still, 2010 somehow makes me cling to the possibility of seeing a proper GNR concert, not a fat Bee Gees outcast struggling to sing their songs. Anyway, being Brazilian I came very close to shelling out the obscene amounts charged for this show. Thankfully my gf stopped me from doing so.

The lack of an explanation surrounding the shitty vocals is almost unbearable as a fan. The fact that he had such shitty spells before and rebounded amazingly from them in 2006 and 2010 creates an eternal hope that it will, somehow, happen again, and that makes it even more unbearable.

Theories that the current state of affairs is due to his utter lack of fitness are hard to believe for me. Honestly, he wasn't in any sort of fantastic shape in 2010.

Is it even possible for a singer to completely lose his voice in a 6-8 month interval? I don't think so either, which leaves me with a theory, completely unsupported by evidence, based on solely my imagination.

Maybe his performances of 2010 were artificially supported in some way, for example, use of extreme medication such as painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs that numbed his throat in order to enable to sing like that, but left a tremendous toll afterwards, one that Axl is not willing to deal with again. Or even some sort of device that applied an overdrive effect in his voice, enabling to keep power and rasp throughout the whole tour.

Either that, or he simply does not give a shit. Or, even worse, thinks his current vocal performances sound better than those of 2006 and 2010. In either case, we are fucked, and it's time to drop any expectations.

He looks a bit like Hulk Hogan, minus the muscles now.

At least Axl is still singing.

Listen to Vince Neil live or David Lee Roth. They talk through most of their songs or in Vince's case the fans do the singing.

It seems to me like some of you will never like Axl's voice nor what he wears or how he looks, so why bother to annoy yourselves by listening to GNR. check out other bands. There are so many to choose from and I'm sure you will like them better.

If I wasn't still a fan of Axl's and GNR, I wouldn't bother to come here everyday and just complain. I've got better things to do.

Oh, I'm still a fan. I still think Axl is a good singer, when compared the average human being. That doesn't change the fact that he is past his best days, and I would be stoked if his voice somehow returned to 2010's level.

His choice of clothes is ugly as fuck though, no way around that. Those hats and jackets, ffs.

Biggest concern is still his voice for me. I don't think it's currently bad as many do, but at this point its time to accept that nothing similar to 2010 will happen again.

I don't think there's been a single good performance of YCBM since 2010. The song is just not suited to clean vocals, it sounds plain bad and awkward.

Just heard ycbm and it is bad. Axl never left the stage though which he usually does, wonder if there was any problems.

Can you post that? The only YCBM video I found the dude filming it seems to think he is Axl himself and ruins it.

I was solid, within the boundaries of what has become reasonable to expect.

You sound like you fucked a fat chick.

He sounds like he fucked a fat chick and he's proud of it.

You two whiny bitches sound like you are a pair of fat chicks.

You can spend the rest of your life waiting and expecting Axl to show up with a six pack, a bandanna and boxer shorts, breaking glass in the stadium with his raspy fantastic voice while rocking the amazing songs of his new album, which has just gone gold, for all I care. You can also keep going online to share your hate, and to try and cut down other people's enjoyment of Guns n Roses, searching for positive comments to reply with insults.

Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying what's left of Guns (which is decent), be glad if they release some good songs, and hope for solid performances from old man Axl, like yesterdays.

I agree that he looks bad and lacks motivation. I also agree that he is a shadow of what he used to. I even agree he is just collecting paychecks for the past few years.

I just do not agree that he sounds like shit. Even with all that said, he still sings well. I would love if he moved his ass to improve, as there is obviously so much room for me to so, but I don't see it happening at this point. So, even as it is, I'd still rather listen to him than not to, when I have the chance.

I was solid, within the boundaries of what has become reasonable to expect.

I never

You can't judge a performance, specially a vocal one, using cell phone videos as a basis. His voice was good, he hit the notes. Many press vehicles are calling it his best performance in Brazil after the golden days.

But you can!

You really can, compare a 2010 cell phone video to a 2012 cell phone video. Argument null and void.

I never tried to even draw a comparison between 2010 and yesterday. It is, indeed, not even close. However, for the average human being, he is still a very good singer. It's very hard to sing like him, and he does not sound horrible by any means, just it pales in comparison to the standards set by himself in the past.

Axl fans have mediocre standards. But they keep lowering the bar each year. Amazing.

Of course standards are lower. To watch shows expecting performances similar to those of 2010, and have a soul crushing experience everytime, it would be better to not follow the band altogether.

The thing is, there is a fine line between criticism and flat out hate. He doesn't sound like he used, but to say he sounded horrible is just untrue. Taken into account the average artist, he still is one hell of a singer.

BTW I have no clue who wfuckinga is

You can't judge a performance, specially a vocal one, using cell phone videos as a basis. His voice was good, he hit the notes. Many press vehicles are calling it his best performance in Brazil after the golden days.

Hello everybody, first post here. I'm Brazilian, and would like to explain something.

Regarding new songs: Brazilian rock fans are mostly driven by nostalgia. 99% of people who to a Guns concert, to a Metallica concert, to an Iron Maiden concert, are people who want to hear the classics. It is a passionate crowd, who will sing along in ecstasy regardless of what or how the band plays. It's a fertile ground and a guarantee of an energetic show regardless of how past their prime the bands could be.

Most artists are aware of that. It is far from uncommon to have new songs booed, met with an extremely lukewarm response and chants requesting the classics. I was at the last Metallica concert, and while any hardcore fan of the band probably enjoyed Death Magnetic, the songs were taken as moments to rest by most of the crowd.

With that out of the way, I'd say I honestly doubt that, if Axl was to release new music, Brazil and such large gigs would be his place of choice. He is coming to South America to give South American fans what they want, and that is mostly Appetite for Destruction. Just check the fan response on twitter, the vast majority is describing yesterday's show as epic and fantastic. So, I wouldn't expect much more than that (not that I have any expectation regarding new songs).

As of the gig itself, it was pretty standard stuff. Much better than the atrocious 2011 shows, but really not close to even 2010. It has become a trend in Brazilian press to bash Axls voice, and it's unfair: he sounded good, his voice was powerful, he did not run out of breath, hit the notes and was mobile on stage. He is indeed in decent shape for a dude in his fifties, it's ridiculous to pick on him so much due to that. The rasp, however, was limited to a few selected moments, as it has been the case post 2010. When it did came out, it came good - most of the crowd and casual fans don't seem to even be able to notice the difference between it and the clean voice, which did in indeed sound like mickey sometimes, specially during the not so higher pitched moments. When he goes high, it does sound well on its own merit, even thought I'd pick rasp anytime.

At this point, I get the impression that he views the changes in his singing as maturing as an artist, and honestly believes that his clean voice sounds better, while also being much more confortable to do. The fact that he can bring rasp at some moments, and that show when he told of being nagged by a fan asking about his raspy voice would indicate that.