North Korean Democracy

Judging from comments I'd say the reaction from the casual fans that listened to it has been very positive. I saw a couple comments of people that said they got emotional hearing a new proper GNR song (Slash solos, Axl raspy high pitch in the chorus and Duff's bassline) for the first time in 30 years. People saying that it reminds them of when they were schoolboys rocking to AFD or Illusions, some saying it feels surreal hearing Axl's classic voice on a new song. The benefit (well one of the many lmao) of not being a hardcore GNR fan is having the illusion that Hard Skool is a completely new song and Axl & Slash decided to go old-school for it.

As hardcore fans, do some of us feels the same way? I know Izzy and Adler are not there but for me it feels more like GNR than anything since the 90s. Axl struggled with it live at first but in the last performances he got a lot better, I hope it stays permanently on the setlist next year.

That chorus wasn't that bad as I expected. Go Axl

ITS HAPPENING

No Axl I can't be yours if you don't play Hardskool

Perhaps but get rid of the piano intro and instead start the song with a Slash solo.

It will be fucking hilarious when Axl not even acknowledges the existence of Hardskool tonight and makes the band play I Feel Good

I'd say the Hardskool chorus is harder to sing than the ending of Coma since it goes faster and leaves less time to breathe.

I really liked the intro of the demo but overall I'd say this is better. It really is weird that a GNR released song is better than the demo huh?

Axl sounds better on the chorus here than on the leaked demo, he sounds like vintage Axl. This sounds like a GNR song more than the whole CD and Shitworms

Now that we know that Axl was ill this last show, should we hope for Hardskool tomorrow? There's only 7 shows left in this tour.

BTW Perhaps, Atlas and State of Grace would be far easier for him to perform instead.

Axl could perform Atlas Shrugged, State of Grace and Perhaps more easily than Hard Skool, those songs have less fast lyrics and the later two heavily feature his low voice. Don't know why he choose to make them rehearse that song which is the most difficult of the leaks to sing, maybe because it's the closest to the style of the original GNR.

Axl's voice was too nasal for my taste at this gig and most from late 92-93.

2006 and 2010 rasp were a lot better.

Axl in a couple hours: "Do you know where you are?? You're in Hard Skool motherfuckers!!!! You're gonna leaaaaarnn!!". An insider told me.

2 minutes ago, King_Johnny said:

LOL, who's that person?

He's certainly happier than in the UYI tour, when I rewatched the Paris PPV and the South American shows from 92 between songs he often looked bored or like he'd rather be somewhere else. On the other hand, he seemed very happy through the Argentina 93 show.

Can someone please give me the context of "Thank Beta/whatever by take care of us now we believe even more yadda yadda". I've seen so many memes about it but I don't know the origin.

They just soundchecked Hardskool again, can't share the video here but it's on Twitter. It's happening

I don't know if this was the case for other people or it was because of the venue but when I saw them in Barcelona in 2018 Axl's vocals weren often drowned by the music and the crowd, I vividly remember the "I ain't got no money but it goes to show" line in ISE being almost inaudible live. On Jungle you could hear when Axl was screaming but couldn't exactly hear the specific words. On the other songs, you didn't clearly hear Mickey unless you were actively focusing on hearing it (and why would you do that lol I was singing along to the lyrics). I think This I Love on the first verse when it's stripped down was the song where the Mickey was heard more clearly and it still wasn't as clear. Then I watched Youtube videos and the Mickey voice was easily noticeable, however nobody I know who went to the show complained about Axl's voice. To be fair, Axl's voice was at a decent shape in my show in the context of these last years but he wasn't at 2016 level.

When they played it in Barcelona I think I was the only one in the stadium who knew the lyrics and sang along to it lmao.

Tonight's the night people! Hardskool debut tonight LET'S GO

Since he quit to make room for Slash it was kinda dumb that he made that big announcement that he had left, therefore fueling reunion rumours, when he could have just keep quiet about it like Bumblefoot did. I guess DJ was just attention whoring? Axl must have been pissed.

I believe it, Axl wanted to have 3 guitar even before Slash left and if he had the guitar beast Buckethead and still made him share lead guitar duties I think he'd be crazy enough to want to keep DJ. Props to DJ for having the decency of turning it down. I liked his solos Ballad of Death and Mi Amor, they had pretty good melodies and were better that some random guitar wanking that we had with NuGNR when every member had to have a solo.

I think the only explanation for releasing this as their first single when a far superior and conventional song (Hardskool) is right there is that Axl can perform this live without any problems, but I think a lot of people would rather hear a good song being poorly performed by Axl than viceversa.