North Korean Democracy

23 hours ago, North Korean Democracy said:

I'm 99% convinced that that setlist is fake, not a chance that Patience and Don't Cry are not on the setlist but SIlkworms is.

Welp, this aged like milk.

And to think that for such a long long time all we had of this song was 15 seconds of the first verse and now we might hear it live and with fuckin' Slash.

ARGENTINA 1993

The show starts with an epic performance of Nightrain. While at the start of the Saskatoon 93 show (just a couple months earlier) Axl seemed less motivated than in previous shows probably because of the constant touring, here he is full of energy and in high spirits from the start probably because it's the last show of an endless tour. In fact Axl seems happy through the show, unlike other shows of this tour from 1992 onwards where he looks serious and even bored in between songs. It's the Skin N' Bones tour, Axl finally realized that in the age of grunge having backing singers, 30 pianos and a horn section made them look terribly uncool and the shows went back to just the 6 guys. After Mr. B they do Yesterdays & LALD. Before WTTJ through a translator he thanks the crowd and says that despite the problems they had in Argentina last year and that one, everything's alright. Axl's clearly feels more relaxed and happy than in the previous year's Argentina show and unlike that one the translator here does a good job. If you speak spanish you know that the poor translator from Argentina 92 (who was extremely nervous) did translations that sometimes made absolutely 0 sense (especially the one before DTJ) and it's a moment cringy/funny as fuck. WTTJ is good as per usual.

The band was accused of having bought 50 g of cocaine from drug dealers and a group of about fifty police officers from the city’s narcotics division went into the band's hotel rooms to look for the drugs (none were found). With the translator Axl dedicates DTJ to the people who started that rumour and the 50 "dumb" cops. As usual, DTJ ends with a long Slash solo that ends with wah and talk-box. Before the acoustic set starts, Axl tells the crowd to stop spitting since that how Aids gets spread and he'll get "even" with them motherfuckers. He ain't mad tho, he's still in a good mood, it's heartwarming to watch how (relatively) often he smiles in this show. On the couch, the guys launch into You Ain't the First and then You're Crazy (Axl says something funny before Your'e Crazy but I don't hear it properly). Before UTLH a random guy comes to bring pizza and does a bizarre and funny dance with Axl before joining on percussion for the song. In Patience, Slash does an interpolation of Imagine in the middle after the solo. Since this is the last show, Axl holds the note for "This tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime..." for a ridiculously long time (possibly the longest of the tour) and its's very cool.

This song ain't present in all bootlegs of this show (I'd even say most omit it) so maybe some didn't know they played it: before November Rain Axl plays Dust in the Wind by Todd Rundgreen and Slash joins him for a solo. It's not a snippet, it lasts three minutes. It's a beautiful rendition, the melancholic nature of the song and the solo and the fact that Axl and Slash are the only ones that play it makes this song performance very symbolic of the end of an era and a highlight of the show for me. Check it out if you haven't!

November Rain is cool but since it ain't acoustic I would've prefered they play with drums and all instead of playing it so stripped back. Obviously it's the last time they classic GNR do it so it's an important performance. Dead Horse is cool as fuck obvs. Unlike the performance of the song in Rio 1991, here Axl is in full control of his voice and has 0 voice cracks. I gotta say I'm not a fan of Axl's very nasal tone from mid 92 till 93 but he still sounds cool and clearly damages a lot less his vocal cords.

Axl does the band introduction and he introduces Gilby saying "We'd like to thank you for working with us, it's been great knowing you hope to see you again". Savage MF knew he'd sack Gilby after this tour and wasn't subtle lmao. Again, Axl is happy and all smiles on the band introduction and it stands out because in most shows from mid 92 onwards on the UYI tour when not singing he seems serious and like he'd rather be somewhere else (I see that on Paris 92 for example). He's like a kid on the last day of school before summer here! In the 00s he admitted he didn't really want to do the UYI tour and imo on the last half of it especially it becomes clear. Say what you will about the NITL tour but Axl seems happy and glad to be there more often than not.

Drum Solo (sorry Matt but like Izzy said, they're boring), then a cool YCBM, then a Slash solo, then SCOM. Before the encore of PC Slash and the band do a cool (blues?) jam with a portion that reminded me of Last Child by Aerosmith. Then Slash does the "Mother" intro where Axl & Gilby (showing an impressive demostration of maturity haha) sing "ooooh baby....suck my dick. PC is the closer of course. After coming to give roses to the crowd it all ends with the iconic hug Axl gives Slash. Like telling him "we did it motherfucker this fucking tour it's finally over!". Beautiful to see, before 2016 this scene was heartbreaking for fans and it was amazing that the last show of these two together ended like this.

It's a great show, it's an historic show, it's a must-see for GNR fans, it's the end of an era. If this had been the last ever show of Guns N' Roses... well, in many ways it feels like it. It's definitely the last show of GNR in their prime. It's a great way to end. A great last concert. It was great to watch it again and it was cool writing this. If you read all this bible thanks a lot! If someone else want to write their own reviews and post them here they're welcomed! I plan to continue and maybe in a week or so I'll do Rio 2001 (we're going chronologically baby!)

I revisited Rock in Rio 1991 after a long time.

It's a great show. It takes big balls to do such a big show playing mostly songs no one had heard. First show after sacking Adler and getting Matt and Dizzy (whom the camera continuely ignores lol). PTU is the song that officially kicks off the Illusions era and works great as an opener. Slash looks cool as fuck wearing a leather jacket and his trademark look, Axl has a white jacket with the band logo on its back. After it ends, Axl tells Rio he heard they like their "artifact ancient album AFD" so they play a very cool Mr. Brownstone, followed by Patience (kinda weird to play it so soon). Sadly the bootleg I saw, which is the most complete, has an annoying presenter talking (in portuguese) between in songs and even talking when Axl says something HOLY SHIT shut up. As a spanish speaker I understand like 70% of what he says, for some reason at one point he asks the audience to watch Axl's ass WTF bro (he did have a big ass tho).

After Patience, Slash does his iconic Godfather solo for the first time, unique to have it so soon in the set and separate from his main solo spot. It segues into DTJ. Another unique aspect of this show is the speech/rap Axl does at the ending of DTJ before it seamlessly segues into Jungle. It's cool as fuck. Axl's screams through the song impressed Matt since this show was the first time he ever played with Axl. However is in this song where his voice starts cracking.

The Rock in Rio curse is very real: Axl's voice is not that good from an objective point of view, he has several voice cracks through the show and there are certain lines in songs that he omits maybe to breath or have a little rest. It's understandable since it was the band's first show in long time. Subjectively speaking his vocal performance is still enjoyable (light years better than the future Mickey) and I'd even say that some of his voice cracks sound cool. He sounds fucking metal. For me the voice cracks during Dead Horse work well with the song and add to the rawness (the first scream sounds painful and cool, Axl gives his all). As if playing your first show with your new band infront of 200.000 brazillians wasn't enough, Matt does a solo for 4 minutes that leads into the live debut of YCBM which is great voice cracks and all. During the high pitched ending part of It's So Easy Axl's voice fails him and he switches back to his deep voice till the end, first & only time I've seen such a thing happening. After so many new songs the band gives the crowd what they want they play SCOM. This show is also one of the few times where Axl sings the first verse with the same phrasing as the studio version, it sounds great. Slash messes up a bit the start of the solo but he gets back on track quickly.

Then they proceed to premiere Estranged, I guess such an epic, long, full of piano and unknown song with no chorus caught off guard big part of the crowd (who wanted AFD and expected from the band ADF 2). It's a brilliant perfomance and they do the song justice. They close the show with PC obviously. It's an excellent show, unique in many ways and very important in GNR history, the start of the second half of the classic Guns N' Roses years.

I recently listened to two pretty good bootlegs of the band and I wanted to post my amateurish reviews here, it's not like there's anything interesting going with GNR right now.

CINCINNATI 2016 (Steven Adler returns!)
Saying "Axl gets better as the tour progresses" has become a meme now but back in 2016 it's definitely true. Here Axl was vocally much better than in the april shows when he was sitting on the throne. Jungle is full rasp but Axl nailing that song in the early legs of the NITIL wasn't uncommon. To my surprise he even rasped the epic outro of Rocket Queen. YCBM was mostly Mickey as usual but he sneaked a bit of rasp at the ending of it. This I Love surprised me a lot because he did the first two choruses with full rasp, I din't remember he was able of doing that in 2016! He nailed that song. I remember people back in april of that year being afraid that once he became able to walk again his singing would be less good but the opposite happened. The first chorus of Civil War is done with almost full rasp and for the rest of the song he alternates rasp with Mickey. Coma is pretty good too, the ending verses are done very efficiently. There's not much I can say about Slash because he's great as usual.
Adler returning to guest on 2 songs was something amazing. Nobody saw it coming, there were 0 rumours and out of the blue BOOM he's there. The guy went to hell and back and after almost 30 years he finally gets to play with his original band again for two songs, somethin he dreamed about maybe every day. The performance of these two songs is great, the band sounds great and Axl does a good job especially on My Michelle. The rest of the show is business as usual, a pretty good Nightrain from Axl. Wish Steven had come back for Nightrain and/or PC. This particular bootleg consists of a lot of different videos by fans in the audience pieced together so the quality changes according to the songs but overall it's pretty good.
This is one of the essential NITL shows and an historic one, Axl is great and even better than in some AXL/DC shows.

LOS ANGELES COLISEUM 1989 (Opening for the Rolling Stones)
This is the infamous show where Axl says that unless some people stop dancing with Mr Brownstone this will be the last concerts. Most GNR fans know this story but perhaps not all have seen this show. The video is terrible but the audio is very decent.
Before they start playing we hear a very angry Axl telling the crowd to calm the fuck down and proceeding to do a rant about the One in a Million controversy, which includes him saying the offensive words again a couple times. He talks a lot of shit and his reasoning is bullshit, if he wanted to come up as a non-racist and non-homophobic person with this rant he failed miserably. And his angry tone full of swearing didn't help his case at all. It seems he then wanted to play One in a Million but changed his mind at last minute and introduces It's So Easy. Shortly after the song ends Axl says: "I hate to do this on stage but I tried every other fucking way. Unless certain people in this band get their shit together, these are going to be the last Guns N' Roses shows you'll fucking ever see. Cause I'm tired of too many people in this organization dancing with Mr. goddamn Brownstone." It's a good performance of the song even though in hindsight we know the other guys were shocked, upset and kinda humiliated that Axl said that. The rest of the concert goes relatively smoothly and Axl doesn't talk much until the last song. Despite their drug use the band sounds tight and play without a problem. The charm of the classic lineup is intact.
I was surprised at how good Axl sounded. Obviously Axl sounded great in the AFD era but in the last shows of the AFD tour (Japan and Australia) he sounded rough in comparison, with too much rasp and not as in control of his voice as he used to be (understandable considering his constant touring). I thought that that change in his voice would be there to stay and would evolve into the extremely raspy early UYI shows. However the months of rest between the end of 88 and these october 89 shows did wonders to his voice and here he sounds as good as he did in the earlier AFD shows. A highlight for me is Rocket Queen, Axl nails the outro, nails the high notes and it sounds very close to the studio version, it's very satisfying to hear and one of his best performances of this song. Instead of an Adler drum solo in this song like in late '88 the band jams for around 4 minutes in the middle of RQ. SCOM (which the ginger dedicated to Erin) and WTTJ go smoothly, in the KOHD call and response Axl asks the crowd to think of someone they miss and wish were there. After a brief pause, Axl says: "We're gonna do one more song, before that I'd like to announce that this is my last gig with Guns N' Roses and this is called Paradise City which there ain't no such fucking place anywhere". The other guys feel shocked and pissed off again but play a very good PC, Axl bings back the "Oh won't you Please take me home" on the chorus which he often didn't do live. He ends the concert saying "Have a nice life" instead of good night.
This turned out not to be the last GNR concert and the following night they opened for the Stones again, Axl apologized for his Mr Brownstone comments and Slash said that GNR would not be a band that falls apart because of drugs.

"How we managed to get through those gigs, I'll never know. There was so much shit down on us. Axl's mood to quit, the drug problems, the Steven problem, the whole 'One In A Million' controversy - plus I had a court date the morning after the last Stones date, at eight in the morning, for pissing in a trash can on an airplane, and I was facing six months in jail because I had a prior arrest for drug possession. So that was a fuckin' major psycho-time." Izzy

This a great and historic show for the band, this bootleg is a must-see. The band sounds great and the banter/rants/controversies are surely of interest for the fans, it's a crucial point in their careers and this is maybe the last great bootleg of the classic lineup.

I might post a review of the next GNR boot I watch. Obviously I'm not posting any links to the bootlegs so I don't piss off those overweight, virgin, kiddie diddling, pathetic "fans" who take down for copyright everything GNR related.