swirkh

Let me offer you a perspective of a big Metallica fan.

The album is f'kin solid throughout with no weak points.

If I had to rate it overall, it lands on the same shelf for me as Death Magnetic & Loads. It's better than Hardwired to Self Destruct (2nd disc on that record had too many songs that fall in the "meh" category).

In terms of sound it's like Death Magnetic & Load/ReLoad had a baby. The overall vibe is dark, personal & moody, while the record is filled with heavy bangers with brilliant riffs, guitar harmonies, some nice tiwst & turns and unexpected moments.

Kirk has been lazy with wah-ridden "live feel" solos improvised on the spot on Hardwired to Self Destruct, but this time he stepped up his game. Some solos have still that feel to them, but on many you can hear there was more thought put into them, they're more inspired. Some solos are wah-free which is very refreshing.

Rob did a solid job as always.

James clearly took some liberties and I like it ! He made many unexpected, interesting choices in terms of vocal delivery. The lyrics are step up from the last record without a doubt.

Lars' drumming is predictable, and I wish he took more liberties. As far as how drums are positioned in the mix - it's totally normal to me. With Metallica I'm used to it being that way. Lars has always been the person overlooking the production. James takes care of the creative side while Lars overlooks everything, that's how it's always been with them.

The last 3 songs on the record (Too Far Gone?, Room of Mirrors, Inamorata) are my favorite ones at the moment, with Inamorata having that instant classic feel. It's just so epic, on the same level as The Outlaw Torn or Fixxxer.

I love the dark vibe of the record. It flows nicely. It's a solid modern Metallica album & is so enjoyable to listen.

Who cares about the overpriced book. Don't like it, don't buy it.

But I must say this is the most relaxed, comfortable Slash I've ever seen in an interview. Good job Gibson. Such a treat for guitar nerds.

Very high altitude, 2 shows in a row. He either comes prepared, or it's recipe for a disaster.

Definitely following the setlists that changed from night to night, as well as Axl's vocal progress and form of the band in general was exciting ! This tour offered a lot of variety.

I was at the Warsaw show, and feel lucky to once again (after Chorzów 2018) witness the longest show of the tour/leg.

I highly recommend that everyone watch Shadow of Your Love from this show, like I said before on the forums, it was a top performance, with 2016-level vocals from Axl.

Everyone was going crazy about "SCOM with rasp" so they decided to upload it. At least they're listening, I guess !

Now if they want to show a good performance, please do Shadow of Your Love from Warsaw. Hard Skool would not be a bad choice either

4 hours ago, Stay.Of.Execution said:

Are we sure the plane is just used for GNR and not for other purposes in the meantime?

It could, but it seems like it's 100% at band's disposal, as it doesn't fly much at all besides locations of GNR gigs.

Though with each time that plane takes off, it doesn't automatically mean there are any band members onboard. It could be some family members or band management.

We don't know, so it seems kinda pointless to follow every move of the airplane honestly.

At least I have en excuse as I'm an aviation geek, so I stalk random airplanes quite often regardless lol

Promising statement by Axl.

Let's see where it goes vocally and setlist-wise.

17 minutes ago, Alexpro said:

Interesting part re staff dashing to IKEA to set a bed for Axl.

There's indeed a huge IKEA store just down the road from the stadium (5 min by car) and it's open until 10pm, so this part looks believable.

I can see the stadium staff pushing trolley down the aisle: "So, what sheets should we get for Axl? Plain or stripes?" Imagine the joy of having to put together this flat pack bed on Friday night...

I don't think that reddit post is believable at all.

The part about soundchecks is BS.

I find it hard to believe Axl had to sleep in away team's dressing room also.

This is a brand new stadium that was pretty expensive to build, so I'm sure it has a lot of nicely outfitted rooms/ VIP lounges with sofas, other amenities etc.

44 minutes ago, waxl1974 said:

9H-ZAZ looking on flight radar it is showing next flight for tomorrow evening flying from Glasgow to Munich

Actually it doesn't fly anywhere besides locations of GNR gigs, so it must be 100% at their disposal. It spent 1 hour in Geneva 2 days ago and came back to London, then flew to Glasgow on the next day. Looks like it either dropped someone off or picked someone up from Switzerland.

7 hours ago, waxl1974 said:

Looking at the GNR planes flight history. It flew out to Geneva on Sunday and came back later that day. Whether Axl took a flight to go see a throat specialist to get a better diagnosis? Anyone have any thoughts on this? 

What's the REG of the plane ?

I'm almost positive they don't have an "exclusive" plane this time around, they just use "air taxi", so the company flies them on whatever routes they ordered, but in the meantime the plane goes to fly somewhere else for other clients.

It costs a ton of money for a plane to just sit around, and from what we see this tour is all about cutting costs (simple stage design, no pyro etc.).

It looks like Axl pushed himself too hard during this tour, the demanding setlists/song choices could've been one of the main contributors, but also deterioration of his vocal chords due to age/a lot of touring over last 6 years. I'm not gonna speculate about his vocal preparation (or supossedly lack thereof) for the tour, as there's no reliable info on that.

I was lucky enough to be at the show in Warsaw, which in retrospect, seems like the peak of this european stint.

Axl gave everything he had, I recommend everyone look at the performance of Shadow of Your Love, which was IMO 2016-level vocally from Axl.

Another example is the KOHD, specifically the last part when Axl sings "Knock knock knockin on heaven's door..." and the crowd responds. Play it back to back with that same part of Wembley '92 performance. Those 2 are not that far from each other, right ?! And we're talking 60-year old Axl here.

These are just 2 examples of Axl going super hard, to achieve certainly satysfying level of vocal performance for all of us.

They played that crazy 31/32 song setlist, and it seems like since then with every show the setlists only kept getting shorter. Definitely unusual (normally we see longer sets as the tour progresses, or when they reach a certain number of songs, they continue to keep it around this level).

Also by the Warsaw show they played only 2 shows a week, the week of Warsaw was the first week when they added a 3rd show.

Of course Warsaw was the longest, but like I said at the beginning, he's been pushing himself very hard for this entire leg.

Overall, here we are and it is what it is...

Assuming this lasts for couple of next shows, I'd like Axl to sing in lower octaves. Let Melissa do more backing vocals to add some highs where needed. Adjust the setlist.

As for the future, I'd like to see adjustments that would follow similar path - Axl to rework his vocal approach a little bit, use more lower voice instead of mickey, rework the setlist.

Hopefully everything will be alright, take care of yourself Axl !

Man, I really hope this (what looks like) positive feedback on his changed vocal approach somehow reaches Axl and results in some good things for the future.

Neither mickey nor low voice resemble the mid-range raspy voice from original recordings. But the latter sounds way better than mickey, so why bother with the first one ?

Blackbird intro

into Axl's introduction

SCOM /w Carrie Underwood

Just now, BrayWyatt said:

I wish the guy would shut up.

He sounds like he's doing sports commentary in Spanish to a GNR show in London, lol

This set is in a way, what so many wanted

- Rocket Queen & YCBM (and probably NR, SCOM?) dropped

- shorter set

- Axl modified his vocal approach

I would love to hear YCBM with lower voice on the verses

Maybe they're strategizing it.

The band knows they (Axl) can't do a 3hrs+ show night after night, so they decided to go late and cut both sets short, but sort of blame it on the curfew

So with the delay, sound problems, short setlist it turned out kinda disappointing.

Has Axl sounded good ? Particularly wondering if raspy SCOM from Dublin was a one-off or it will be recurring feature from now on

1 minute ago, SL138 said:

is it just me or you guys also hate june/july stadium concerts under bright daylight?

I will wait till they come back to play in o2arena

Full concert in daylight ? no, maybe not. But if it gets dark midway through the show, then I love European summer stadium vibes.

They could've done Bad Obsession with Michael Monroe, but chose to do SCOM with Carrie Underwood instead

56 minutes ago, Dani_1455 said:

That makes me think he can really sing with rasp everytime he wants It, but he just prefer to sing with clean voice, also It seems that is more comfortable for him!

The more I listen to his live performances nowadays, the more I'm convinced that If you asked him to sing whatever song exactly like he did in 1992, he would sing exactly like he did in 1992. He's still capable of doing it, I'm 100% sure he could do it in the studio with no problems.

Probably he won't be able to sing like this every night for the whole tour, and that's the only reason why he chooses different singing style - to maintain his voice.

2 minutes ago, Ratam said:

I guess that hard critic push to Axl improvement. Few days ago a Norway fan put in Tik Tok a video about the   Axl's vocals an she dissapoint, the video has become viral, has more 2 millons visualizations. Maybe Axl need be bit stimulate to realize as him sound.

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if he got addicted to Tik Tok and stumbled upon some videos criticizing the band or someting like this, lol.

By looking at this tour so far - the setlists, varying length of shows, Axl's vocal performance that varies almost from show to show, I have one conclusion - he's trying out different things, looking to change something. And actually it's kinda exciting to watch from a fan perspective.

Rasp on SCOM ? Is the world ending or something ?!

It must be the best performance of the song since the reunion, right ?

22 minutes ago, VeeR said:

4.5 hours? wow. Although I don't think they will play everything on the alt list, but still, hopefully you guys will be getting a somewhat longer show tonight.

Extended version of KOHD

9 minutes ago, Mickey said:

The longest show they have playd in 2022 so far is 195 minutes in Poland, as far as I remember. I don't have all the complete showtimes yet...

200 minutes (3 hours 20 minutes)

/ actually I just looked at my pictures - it so happens I took one right when they went on stage and at the very end of PC. They went on stage at 7:29PM, PC ended at 10:53PM, so to be precise, Warsaw show was 204 min or 3hrs 24mins