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.... and the scathing reviews begin....


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First Night: Guns N' Roses, Reading Festival

(Rated 2/ 5 )

Axl flounders as Reading made to wait for its rock fix

Reviewed by Nick Hasted

The boos must echo through Axl Rose's dressing room.

An hour after he and the shattered substitutes for his band, Guns N' Roses, are due onstage, he still refuses to walk out to play to his public. When he does, with the title track for the album Chinese Democracy, which it took him 18 ludicrous years to finish, the boos barely relent. The Reading Festival's proud British rock crowd treat this exhausted, insulting star with contempt.

At the end of the first night of what may end as a legendary Reading Festival, the car crash that was expected of Rose duly piled into a wall.

His scraped-smooth, red-raw skin makes Mickey Rourke's look normal. His cheap silver jacket looks like one you might pick up outside a Las Vegas gig by a Guns N' Roses tribute act, who would play with more commitment. His voice loosely recalls Cartman, South Park's eight-year-old anarchist, when whining about his homework.

The early part of the set includes cult tracks from Guns N'Roses' debut album, Appetite for Destruction, from which fans stagger away in shame. The Replacements' bassist Tommy Stinson has been dragooned into what might mercifully be Axl's last stand. He can do nothing for the sad, slack stumble this band has become. Even "Welcome to the Jungle" is dribbled out with no meaning. Fireworks flare to fool the rubes, Axl sputters, and lets his career die. Only the bell-boy still owed money at whatever Royal Berkshire hotel he's staying after this nightmarish one-night stand might wish him well, for one night only.

For "Sweet Child O' Mine", he changes into a red check shirt that would go down well in a country bar on a slow Monday. He tinkles away at a keyboard – as if he's an artist – but never says sorry when he falls far short. The contempt of this tinny, redundant show by a blissfully ignorant ex-star is mutual long before the end.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/first-night-guns-n-roses-reading-festival-2064007.html

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literally nothing good to say. nothing about the crowd cheering "let them play" or "Reading sucks".

if they are going to mention the crowd booing to start, why not mention the crowd cheering to end? we have heard from a few sources that the crowd was won over, why not mention that? oh wait, cause its positive. cant be doing that...

all negative. probably biased. lets see a review with some good and some bad. then ill take it seriously.

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I was there...

No Queens of the Stone age ended their set at around 9:10 ish, so Axl has no excuse there for being late. The show was 1 hour late, as reported, but unlike newspapers seem to suggest I thought it was fantastic and quite frankly GN'R blew every band on the main stage (with the possible exception of the Lostprofits who were very good) away. The vocals were fantastic and the guitar work was amazing, especially Fortus's solo, Wow! All the Chinese D song were great and imo the best songs sung by Axl, Sorry was especially good live (I'm no fan of the studio version). All in all, whilst yes I would have liked Axl to be on time and the show to have gone on longer (DJ was attempting to play Better at the start of the encore, but as you all know that didn't work) it was great and I can't wait to see them again

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Spinner Mag lashes out....

"Guns N' Roses made their return to the UK stage on Friday night more than an hour late to an arena resounding with boos and jeers -- only to have have the plug pulled on them at the end of their crushingly disappointing set.

Spinner Mag Lash out also...

Axl Rose, looking out of condition in a silver suit and seemingly struggling to sing, made no apology as he eventually took to the main stage at Reading Festival at around 10.30PM before 80,000 disgruntled festivalgoers.

Opening with the title track from their lacklustre 'comeback' album 'Chinese Democracy,' the boos didn't stop either as his band went through the motions of performing a headlining festival set.

Rose, looking bloated and red, could barely reach his trademark high notes or hit his mark with the lyrics.

With an oddly high-pitched, nasal whine, the band didn't get even get better during legendary songs such as 'Welcome to the Jungle' -- complete with embarrassingly lame fireworks -- and simply seemed to have an eye on the weekend's pay cheque.

The band played on however to diminishing returns, and the plug was eventually pulled on them at midnight when the band overran the site sound curfew by half an hour.

The band tried to play an encore of 'Paradise City,' but the sound had been turned off and Axl and co eventually gave up, performed a perfunctory bow and walked off.

Thousands of fans, many swearing out loud at Rose and others genuinely upset at the car crash unfolding in front of their eyes on the Main Stage, reeled away in disgust after just a few songs and headed to the NME/Radio 1 Stage, where LCD Soundsystem were giving a lesson in how to headline a festival."

EDIT: L:ink: http://www.spinnermusic.co.uk/2010/08/28/guns-n-roses-reading-festival/

Edited by Use Your Delusion 1
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Well, I was there and it was awsome, the press know nothing!

Tell us more!!

I've given some details in the other thread but needless to say the band were so damn tight, the tightest band I've ever seen live and Axl's voice was perfect. There was some negativity but it was a minority of people once the show started. All the booing regarding lateness stopped (around me anyway, that's why I got as near to the front as possible as I guessed there'd be more diehard GN'R fans there not the 'where's Slash?' crowd). And, I saw Slash at Download and let me say that his live show is nothing compared to GN'R, it's sad but true and I'm not one of these Slash v Axl types. Everybody around me was having a great time. Some guy heckled abuse during Dizzy's solo but he got heckled back by others around me. :lol:

The best show I've ever seen and I can't wait till Birmingham now.

For the sake of other fans I hope that Guns still play Leeds but late or not it is a joke that they got the power pulled on them as, as I've said elsewhere the festival site was still really loud after the show ended.

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Gn'R of 2010 are a band that the press can't wait to take down like that - and when the gig unfolds like it did, they'll take the opportunity to maul the band, regardless of blame.

At a arena gig, you probably have somewhere in the region of 50/50 casual/hardcore Gn'R fans - whereas at a festival you may have 3/4% hardcore fans (maybe less at Leeds/Reading?) - and the crowd will be less forgiving with tech delays and late starts.

R.

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'Thousands of fans, many swearing out loud at Rose and others genuinely upset at the car crash unfolding in front of their eyes'

Car cash of a band. Ouch. What's all the stuff about Axl's red face, and out of contion shape. Drugs such a Viagra can cause a red face, maybe he's on that or something similar.

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'Thousands of fans, many swearing out loud at Rose and others genuinely upset at the car crash unfolding in front of their eyes'

Car cash of a band. Ouch. What's all the stuff about Axl's red face, and out of contion shape. Drugs such a Viagra can cause a red face, maybe he's on that or something similar.

Obviously whoever wrote that was at a different show to the one I was at. And why do you post in a GN'R forum if you don't like the band?

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And yet, my day goes on knowing that the megaphone PC was more RNR than anything that happened at the Ritz 88.

Get at me.

:rofl-lol: .......................the 88 Ritz show was about the music......that show was RnR...............last night was all about Axl and nothing to do with the music....in 1988 GnR were the greatest RnR band in the world...NuGnR have become a carnival sideshow act..........it is sad what Axl has done to this band...I really feel for Bumble............

The music sounded good from what I've seen. And why feel for Bumble, he could walk away if he wanted to.

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