If Guns N' Roses was to end today...

[AndreCC]

If Axl's band was to end today, meaning finished for good and not comeback. What would be the highlights of this whole 1997- 2013 journey?

Submit your highlights! Good or Bad but that you consider important enough to be highlights.

[WTF?]

If Axl's band was to end today, meaning finished for good and not comeback. What would be the highlights of this whole 1997- 2013 journey?

Total Joke

[Tomek1985]

Buried legacy.

[AndreCC]

If Axl's band was to end today, meaning finished for good and not comeback. What would be the highlights of this whole 1997- 2013 journey?

Total Joke

Why is that? I feel it's a legitimate topic.

I mean listing the highlights.

For example:

- 2006 tour

Or

- Chinese Democracy the album

Edited September 10, 2013 by AndreCC

[gavgnr]

Highlights for me, seeing guns 4 times in that period and the release of Chinese.

Lowlights for me, I feel there could have been so many more releases including other albums and DVDs.

[CoolRanchDressing]

When tommy hilfigger slapped axl around at a fancy party for douchebags

[AndreCC]

Highlights:

- Rock In Rio 3 - The start of the whole journey. We had Vegas before, but i feel this was a bigger stage and the stage that really set the stage for whatever was to come after.

- The Leaks. (Only because that was the first contact we had with the album, and the first sign and confirmation that there was really music being worked on), also good or bad, the whole FBI/Skwerl thing was certainly news worthy and something to remember.

- 2006/07 Tour, i think anyone would agree that that was a successful tour and a sign that things were coming. Those Hammerstein shows were a great comeback for Axl (Thank God i was there in all of them, great shows!)

- The Release of Chinese Democracy. Whether anybody liked it or disliked it, this was the end of a chapter for a lot of people. Even people from the band itself and certainly you can't get higher then this. This was indeed the TRUE HIGHLIGHT of the whole journey.

- Azoff's lawsuit

- Axl Chats - I think anyone would agree that it was shocking, yet unbelievable and very cool that Axl came here and answered some of our questions.

- Axl's Twitter - Even though it didn't work out for the best so far because Axl's a very private guy, after years of silence we certainly didn't expect Axl to create a Twitter account and become more social. Also the Madison Rant is something to remember since nobody expected it either.

- 2010 Tour - The best tour every by GNR since the break up. Axl in the best shape of his life since 1993.

- MSL's video about the documents/flash drive was a bit shocking as well and revealed some stuff.

- Going Down (is Guns N'Roses going back to their Hard Rock Roots?)

- The band getting involved in some arguings with fans (This was very negative, but it has to be a highlight, as nobody would ever think to have an arguing with the GNR Management), I'm talking about Beta's statements "Complaints complaints complaints" thing, the fact that she actually said that there wouldn't be a new album because of the new leaks, is something that i feel it's an highlight of how ridiculous it sounds, and how ridiculous it really is with all due respect for the ones involved. Fernando's complaint as well.

I think if you were off for awhile and you needed a summary of what happened in all these years, this one would probably be a good one.

[Teroz]

At the current state, I would no be sad at all. And we had gems along the way: RIR3 has always been important to me, I loved the lineup then and I also love CD. So if GnR would end today, I would in no way consider it a worthless journey. It has given me alot, but the last few years of the band have been totally boring to me, hopefully someone has enjoyed the 9th, 10th and 11th year of the "CD world tour", the "cool not saying a word" communication and lineup changes that have worsen the band - I haven't.

[wasted]

PC video, Wembley 91, One in a Million

YCBM video, Freddie Mercury Benefit, St Louis

Madagascar live, Leeds 2002, "They are a bunch of bad cops and I'm Serpico"

Shackler's Revenge Rock Band, 09-10 Tour, Online Chats

Edited September 10, 2013 by wasted

[J Dog]

CD being released and a pretty massive world tour.

[gunnari]

Any hopes for reunion would be buried

[PedoGNR]

If Axl's band was to end today, meaning finished for good and not comeback. What would be the highlights of this whole 1997- 2013 journey?

Submit your highlights! Good or Bad but that you consider important enough to be highlights.

How does Axl's band end? Surely, some kind of poetic justice/trainwreck would be the highlight of the whole debacle.

[AndreCC]

If Axl's band was to end today, meaning finished for good and not comeback. What would be the highlights of this whole 1997- 2013 journey?

Submit your highlights! Good or Bad but that you consider important enough to be highlights.

How does Axl's band end? Surely, some kind of poetic justice/trainwreck would be the highlight of the whole debacle.

I'm not saying it will end. I say.. suppose it ends. What would have been the highlights for you until now?

[Johnny Drama]

For me the 2006 world tour was big. That was when I first became a Guns fan so the reawakening of Axl Rose was like gargantuan.

Then my nipples got well hard when CD was about to come about. AND YOU'RE OUT OF. ... TIME. Touche my old friend, touche.

[wasted]

What are the highlights thus far... for the less hopeful.

[username]

The huge amount of lows make the mediocres the highlights.

Mediocres disguised as highlights:

- OMG popping up of of nowhere

- HoB and RIR 3 shows.

- The 2006 tour

- The leaks (which, obviously, we shouldn't credit GnR for at all)

Lows:

- VMA 2002

- The revolving door of bandmembers - Paul, Buckethead, Finck, Brain..

- CD being released. Yes, it was a landmark moment but compared to the leaks it was a letdown for me. Could've been great and it wasn't

- Lack of promotion for CD

- The lack of communication in general, over the entire period

- Anything post-2010, especially Axl's singing

- Ashba

- Team Brazil demeaning the fanbase

- The inability to release things like a dvd or a remix album

- The lack of following up on CD with a proper album

[rockerman]

_{Given the amount of time and talent that has been the privaledge of Axl and his vision not to mention, the huge amount of $ and the resulting legacy is a rather underwhelming album .}

_{You ask for highlights? Um there was a time when it might look like "mr. last man Standing" was going to do it and make GNR a huge thing again but I cant really remember when that was...because he settled back into playing the oldies and the goodies and a few newer oldies and goodies from that ONE album, Not one new song ..original song has been played live for years...he acts as if its affront to him that we the fans would actually expect or in the remotest of chances LOVE to hear something new from this group.}

_{If it ended today: the lessson to the kids about GNR: THIS IS NOT WHAT TO DO WITH A WORLD CLASS BAND.}

[jekylhyde]

The release of Chinese Democracy would be THE highlight for me. And also the 2006 leaks were pretty dope. Those days in 2008 and 2006 were awesome. Good times.

[magisme]

Highlights:

First HOB show

Buckethead

Hammerstein

A number of 2006 shows

A number of 2010 shows

Some People Think They're Highlights but Who Gives a Shit:

RIR 3 - Incredibly overrated performance. Axl was fat, constantly off beat during songs and his voice was mediocre at best

Leaks - First indication that CD wasn't going to be very good

CD - Total Letdown

Bupplepuss

Lows:

VMAs 2002

Axl's voice in 2002

Ashba

Axl's everything 2011-2013

Team Brazil

Lyrics and vocal performance on CD

[trqster]

From 97->13 it's pretty much going downhill as expected... The single event that hurts Gn'R legacy the most: Chinese Democracy album.

[gunnari]

low:

Rock in Rio 2011...Axl behaved like little bitch!! During Patience: "I'm getting pissed....I got no patience"

Forgetting lyrics to November Rain..he relied too much to his screens and didn't practice prior to RIR 2011..looked awful in that yellow raincoat

CD was a huge let down for me..didn't like it..

Good:

2006 and 2010 concerts I went..Axl looked and sounded great..

Keeping GnR alive although in a state of Coma

Edited September 10, 2013 by gunnari

[Roush]

GN'R is like one of those drearily anti-climatic, Lifetime Original films with four false endings. Which featured a really, really long second part, with a convoluted-ass coda.

Act I. Set-Up (1985-1993)

The fun part of the movie, where everyone is partying, loving life, and later -- rolling with the punches despite numerous setbacks. Closes with the last show in Argentina. Domino's Pizza, Matt Sorum's goofy hair, Axl rocking fútbol jerseys.

Act II: Rising Action (1994-2006)

Breakup, Axl's crystals, Duff's pancreas, Snakepit, woe is moe, life sucks. Like a wrestling comeback, Axl's return has three or four false starts (VMAs, Rio III, Rio IV, Greatest Hits.)

Act III: Super Convoluted Exposition (2006-2014)

2006 comeback, album release, good shows, hurray momentum. Enter the dark cloud of Ashba. MSL. Team Brazil. Axl quits GN'R with the most anti-climatic resignation in the history of music (using his traditionally intentional misspellings):

i kwit. h8rs eat a dik. im goin 2 aruba for hookerz n' hamburgers.

[ClaudeF]

The highlight? The leaks. The scavenger hunt involved in finding them and then hearing the songs evolve was an adventure. The album was not a disappointment because so many of the songs were familiar, it was a disappointment because the final arrangements overfilled the songs, taking away the dynamism of the earlier versions.

In the demo of "Chinese Democracy," the guitar riff is the first sound to leap out at you. It was like being bitten by a mad dog. In the final version, the drums come first, creatign a whole different atmosphere. The original version of "Better" offered a different verse the second time around ("I know you know you know better") whereas the final version repeated words and thus ideas we'd already heard before. It lost the sense of personal evolution and the narrator's awareness of what kind of person he was dealing with.

The final record seems second-guessed to death. Brilliant, ambitious, but second-guessed to death.

[username]

What demo of Chinese Democracy? The one that leaked was in 2007 and it already has the noises. The rest that's out there is cleaned up live material from 2001/2002. The only tracks that leaked in their 1999/2000 form were IRS, TWAT and CITR. There is no leaked demo version of CD without the intro for as far as I know.

[Amir]

There's a demo of CD with no intro noises, or at least none of those intro drums, with Brain's drums instead of Frank's, without Bumble's fretless in the verses, and without Axl's high-pitched backing vocals.