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Leeds 2002


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26 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

Not true- they played the (now bulldozed) London Docklands Arena a couple of days later. That was another odd show- quite a small arena, Axl had a huge rant about a review of their Leeds show he'd read which described him as 'as big as a house'. I went to that too- was a very surreal weekend, having seen them after so long in the wilderness. 

Apologies- I stand corrected. :) 

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1 minute ago, Gracii Guns said:

Apologies- I stand corrected. :) 

Oh no worries! I never hear that show in London mentioned actually. It seems to be totally forgotten about for some reason! 

If anyone's interested I can post some pics of the 'tour shirt' from those shows...with just two tour dates on the back! 

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6 hours ago, Gackt said:

He had his groupies :lol:

 

omg...those guys at the end with cups on their heads screaming his name. :lol:  I'm sorry, the man is talented af but he was utterly bonkers back then, speaking through is hand puppet.  I hear he's not doing so well health wise these days, poor guy, hope he recovers.  Thanks for posting this.

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As a young child in the 90s, I've was a bit of a casual fan of GN'R. Then middle school started and I really started to take interest in music and bam, GN'R was it for me. I found this forum and I instantly became obsessed and started downloading every bootleg I could find and burn them to CD, then listen to them on the bus ride to school and during lunch. 

Then 2001-2002, I was a freshmen in highschool.  I downloaded the Rock In Rio III show. At first, I was a bit disappointed with how Axl sounded. The band for the most part in my opinion was pretty tight and felt kinda raw. Then after a few listens of the show, I grown to appreciate the new sound Axl seemed he was going for. Then the VMA's came and the 2002 tour started...which unfortunately I couldn't attend the Boston show because I found out to late about the tickets and even then, I couldn't afford to regardless even If I did. Even though the 2002 was canceled and they were not that many shows, I went ahead and downloaded all the 2001-2002 bootlegs and burned them to CD and through out high school, this GN'R was therapy for me as high school was a very depressing time for me.  I became amazed of the untapped potential this version of the band had, a new take on the classic songs...being caught by the mystery of each band member and the new material. Even though the set lists were mostly the same, it felt like no GN'R show was the same, that something happened at each show, a little bit of a tidbit, a small story from Axl, a different variation of guitar work on one of the songs, how different Axl sounded from show to another. Where we'd get a show of all clean vocals to the next show where its a mix bag of rasp and clean.  The whole aura around this band just kept me so interested on the possibilities and what could happen next...so when Rock In Rio 4 was announced and I read GN'R couldn't do it because of the Buckethead situation, I felt let down. And as good as the 06-07 line up was, the mystery wasn't there like it was in 01-02 and years later with the 2009-2014 line ups...as good as Axl sounded during the early part of 09-10, the band kinda felt cookie cutter and very polished. 

To the topic of this post. My person favorite performances of the 02 line up is Boston, London (Canada), Albany, and Leeds.

On 10/13/2017 at 8:55 AM, Jordan Rose said:

For the purposes of enjoying the reunion and current shows I have to not think about this era too much because the thought of what Axl and Bucket could have done together, regardless of whoever else was in the band at any one time, just drives me insane. 

This couldn't be more true for me. I've attended 3 shows out of the reunion so far and I've enjoyed the hell out of them without question, but honestly, I would of traded one of the three shows and go back in time and see the 2002 line up. 

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@WWEROSES

I suspect there's probably only a handful of people who feel this way. Even though I grew up with the original band in the late 80s and early 90s I identify today far more with the CD songs and the CD band. I've burned hundreds of compilations CDs of the leaks and live versions and left them in bars all over the place with just "NEWGNR" on them. 

I understand all of Axl's reasons for keeping the name going but considering all of the baggage that came with it both legally from the alumni, pressure from the biz and perception from the fans, I wish in hindsight he'd just called his new band with Bucket something else. The drummer from Nirvana is now a household name to anyone even vaguely into music and bands, so i'm sure Axl could have made it work. Then again, he wanted the enormous advance from the record company to make a bells and whistles record. Which is crazy to me because i'd rather listen to live versions any day.

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On 10/14/2017 at 7:13 PM, marinergtfc said:

Didn’t Weezer support them in London?

^^^

ha, quoted the wrong quote!

Yep. They were good- but went down pretty badly. Played a weird set, largely based on material that was unreleased, and is still unreleased! The singer said something along the lines of "out first gig was opening fir a Guns N Roses tribute band and we thought this would be a bit better....we're not sure" or something along those lines, that the crowd took to be a bit 'off'. I think he was joking but it was a stupid thing to say really! 

Both shows were surreal, in so many ways. 

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3 hours ago, allwaystired said:

Yep. They were good- but went down pretty badly. Played a weird set, largely based on material that was unreleased, and is still unreleased! The singer said something along the lines of "out first gig was opening fir a Guns N Roses tribute band and we thought this would be a bit better....we're not sure" or something along those lines, that the crowd took to be a bit 'off'. I think he was joking but it was a stupid thing to say really! 

Both shows were surreal, in so many ways. 

Ya, that was at the phase of Weezer's career where Cuomo would say provocative shit just to look cool. 

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34 minutes ago, themadcaplaughs said:

Ya, that was at the phase of Weezer's career where Cuomo would say provocative shit just to look cool. 

Certainly got that impression. He came across as being rude about GNR, which seemed odd seeing as they had agreed to support them for one night (although seeing as they never supported them again, perhaps there was more to it?) 

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Weezer remains one of my favorite bands, despite the slowly declining quality of their music from 2001-2010 (luckily the appear to be on an upswing now). They prove a lesson GN'R fans could take for granted: more music does not always mean good music. 

Knowing what I do about Cuomo, I would guess he was trying to make some kind of statement about the crowd being rude. At this point, he was super into being critical of crowds, and purposefully not playing pleasing set lists; thus, playing a lot of unreleased songs. At this point, the band's 1996 album Pinkerton, which had been a failure when it came out, had undergone a massive resurgence in popularity and critical evaluation, and Cuomo made a point out of only playing one or two songs a night from it (some nights he did not play any). For Weezer fans, it would be similar to if Guns N' Roses only played one song off Appetite for Destruction. 

Sorry to go off topic. Anyway, I remember some websites like Blabbermouth reporting that Axl apparently really liked the Weezer guys, and even talked about a side project with Rivers Cuomo. Both of them sort of play into that "mad genius" archetype. Either way, Axl thanks Weezer in the Chinese Democracy liner notes, so I do not think they burned any bridges. Also, their last music video for "Feels Like Summer" was a tribute to Guns N' Roses and the "Paradise City" music video. 

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16 minutes ago, themadcaplaughs said:

Weezer remains one of my favorite bands, despite the slowly declining quality of their music from 2001-2010 (luckily the appear to be on an upswing now). They prove a lesson GN'R fans could take for granted: more music does not always mean good music. 

Knowing what I do about Cuomo, I would guess he was trying to make some kind of statement about the crowd being rude. At this point, he was super into being critical of crowds, and purposefully not playing pleasing set lists; thus, playing a lot of unreleased songs. At this point, the band's 1996 album Pinkerton, which had been a failure when it came out, had undergone a massive resurgence in popularity and critical evaluation, and Cuomo made a point out of only playing one or two songs a night from it (some nights he did not play any). For Weezer fans, it would be similar to if Guns N' Roses only played one song off Appetite for Destruction. 

Sorry to go off topic. Anyway, I remember some websites like Blabbermouth reporting that Axl apparently really liked the Weezer guys, and even talked about a side project with Rivers Cuomo. Both of them sort of play into that "mad genius" archetype. Either way, Axl thanks Weezer in the Chinese Democracy liner notes, so I do not think they burned any bridges. Also, their last music video for "Feels Like Summer" was a tribute to Guns N' Roses and the "Paradise City" music video. 

Mine too. Although their new stuff I seriously dislike. I've stuck with them through thick and thin, but at the moment.....I'm out! I've no idea what they're pissing about at. 

A lot of the set that night was made up of songs from the album they scrapped in favour of 'Green'. Do you know what happened to all those songs? Did they ever leak? 

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Yea, a ton of stuff has leaked over the years. Cuomo made an "official" version of Summer Songs 2000 (a lot of the songs he played in 2000 right after the band started playing live again that did not make the cut for Green Album) and when they were recording Maladroit, Cuomo released demos of a ton of the songs on MP3. You can easily find most of this stuff on YouTube. I strongly suggest listening. It makes a really cool "alternate timeline" Weezer. 

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15 hours ago, Jordan Rose said:

@WWEROSES

I suspect there's probably only a handful of people who feel this way. Even though I grew up with the original band in the late 80s and early 90s I identify today far more with the CD songs and the CD band. I've burned hundreds of compilations CDs of the leaks and live versions and left them in bars all over the place with just "NEWGNR" on them. 

I understand all of Axl's reasons for keeping the name going but considering all of the baggage that came with it both legally from the alumni, pressure from the biz and perception from the fans, I wish in hindsight he'd just called his new band with Bucket something else. The drummer from Nirvana is now a household name to anyone even vaguely into music and bands, so i'm sure Axl could have made it work. Then again, he wanted the enormous advance from the record company to make a bells and whistles record. Which is crazy to me because i'd rather listen to live versions any day.

For me, this version of GN'R felt like it was my band...kinda like the underground band that a small group of people like, then suddenly they become mainstream and that band no longer feels like its your band...which didn't exactly happen during that era, but thats kinda what this version of GN'R felt to me, like it was my band. So I didn't mind burning those dozens of CDs to listen by myself. Although I did burn a couple copies for my coworkers years later during the 06 era and they absolutely were intrigued by the new material...then again I worked with mostly Brazilians and to most of the Brazilians I worked with over the years, GN'R is almost like a religion, lol. 

 

I also understood why he kept the name and almost felt like maybe GN'R was his baby that he worked so hard on keeping. But the backlash for so many years that came with him doing that, you have to think if he thought it was worth it all the stress, bad press and fan backlash. I agreed mostly with him keeping the name as I'm sure its more of a pride thing than using the name to make money off of. But at the same time, when Velvet Revolver came about...I just thought..wow they guys are putting out original music, using a pretty clever name and are pretty successful... Why couldn't at one point just Axl just go the Dave Grohl route and just come up with a name or just simply refer to his band as Axl Rose. Mean, most of the shows anywhere during those eras, the people that would go would be chanting and shouting Axl's name the majority of the time anyway and wouldn't go if Axl wasn't there to begin with. Guess we'll never know.

One would have to think because of the pressure of the record company to put out a record they wouldn't put forth the money on the record if the Guns N' Roses name wasn't on cover. Which kinda makes sense, if they want to make most money possible, go with a GN'R name instead of just Axl Rose. 

 

I'm with you on listening to live versions over the album versions.

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@WWEROSES

Totally agree. I felt the same way about the Bucket lineup being "my" band. Whilst many still clamour(ed) for the 80s I didn't relate to that bunch of guys anymore and a good chunk of the songs, too. Like Axl said he was back in 1992, I was quite ready to move on with Axl/Guns from that era. Those songs had their place for nostalgia's sake but as a twenty-something I wasn't on the Nightrain anymore and I fucking loved the shit out of the new stuff played at Rio 3. The songs I did still enjoy lyrically were Axl's big epics. None of the other guys had done a single thing together or collectively which interested me or came close to what Estranged, November and now Madagascar and The Blues meant to me. And unlike most people I actually related to Bucket and loved the eccentric quirkiness of the Chinese lineup. I was excited as fuck for the singles, videos, interviews, photo shoots, award show performances and album to drop so the rest of the world would find out what I knew: Axl and Bucket were going to take over the rock world. 

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