06/05/23 - Tel Aviv, IL - Hayarkon Park

[GNRfanMILO]

32 minutes ago, Tom2112 said:

Once again... The AC/DC shows didn't damage Axls voice. He had a vocal coach working with him specifically so he didn't do that, as he mentioned in interviews. If Axl was damaging his voice, the coach would have said "you're doing serious damage here, try singing this way instead" as you can hear on the AC/DC run Axl didn't really change his approach. AC/DC was very demanding for Axl, and his voice did crack here and there going for those insane notes, so it's easy to point at that and say this is the smoking gun. If anything damaged his voice, it was the Guns tour having 2 3hr shows in a row, at his age he needs rest of at least a day between shows.

The damage to Axls voice is simply that he stopped working as hard sometime towards the end of 2016, went into auto pilot, lost a step and now age is kicking his ass for it. IF AC/DC had destroyed his voice, then the NITL tour would have been scrapped in 2016 as his voice had been destroyed... as you point out 7+ years it rolls on as he could still sing. He stopped practicing as regularly, went back to just doing warm ups/downs on show days and slowly but surely his voice got weaker (as you need to work on your voice almost every day of the week, in a use it or lose it way). Now, I can't say any of that for fact, but to me that's what it sounds like... but I'm not a vocal coach/expert. I do believe he can still build that part of his voice again if he followed a strict routine with a coach that specialises in vocal repair/recovery. 

Agreed though, adjust the playlist, make the sets shorter and to the point. Doesn't need to be playing as long any more!

Yes, he did destroy his voice with AC/DC.

The famous “voice cracks” started during the NA shows, and you can literally hear them. The very very high parts he was going with rasp, such as Hells Bells or Shoot to Thrill. You can go and watch the videos, it’s all there.

This same songs, during the Europe run (that came first), didn’t have any voice cracks. It was literally the first time we ever heard Axl’s voice crack and it’s all in video, after that everything went downhill.

I do agree with your post, though. But I don’t agree that the shows with AC/DC “didn’t damage his voice”. It’s where all started! It definitely deteriorated his voice faster than If he hadn’t played those shows.

Ultimately, the rest between SA 2016 and Asia 2017 is what killed his voice for good, IMO. Those shows were absolutely horrendous, and he clearly didn’t sign or even prepare during those months.

Edited June 6, 2023 by GNRfanMILO

[Rovim]

are we discussing this issue from inside of Axl's throat? how do we know if the short 10 dates stint with AC/DC damaged his voice or not? just cause it seems one way or another doesn't make it true, we're not experts. What is true though, is that Axl is more limited vocally nowdays compared to 7,8 years ago.

[ChristianGNR]

There are really good 4K videos of this show and judging by then, Axl voice is in the same level of Abu Dhabi. 

let’s see if keeps improving during the tour

[We love Axl Rose]

@RovimYou were at this show? 

[Rovim]

7 minutes ago, We love Axl Rose said:

@RovimYou were at this show? 

yes I was. It was great fun, I think I've enjoyed all of it. So many people in the crowd as well. Didn't record videos or took pics with my phone just cause I don't care for that kind of thing in general and it would have ruined the experience for me. Gn'R still rocks hard imho, even if it's tougher for Axl vocally, it was obvious he gave it 100%.

[izzyjim]

39 minutes ago, GNRfanMILO said:

Yes, he did destroy his voice with AC/DC.

Those greedy bastereds, abused him when he reached out to help them 

I seriously think that we, as a fanbase, can and SHOULD file a suit against Ac/Dc AND Angus Young.

[smokingarthur]

1 minute ago, Rovim said:

yes I was. It was great fun, I think I've enjoyed all of it. So many people in the crowd as well. Didn't record videos or took pics with my phone just cause I don't care for that kind of thing in general and it would have ruined the experience for me. Gn'R still rocks hard imho, even if it's tougher for Axl vocally, it was obvious he gave it 100%.

I’ll take a couple photos but I pretty much stopped doing so and recording videos that I’ll never watch. I agree, it ruins the experience. 

[izzyjim]

3 minutes ago, Rovim said:

yes I was. It was great fun, I think I've enjoyed all of it. So many people in the crowd as well. Didn't record videos or took pics with my phone just cause I don't care for that kind of thing in general and it would have ruined the experience for me. Gn'R still rocks hard imho, even if it's tougher for Axl vocally, it was obvious he gave it 100%.

Just my 2 cents, I think it was their best show in Israel so far.

Wish I could find a decent audio bootleg 

[jamillos]

1 hour ago, Tom2112 said:

Once again... The AC/DC shows didn't damage Axls voice. He had a vocal coach working with him specifically so he didn't do that, as he mentioned in interviews. If Axl was damaging his voice, the coach would have said "you're doing serious damage here, try singing this way instead" as you can hear on the AC/DC run Axl didn't really change his approach. AC/DC was very demanding for Axl, and his voice did crack here and there going for those insane notes, so it's easy to point at that and say this is the smoking gun. If anything damaged his voice, it was the Guns tour having 2 3hr shows in a row, at his age he needs rest of at least a day between shows.

The damage to Axls voice is simply that he stopped working as hard sometime towards the end of 2016, went into auto pilot, lost a step and now age is kicking his ass for it. IF AC/DC had destroyed his voice, then the NITL tour would have been scrapped in 2016 as his voice had been destroyed... as you point out 7+ years it rolls on as he could still sing. He stopped practicing as regularly, went back to just doing warm ups/downs on show days and slowly but surely his voice got weaker (as you need to work on your voice almost every day of the week, in a use it or lose it way). Now, I can't say any of that for fact, but to me that's what it sounds like... but I'm not a vocal coach/expert. I do believe he can still build that part of his voice again if he followed a strict routine with a coach that specialises in vocal repair/recovery. 

Agreed though, adjust the playlist, make the sets shorter and to the point. Doesn't need to be playing as long any more!

- "Once again", as if "it’s already been established", yeah, no. It’s just an opinion, bud. The reality was different according to my ears. Especially towards the end of that tour, but we’re mainly talking about long-term consequences here. 
- And yes, combined with the subsequent nonsensically long tour, it got worse. But thinking the AC tour didn’t do anything to his throat is just misguided and... absurd, in my eyes. Again, also just an opinion. 
- There’s this almost fanatical opinion that Axl’s voice deterioration is strictly based on whether or not he uses a vocal coach. One could ask why he, a professional, would deliberately sound the way he sounds (and he's not deaf, is he) and audibly suffer when all he’d had to do is take an occasional hour or two with a coach, especially considering we know he does vocal exercises. Wouldn’t the fact he just can't be expected to handle such strain as AC/DC in his age make way, and I mean way much more sense? He used that coach to handle the extreme AC stuff. After that, he went back to his material, which mostly doesn’t need as much power, and clearly started preserving his voice. But the slope had already begun – due to that wear and tear from 2016. There’s no way he could handle singing like that for several years in a row. Plus most Guns songs are written for a medium rasp which he didn’t do that much in the first place even before AC. In any case, this definitely is not "it’s just simply this and that" case. It’s a combination of all of the above, but AC/DC took a fucking toll, as awesome as it was (and all we got is one or two pro-shot videos of single songs ffs). 

Edited June 6, 2023 by jamillos

[DeNfr]

the truth is that his voice has gradually deteriorated since 2008, when it was at its peak

[axlweave]

In reality Axls voice was damaged in 91 

[Stay.Of.Execution]

2 minutes ago, axlweave said:

In reality Axls voice was damaged in 91 

Well, but it came back in 92, so... 

[liers]

Axl has sounded the way he does for much of the past 22 years. He blew his voice in the 90s and aside from a year here or a year there it never recovered. But how many stadiums and arenas has he sold out in the past 22 years? Why would he stop touring just because some people on a forum tell him to when the band is still taking in loads of cash? People are saying to drop certain songs from the set list, but they’re forgetting this band has a limited catalog and fans want to see the songs at shows that they know. They don’t want to heat down at the farm instead of you could be mine. They want the radio hits even if he sounds like crap singing them.

[Live Like a Suicide]

Axl has always had vocal troubles, including blow outs in the 80s... That his vocals can be inconsistent and prone to highs and lows is nothing new. Having seen the NITL incarnation of GNR in 2017 and 2022, I think Axl sounded better in the former but still very powerful in the latter (despite the rigours of touring and aging). He may not reach all the rasp and high notes anymore, but his clean vocals still cut through in a live setting. In fact, i daresay his clean vocals are more powerful now than they have been over the last decade, so it seems he is still working on his performance.

 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Live Like a Suicide

[Mikey Whipwreck]

The AC/DC stint has nothing to do with the current state of his vocals 

His voice was sounding shot at times 2011-2014 and he came back sounding better than ever with AC/DC. 

2016-2017 he sounded the same or better than he did 2011-2014, depending on the day you caught him. It's gotten worse from there because of age, wear and tear from touring and perhaps not caring as much 

The other thing is, AC/DC is probably easier to sing for him than Guns. Not strictly in terms of vocal power, but range and breath control. GnR lyrics are typically denser and have to be delivered faster. AC/DC lyrics or more "chant like," you're not having to sing with power and spit out a bunch of syllables with nowhere to take a breath. YCMB and Better, for example, have sections that are ridiculously hard songs to sing from a breath control perspective

Not a coincidence that Riff Raff and Whole Lotta Rosie were always among his the best performances of the night 2009-2014

[jcjunior86]

Usually I don´t post here, I only look around and see the topics to keep informed. But seriously that people here are complaining about Axl's voice? From all the videos I've seen from the Tel Aviv show they are all, keeping in mind that he is 61 years old, pretty solid. I think it is the best vocal for the last 3 or 4 years.

The dude isn't 30-40 or even 50 years old anymore. He won´t get better, we have to accept it. But he made a huge progress comparing the last 3 or 4 years...

[VeeR]

22 minutes ago, jcjunior86 said:

Usually I don´t post here, I only look around and see the topics to keep informed. But seriously that people here are complaining about Axl's voice? From all the videos I've seen from the Tel Aviv show they are all, keeping in mind that he is 61 years old, pretty solid. I think it is the best vocal for the last 3 or 4 years.

The dude isn't 30-40 or even 50 years old anymore. He won´t get better, we have to accept it. But he made a huge progress comparing the last 3 or 4 years...

Agree.

Is it even fair to expect vocals from Axl that are on par with 2016?

Father time is a bitch.

Edited June 6, 2023 by VeeR

[Pedrolg]

AC/DC has absolutely everything to do with it. The most destructive thing you can do to your voice is constantly push it to sing at the very upper limits of your natural range. The second most destructive thing is using a lot of rasp/drive. Proper vocal technique (something that Axl knows and applies, I got into detail on that a while back) will go a long way in protecting your voice, but not to the extent some people here think it will. Doing what Axl has done throughout his career will hurt any voice.

AC/DC with Brian Johnson material is absolutely insane. Brian was an insane vocalist, to those not familiar with his full body of work, I'd recommend listening to some of his material with Geordie. Once he joined AC/DC and started to sing those songs, his prime was gone in about 3 years. By 83 he was deteriorating. He certainly did a better job than Axl findind ways to keep sounding fine and performing, but his voice has been shot to bits for years.

If you look at Axl, he had his ups and downs from 2012 to 2016 but more or less preserved some of his ability. While his mid range was already shot, he pretty much had, throughout the period, that very powerful, full of overdrive voice at his very upper range. It is on display multiple times in that period, from the US shows in 2012, to TWAT in 2014 in Vegas, and in a lot of the 2016 reunion shows.

AC/DC came, and Axl started to use the voice constantly through whole sets. At the very upper limits of his range, with chainsaw rasp. I reckon that, at that point, it felt relatively comfortable and safe for him to do it. Still, at the second half of the AC/DC tour there were clear signs that he was overdoing it. That voice started to fail for the first time in his career, with cracks and stuff. 

It was downhill from there. By 2017, while still somewhat decent, he was a totally different animal already. From 2018 to today, it's a whole new level of deterioration, with a lot of issues that never happened before in his career. Look closely and you will notice that a lot of those involve the upper zones of his range - being phisically unable to sing This I Love, the outro to YCBM etc. Pushing his limits had absolutely everything to with it.

On a positive note, considering the past few years, natural progression would mean him coming out this tour simply unable to sing. The fact that his is reaching the notes again, attempting stuff like TIL and sounding remotely decent indicates that he put in lots of work in the offseason to salvage whatever he has left. We do need to come to terms with the fact that this is what is left in his tank. What he is doing now is much safer, so he might be able to sustain this for a few years.

[Rovim]

just repeating something someone has said already cause I think it's a good point: this is just the second show of the 2023 tour, and it's off to a pretty good start and we know that usually it takes Axl a few gigs to warm up so it might be even better as the tour progresses.

[Rovim]

14 minutes ago, Pedrolg said:

AC/DC has absolutely everything to do with it. The most destructive thing you can do to your voice is constantly push it to sing at the very upper limits of your natural range. The second most destructive thing is using a lot of rasp/drive. Proper vocal technique (something that Axl knows and applies, I got into detail on that a while back) will go a long way in protecting your voice, but not to the extent some people here think it will. Doing what Axl has done throughout his career will hurt any voice.

AC/DC with Brian Johnson material is absolutely insane. Brian was an insane vocalist, to those not familiar with his full body of work, I'd recommend listening to some of his material with Geordie. Once he joined AC/DC and started to sing those songs, his prime was gone in about 3 years. By 83 he was deteriorating. He certainly did a better job than Axl findind ways to keep sounding fine and performing, but his voice has been shot to bits for years.

If you look at Axl, he had his ups and downs from 2012 to 2016 but more or less preserved some of his ability. While his mid range was already shot, he pretty much had, throughout the period, that very powerful, full of overdrive voice at his very upper range. It is on display multiple times in that period, from the US shows in 2012, to TWAT in 2014 in Vegas, and in a lot of the 2016 reunion shows.

AC/DC came, and Axl started to use the voice constantly through whole sets. At the very upper limits of his range, with chainsaw rasp. I reckon that, at that point, it felt relatively comfortable and safe for him to do it. Still, at the second half of the AC/DC tour there were clear signs that he was overdoing it. That voice started to fail for the first time in his career, with cracks and stuff. 

It was downhill from there. By 2017, while still somewhat decent, he was a totally different animal already. From 2018 to today, it's a whole new level of deterioration, with a lot of issues that never happened before in his career. Look closely and you will notice that a lot of those involve the upper zones of his range - being phisically unable to sing This I Love, the outro to YCBM etc. Pushing his limits had absolutely everything to with it.

On a positive note, considering the past few years, natural progression would mean him coming out this tour simply unable to sing. The fact that his is reaching the notes again, attempting stuff like TIL and sounding remotely decent indicates that he put in lots of work in the offseason to salvage whatever he has left. We do need to come to terms with the fact that this is what is left in his tank. What he is doing now is much safer, so he might be able to sustain this for a few years.

that wasn't the first time his voice started to fail with cracks and stuff. He absolutely shredded his voice in the early 90's and there were a bunch of live shows with Gn'R after the AC/DC stint which he still had it imo, so I'm not convinced. Just my opinion.

edit: also, in 2010 Axl pushed his voice hard with a shitload of rasp, then in 2011...well it wasn't the same only for it to come back in 2016 and even earlier.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Rovim

[rudolf1978]

Axl blew out his voice from the end of the tour 2010 to 2011. In 2011 we started to see the comeback to 2000s. With acdc he managed to sing well without a full rasp but if you see the whole show with acdc there were mickey mouse moments. We are not going to see the axl from 90s or 2010 anymore. It has been 13years now from his last awesome performance. In 2010 tour

[ruttu69]

17 minutes ago, rudolf1978 said:

Axl blew out his voice from the end of the tour 2010 to 2011.

That sounds realistic. Singing Rocket Queen like this https://youtube.com/watch?v=IxiCwqZtDeE must have done some damage :/

[Mikey Whipwreck]

46 minutes ago, Rovim said:

that wasn't the first time his voice started to fail with cracks and stuff. He absolutely shredded his voice in the early 90's and there were a bunch of live shows with Gn'R after the AC/DC stint which he still had it imo, so I'm not convinced. Just my opinion.

edit: also, in 2010 Axl pushed his voice hard with a shitload of rasp, then in 2011...well it wasn't the same only for it to come back in 2016 and even earlier.

Been this way ever since his original comeback 

2001-2002: voice was much cleaner, occasionally seemed out of breath and lacking power, but still "had it" when he wanted as shown with the LALD screams 

2006: great for the most part. Rasp was back, more consistent power, and still had tremendous range 

2009-2010: like 2006 but arguably better 

2011-2014: voice sounded completely shot at some shows, solid at others but clear step back from the previous two tours. Breath control was diminishing. Of note, routinely sounded great doing Riff Raff and Whole Lotta Rosie even when struggling on GnR material 

2016 Axl/DC: sounded great, it was obvious he took this gig very seriously 

2016-2017: far from perfect but higher floor and higher ceiling than 2011-2014. I saw them after Axl/DC and he was so much better than he was in 2014. 

It's been downhill from there. Playing hundreds of shows at in the 3 hours range combined with the continual effects of aging and his diminishing interest have had a lot more impact than doing 22 shows with AC/DC

Edited June 6, 2023 by Mikey Whipwreck

[DeNfr]

1 hour ago, jcjunior86 said:

keeping in mind that he is 61 years old
The dude isn't 30-40 or even 50 years old anymore.

 

Mike Patton is 55. Steven Tyler is 75.

we don't all age the same way, but I think he pays for years without a vocal coach, and without rethinking the way he sings his old hits.
it looks like he finally got it but if he had done this from 2010 he probably could have maintained his vocal cords in a better shape.

 

[Rovim]

Just now, DeNfr said:

 

Mike Patton is 55. Steven Tyler is 75.

we don't all age the same way, but I think he pays for years without a vocal coach, and without rethinking the way he sings his old hits.
it looks like he finally got it but if he had done this from 2010 he probably could have maintained his vocal cords in a better shape.

 

Steven Tyler had vocal chords surgery. The clean voice starting from early 2000 was rethinking the way he sings the old hits. A way to preserve I'm guessing.

I don't think that Axl ever really knows on what night he is going to land, if it's going to be a good night vocally speaking or a challenging one. He was always so hit and miss and now, as others said, his age and the years of singing in the very crazy hard rock style of his has caught up with him, but there's still some gas in the tank there imo.