Guns N' Roses Live@Nottingham Arena 27/07/06

[WestCoastStrutter]

OK, I've never wrote any type of review before BUT the night i saw GnR Live was the best night of my life so I'm gonna try to share it with you.....

Firstly I want to let you know that I'm 26 years old, I've been into GnR Since 1987 (when i was only 7) but unfortunatley, because of my age back then i never got to see the original line up live.

On July 27th, 2006 GnR were playing my home town, Nottingham. Me and a very good friend had our tickets ready, we'd had them since 9.00am the morning they went on sale! I swear i must have been the first person to buy a ticket for this show, but, anyway...

On the day i met my friend in town to go for a few beers before the show, this will probably sound stupid but i was actually nervous about seeing my idles live! I'd been into them since they pretty much came out so I'd followed everthing, the debut, the popularity, the way they rulled the world stage at 1 time all the way through to the bitter break up and i'd brought every album along the way! I'd also read or heard all the bad publicity new gnr were recieving. Im not normly one to pay any attention to the press BUT with new gnr the bad publicity and rubbish reviews were so frequant it was heard not to notice it and half the time this bad publicity was coming directly form the fans who used to love them!

Anyway, after 9 or 10 beers me and my friend headed to the show. Even though I never got to see the original line up live my friend was a bit older than me and he had........TWICE! Because he had experience with gnr he decided that we should leave it as late as possible cuz they were bound to show up late! They where scheduled to play at 9.00pm....we didn't arive till 9.45!!!! How cool is that? We were late for a GnR gig!!

He was right of course and when we walked inside the arena Mullet for my Clemantine(or bullet for my vallentine depending on weather you like them) were winging down the mic! (they were fuck**n shite)

It got to about 10.15pm (1 hour 15mins late) and the crowd were starting to get restless, lots of booing and bottles being thrown about. Just when it seemed that the place was gonna desend into a full scale riot, the music from the system stopped! At the same time as that the lights went down! Compleatley Pitch Black!

Then the moment I had waited all my life for........A spotlight came on the whole crowd, the opening chords of WTTJ kicked in and the man himself screeched "D'YA KNOW WHERE THE FUCK YOU ARE" everyone went crazy!!! All of a sudden there they were on stage! Axl and Co,EVERYONE surged forward! As the build up for WTTJ carry'd on there was a huge explosion of indoor fireworks and that was it......HYSTERIA! Everyone in the arena singing along at the top of there voice, everywhere you looked people were headbanging, it was heavan! And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, WTTJ was followed in quick succesion by a 1-2-3 sucker-punch of IT'S SO EASY/MR BROWNSTONE AND LIVE AND LET DIE! No break between each song, each song filled with explosion after explosion while Axl ran around the stage going fuckin ballistic, just like the good old days! After the 4th song the music stopped (i already felt fucked!) and axl introduced himself and the band to everyone. It was as if GnR knew that we would need a rest after that intro as they introduced a new song...."BETTER" a truley great song BUT time for everyone to catch there breath before another classic! After that they played KOHD (witch everyone sang along to) YCBM (witch everyone went ballistic to) and Out Ta Get Me wich at the end axl looked out at the crowd and said "so why don't you take that one to your fucking heart Nott-ing-ham" From here on it's a bit of a blur, as i said at the start I'd had at least 9 pints of beer before but i remeber them playing TWAT, SCOM, NOVEMBER RAIN, DON'T CRY (Guitars only!)MADAGASCAR(what a fuckin song man, axl at his best) and C/D. After Chinese D Axl stopped the music again and introduced us to a very good friend "Mr Izzy Stradlin" as before the crowd went balistic!!! Izzy Played on and NAILED the following classics : THINK ABOUT YOU (at the start of that song some dick threw something at Axl and the whole band stopped the music instantley and axl said something along the lines of "There;s always 1 cunt that wants to ruin it for everyone else!!! if 1 more thing is thrown at any of us were going home") They started THINK ABOUT YOU from the start and luckily nothing else was thrown! Izzy also played on USED TO LOVE HER, PATIENCE, MY MICHELLE AND NIGHTRAIN. At the end of nightrain the music stopped and everyone waited for the encore of Paradise city but right at the end of nightrain Axl said his "good fuckin night" bit and threw his mic into the crowd before walking off stage! WAS THAT THE LAST SONG??? There was nothing but crowd noise for about 5 minutes and then out came the band (with Izzy) playing the first chords to Paradise City!! By this time the arena was absolutly jumping, i think everyone knew that this might be there last ever chance to see Axl and new gnr live and everyone wanted to see them out with a huge bang!!! It was all happening! Axls Voice, killer guitar solos, fireworks, crowd singing, everyone jumping in time and confetti everywhere! Then get this people, right at the end of the song (and the concert) axl looks out to the crowd, puts the mic to his lips and screems "NOTTINGHAM! GOOD FUCKING NIGHT" he then throws his mic out into the crowd, everyones cheering, then i relise, wait a minute! thats axls mic! and its coming right for me! ITS GETTING CLOSSER!! I put my drunken hand in the air in a lame atempt to catch it BUT it bounced straight out of my hand, hit the floor behind me and was jumped on by about 20 people! SHIT! IF I HADN'T DRANK 9 PINTS OF BEER BEFORE I WOULD HAVE WALKED OUT OF THAT PLACE WITH AXL FUCKING ROSES MIC! Oh well........what a night...THE BEST OF MY LIFE! Axl said at the end that we'd been a great audience and he hoped to see us again soon..........I can only pray.....

Sorry if i went on a bit....hope you enjoyed this, my first ever review..