2012.02.10 - Roseland Ballroom, NY, USA

DjASHBA So excited about this tour, i'm looking forward to playing some smaller venues for once!! Hope to see you all at...

DjASHBA New York, here come's trouble! 4 hours ago · reply · retweet · favorite

bumblefoot Heading to the NYC hotel in a half hour..... let the wackiness begin. 54 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

gunsnroses Roseland Ballroom gonna be a Jungle tonight! Bang! Bang! POW! #UCAP 4 minutes ago · reply · retweet · favorite

Gonna be using the new @getcrowdstream app to share pics & stuff at the @gunsnroses shows with other people there

Check out my FB tab at https://www.facebook.com/bumblefoot?sk=app_210186072353984

If you're using a Blackberry or Droid, "Check In" at http://gunsnrosescheckin.com

iPhone users get the app at http://bit.ly/k5jXjS

OK, enough plugging, lol. Enjoy the app, cya soon

Ron

Guns N’ Roses, on Stage in Unchanging Fashion
By STACEY ANDERSON
Published: February 11, 2012

Axl Rose loves Fashion Week. Mr. Rose, the Guns N’ Roses front man reintroduced the band to Manhattan tastemakers in a surprise performance during Fashion Week two years ago after a long absence, and he has chosen this year’s event to stage the band’s three-night residency in New York.

It’s no wonder he appreciates the event: each season, Fashion Week celebrates fads re-appropriated from the past, proving that mainstream taste is cyclical. Mr. Rose, who turned 50 on Monday and who will soon be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, seems more content than ever to wait for the public’s taste to swing back in his favor. As he demonstrated on Friday at the Roseland Ballroom, the residency’s first evening, he clings to his bombastic, outmoded brand of rock and feels no need to modernize it. It is fitting that, in the current ’90s revival dominating runways and rock ’n’ roll, he again refuses to adapt to the rough-hewn form of rock now in vogue, like that which dethroned him in 1992, when Nirvana made Guns N’ Roses’ decadence seem hopelessly uncool.

In many ways the Roseland show could have happened at any point in the 25 years since the band released its seminal first album, “Appetite for Destruction.” The nearly three-hour show was laden with familiar extravagances: grandiose guitar solos, the band’s aggressively priapic stage presence, Mr. Rose’s multiple costume changes and pliant snake dance. Yet it was a far more streamlined production than past outings; it almost started on time, for one, with nary an onstage tantrum. Mr. Rose remained the sole original member, though the keyboardist Dizzy Reed has hung on since the early 1990s; the backing musicians suggested a giddy, faithful cover act.

The band’s opening song was, surprisingly, its most famous: “Welcome to the Jungle,” the howl that built its kingdom. The band then segued into note-perfect renditions of two more hits from “Appetite,” “It’s So Easy” and “Mr. Brownstone.” Throughout the evening, the band favored its classic material, namely tracks from “Appetite” and “Use Your Illusion” Volumes I and II. “Civil War” and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, ” both from “Illusion II,” were stirring with comparatively modest instrumentation, highlighting Mr. Rose’s still-spectacular vocals and piercing ululation. On piano, he delivered “November Rain” to full power-ballad splendor, with every second of its majestic coda intact, followed by AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie,” one of Mr. Rose’s characteristic odes a Rubenesque woman.

Wisely, the band parceled out tracks from “Chinese Democracy,” Mr. Rose’s wildly overproduced album that took 17 years and countless musicians to create; it arrived in 2008 as a remnant of a bygone music industry, one that could indulge a mad auteur. A few of its cuts surfaced mid-set, seemingly as irrelevant as they were when the album was released. They created a lull, notably “Sorry” and its refrain “I’m sorry for you/Not sorry for me,” for which the audience tepidly joined in.

Late in the night, the audience sang “Happy Birthday” to Mr. Rose, to which he replied, “I have been in Guns N’ Roses for half my life.” The words rang with a kind of pleased defiance.

Guns N’ Roses will perform on Sunday at Terminal 5 and at Webster Hall on Wednesday.

DjASHBA So good to be back in NY! What a fun crowd last night! about 1 minute ago · reply · retweet · favorite

Guns n’ Roses come back to the jungle at Roseland Ballroom

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The mighty Guns n’ Roses brought their arena-dominating show to Roseland Ballroom on Friday night, laying out some 25 classic Gn’R favorites for one of the band’s most intimate concerts in years.

“You know where you are?” shrieked W. Axl Rose at 11:30pm, a surprisingly reasonable hour for ‘Axl time.’ The echoing notes of Welcome to the Jungle instantly energized the thousand or so fans on the floor of Roseland Ballroom, and thus began an epic, almost 3 hour performance that would run through virtually every classic Gn’R hit and then some.

Rose and his hired Guns are playing a 3 show residency in Gotham as part of Fashion Week, and while all three shows ostensibly sold out, tickets were still available at the box office on Friday night while scalpers desperately tried to dump their stock on the street. Inside, though, was the usual bubbling excitement that Axl generates everywhere he goes. “Will he be on time?” “Will he sound okay?” “Will he show up at all?”
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The answer was a resounding "Hell yes!” Jungle was followed by It’s So Easy and Mr. Brownstone, and the singing powerhouse that is Axl Rose effortlessly proved that no matter what his detractors might say, the 50 year old can still hit the high notes with a head-spinning ferocity, and the opening Appetite for Destruction songs sounded as good as ever.

Axl & friends just came around this way in November on a raging stadium tour (read my review of their Izod Center performance by clicking here), and Friday night’s show turned out to be a stripped down but just as spectacular performance. Gone were the towering blasts of pyro and elaborate risers, though a video screen showed blazing fireballs on Live and Let Die, and with a much smaller stage than usual, not only couldn’t Axl run amok like he usually does, guitarists D.J. Ashba, Richard Fortus, and Bumblefoot (read my interview with Bumblefoot here) were almost tripping over each other as the 8 man band adjusted to the cramped club stage.

But nothing could stop the group from delivering an incomparable performance that still has this Examiner’s ears ringing the next day. Moving at a faster pace than on the arena tour, Axl plowed through favorites like You Could Be Mine and Rocket Queen with his trademark fervor, and unleashed howling, almost 10 second long screams on Live and Let Die while the guitarists and powerhouse drummer Frank Ferrer laid down crushing rhythms, riffs, and solos. Newer songs from 2008’s Chinese Democracy album were mostly crammed together; This I Love, Sorry, and Better would be joined by an encore of Madagascar later in the night, but the record’s title track never appeared.

On the floor of the ballroom, fans marvelled at being so close to the notoriously private frontman, and Axl seemed to love every second of it. At least two lucky fans up against the barricades went home last night with hands that shook Axl’s, and the smile on the singer’s face was obvious from virtually every point in the venue. Mid-way through the night, Axl’s manager came out on stage to have everyone sing Happy Birthday to the just-turned 50 vocalist, and that seemed to be the only point in the performance that Axl was unsure of himself. After bashfully trying to sneak off the stage, he wryly told the crowd “I’ve been in Guns n’ Roses for half of my life.”

One of the joys of a Guns n’ Roses concert is that you’re not stuck waiting half the night for your favorite song, because every song is a favorite. That said, screams of delight rang out as D.J. Ashba played the iconic opening notes of Sweet Child O’ Mine, and a group jam on Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall theme led into a stunning November Rain, arguably the best performance of the show. By the time Bumblefoot began teasing the crowd with the chords from Don’t Cry, one might have forgotten just how many Gn’R songs there are to love.

With less personal solos and cover songs than the arena tour, the night moved along at a brisk pace and as the 1am hour breezed by, the hits just kept on coming. Civil War was a pleasant surprise after being omitted at the November Izod show, and Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door turned into a long, almost 10 minute jam on the classic Dylan tune (watch my video on the left sidebar).

All four of the night’s encores - the aforementioned Madagascar and Don’t Cry, followed by an acoustic Patience and party anthem closer Paradise City - were started by the guitarists improvising on the tracks’ chords with arpeggioed notes that sounded aggravatingly familiar until they morphed into the melodies stamped into rock radio’s top playlists. It goes to show that the 21st century Guns n’ Roses isn’t just Axl reliving his glory days, but a monstrously talented group of musicians who take treasured material and somehow make it even better. Paradise City ended in a blizzard of red confetti and shrieking, doubletapped guitar solos that overpowered both eyes and ears in a sensory overdose, a posterchild for sheer rock n’ roll exuberance that’s as timeless as it is exhilarating.

Make no mistake: Guns n’ Roses is an arena rock band, one that seems incapable of delivering anything less than a full blast stadium performance and spectacle. So what happens when you cram all that talent and energy into a 3,000 capacity club? You get last night’s show, one that will surely go down as one of the most stunning in recent NYC history. Hit after hit was delivered not only to perfection, but with the top notch showmanship and bravado one has come to expect from Axl Rose and his band. There are only a handful of artists who can bring a show on this level, and they’re sure as hell not playing Roseland Ballroom.

If for whatever reason you have yet to see Guns n’ Roses in its modern incarnation, there are two more chances to right that wrong when the band plays Terminal 5 on Sunday night, and then Webster Hall (renamed back to The Ritz for one night only) on Wednesday.

As always, stay in the loop with the Hard Rock Examiner for further information on tickets on-sales and all local rock and heavy metal news by subscribing at the top of this page, or follow me at twitter.com/NYROCKEXAMINER.

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Guns N' Roses Kick Off 2012 Tour With Epic New York Club Show
The nearly three-hour set went until 2:15 a.m.

It's hard to walk into a Guns N' Roses concert these days without feeling a bit of trepidation. This is not exactly a band that's gone out of their way to be fan-friendly these past two decades. In that time, Axl Rose parted ways with the entire original line-up, released only a single album of new material and routinely started concerts ludicrously late, sometimes not taking the stage until midnight and playing until 3:00 a.m. In the handful of interviews he's granted recently, he pins the blame for these things almost entirely on other people. With all that in mind, I decided to keep my expectations low for the opening night of the group's 2012 tour.

Kudos to whoever decided to not even open the doors to the Roseland Ballroom until 9:00 p.m., and not having opening band Manitoba (featuring Dictators frontman Handsome Dick Manitoba) take the stage until 10:20. When the lights turned off at 11:30 and the opening notes of "Welcome To The Jungle" began ringing out across the venue, it actually seemed somewhat early. Even after all these years, it's still a little weird to see a bunch of other guys playing this song - but once Axl opens his mouth and screams "Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games!" all that is forgotten. He sounded absolutely amazing. Who would have guessed that at age 50 his wild banshee wail would sound largely undiminished?

He followed it up with two more songs from Appetite For Destruction, "It's So Easy" and "Mr. Brownstone." If you closed your eyes, you could almost imagine you were seeing Guns N' Roses on the Sunset Strip in 1987. Axl sounded that good. Then you open your eyes, and see a 50-year-old Axl in a black cowboy hat and sunglasses singing alongside some guy named Bumblefoot and you're brought right back to reality. For this brief club tour, the arena-sized stage has been drastically scaled down and the pyro completely removed. The video screen remained, often showing incongruous images like dolphins and ballerinas.

It couldn't be easy being in this band. Every single member must be painfully aware that the vast majority of the audience wish that other people were playing their instruments. That said, they do an incredible job - even if takes three guitarists to do what Slash and Izzy used to do. Who could have ever imagined 20 years ago that Tommy Stinson of the Replacements would wind up in Guns N' Roses? But there is he thumping away on "Rocket Queen," looking like he's having a blast. Weird as it may seem, some of these guys have been in the band far longer than the original line-up. That makes it pretty had to call them a glorified cover band.

The setlist was pretty consistent with what Axl's been doing for the past decade: lots of Appetite For Destruction, lots of covers and a handful of cuts from Chinese Democracy. For years he steered largely clear of the Use Your Illusion albums with the exception of "November Rain" and "You Could Be Mine." But in the past year he's added "Civil War," "Don't Cry" and even "Estranged" into the regular mix. Each one is an epic, and in many ways the complex songs sound better with this expanded line-up of the band than some of the older material. To make room in the show for them, Axl dropped some cuts from Chinese Democracy. Nobody seemed to mind, though it must be said that "Better" and "Madagascar" are great songs that fit in nicely with the rest of the show.

Every forty minutes or so, Axl ran off the stage and let the band play an instrumental. They did bits of "Waiting On A Friend," "Another Brick In The Wall: Part 2," the DJ Ashba original "Ballad of Death" and even the theme song to the Pink Panther. Each time it robbed the show of momentum, and posed an obvious question: what the hell is Axl doing back there besides putting on a new cowboy hat? Breathing into an oxygen mask? Getting shot up with cortisone? Sticking pins into a Slash voodoo doll? Like most things in the world of Axl Rose, there are more questions than answers.

Towards the end of the night, Axl's longtime personal assistant Beta Lebeis grabbed the mic and had the audience sing Axl "Happy Birthday." (He turned 50 on February 6th.) "I've been in this band now for 25 years," Axl said afterwards. "That's half my life - definitely the better half." As the clock neared 2:00 a.m. and my knees began to throb because I'd been standing in the exact same spot since 9:30 p.m., Axl left the stage again and let Tommy Stinson sing his original tune "Motivation." Some people headed toward the exits and others were anxiously looking at their watches, but those who stayed were rewarded when the roadies handed out acoustic guitars and the group launched into "Patience." In many ways, it's become the theme song for long-suffering Guns N' Roses fans.

The night ended at 2:15 a.m. with the inevitable "Paradise City," complete with a cannon firing red confetti all over the audience. The band all took a bow and Axl attempted to say something into the mic, but it was turned off. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked off. Now, this isn't the Guns N' Roses line-up that everybody wants to see tour. Chinese Democracy didn't live up to expectations and it's maddening that Axl can't take the stage at a reasonable time - but the show still wildly exceeded my expectations. Say what you will about Axl, when he's onstage he sings his ass off and gives it his all.

As the crowd inched towards the exit, "My Way" blasted from the P.A. I'm not sure if this was an Axl selection, but it made perfect sense. He's always been a man that has done things his way, regardless of what anyone else thinks. In two months he's getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Regardless of what happens at the ceremony regarding a reunion, it'll certainly all go down precisely his way. That's the only way he's ever operated.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/guns-n-roses-kick-off-2012-tour-with-epic-new-york-club-show-20120211#ixzz1m9PD8uNx

Sounding as strong as ever, 50-year-old Axl Rose led Guns N Roses in an intimate performance at Roseland Ballroom in NYC during Fashion Week. Guns N Roses 2012 tour dates include performances in major cities in the United States and Europe.

The distinctively amazing voice of Axl Rose leading Guns N Roses filled Roseland Ballroom in NYC. The intimate concert kicked off a series of Guns N Roses 2012 tour dates in major cities in the United States and Europe.

Wearing a black cowboy hat and sunglasses, Axl Rose belted out familiar favorites such as “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Nightrain,” “Patience,” and “Paradise City.” Axl Rose parted with the original line-up and current band members include Tommy Stinson of the Replacements. Some of the new players have been with the band longer than the original line-up.

Soulmonster wrote:Only four more days. I am really curious about this show...will there be any changes from 2011? An acoustic intermezzo in the concert? New songs? Smaller set list?