2012.02.27 - The Electric Factory, Philadelphia, USA

Ok, so obviously I dont post much but I'm a constant reader and wanted to give my review / experience. Been a huge fan since roughly 1993 ( i was 14 ), but had never seen them live until attempting to see them in Philly in 2002, then finally seeing them at MSG in 2006. Went to Scranton and Camden shows in 2011, both of which were pretty good with Camden being significantly better. Had always read on HTGTH but the light clicked for me when watching RIR 2011 when all the honest posts kept getting deleted, and that was when I started reading this board. Anyway...

Myself and 4 other friends got to the EF around 9:35, and the place was not extremely crowded. We went straight up to the balcony on the side and were in the 2nd row. Had we wanted to stay down on the floor, we probably would have been in the 10th row at worst at that point. We did talk to the guys at the box office and they said that they had sold out, but we assumed many went to scalpers. Our seats were great, 2nd row balcony on the right side, very close to Philly Guns ( who i met but up to that point had never posted so giving him my username was pointless haha ). By the time the opening act finished, the floor had completely filled up and the balcony was multiple rows deep. The opening act was not terrible but not great. They were entertaining - the lead singer had a lot of charisma and the music was decent. Tough for them to win over the crowd when no one really was there to see them, but i did see a couple people singing a lot, etc. They went off stage literally almost exactly at 11. I was telling all my friends that it'll be midnight or later, most likely, especially since 1) they always seem to take 1 hour or so after the opener is done, and 2) the last couple shows i believe were closer to midnight. Around 11:25, the change over was completely done, and i figured we had a 30 minute wait. We all took Over / Under bets.... and.... i lost haha.... becuase at 11:35 the lights went down and the place gave a "surprised erruption". Maybe he was trying to make up for 2002, but a 35 minute change over for GNR was amazing to me. They intro was not Dexter, it was the other new one ( i forget what its from ).

The crowd was into it from the get go. Hard to compare to the Camden crowd because this was much more intimate, but it definitely seemed like a more intense crowd than the previous show in this area. I wasnt at Atlantic City so cant compare to that, which i heard was a good crowd. CD rocked as usual, and immediately i said to my friend that Axl sounded perfect in the audio mix. My previous live experiences, and from some youtube clips, it seemed like the combo of the crowd noise and the mix being not perfect for the first song resulted in his vocals being hard to hear on CD, but he sounded great and very clear. Jungle / ISE / Brownstone were fantastic as usual. Axl's scream to kick off Jungle seemed more intense than usual. During these songs it became apparent that he was having a good night vocally. My one buddy was there in 2002, and isnt a hard core fan, so he sometimes like to bust on my obsession, etc etc, but he just turned to me and said " dude he sounds really, really good. I cant believe he's 50 and sounds like that". And thats not coming from a biased fan. I think we should all keep that in perspective. Sorry got the typical response - no thunderous applause but a decent amount of people singing and responding positively. You're Crazy, Estranged & Rocket Queen were crowd favorites, as usual. You're Crazy particularly went over better than I thought it would, since it wasnt a mainstsay. His vocals on Rocket Queen were far better than Camden, and much better than how he normally sounds on Youtube ( i know, it never does justice anyway ). Live and Let Die was very good - his scream was more intense than the 2 previous shows i saw. This I Love was great - one comment is that i think it takes him some time to recover from the LALD screaming and the first verse of TIL seemed tough for him. He was fine by the 2nd verse.

It was about this time, somewhere towards the end of TIL or the beginning of Used To Love Her that people started realizing that Bumble was not on stage. Being on the right side, we could see to the far side / back of the stage, and all of a sudden we noticed this pair of legs sticking out from between two amps, with a guitar resting on them and the guy's head learning up against the amp. Obviously, took two seconds to realize it was Ron, and that he was having serious issues. For a few minutes he flat out didnt move and if we didnt know any better about his injury, you would have thought maybe he was passed out. At some point they took his guitar from him, i think during Motivation. He would alternate between depressingly leaning / laying back against the amp and then sitting forward with his head in his hands. I started wondering if other players could play his parts, etc etc. Right before Street of Dreams, they handed him his guitar back but he didnt get up, or even look like he was comfortable moving. As SOD started, he strummed the opening power chord and I honestly didnt expect him to last past that one song. He basically stayed there, playing with his guitar on his lap, all the way through SOD, YCBM, DJ's Solo, and the first half of SCOM. As DJ started the first half of the SCOM solo, Ron slowly stood up ( looked very tough for him to do ) and walked slowly over to his spot and took over the 2nd half of the solo. The crows on the left hand side of the stage, who obviously noticed his absence and could probably only see his legs sticking out from the amps and nothing else ( which must have looked ominous ), gave him a huge ovation as he walked out to play the solo. I could not believe he was out there plalying, especially when he had to wear the double necked guitar. He went back to sit down for November Rain, only coming back out to the front of the stage for the outro lead. By the way, all of the songs i mentioned in this section were fantastic. I'm not a big SOD guy, so honestly during that whole song i was concentrating on Ron anyway. November Rain was epic - no forgotten lyrics or cut off endings. I did miss the pyro though.

So, after November Rain, Axl looked over at Ron and basically said " How you feeling, Bumble? " ( oh, and previously i think during Sweet Child, Axl was walking across stage and sort of put his hand on Bumble's shoulders and held it there for a while, looking at him, seemingly saying " you ok man?". Bumble appeared to appreciate it ) He went on to say to the crowd " Bumble's vertebrate is not feeling as good as Bumble is tonight. I know that HE's feeling good, but his vertrebrate is saying " fuck you, Bumble! ". It was at least a nice gesture to address the issue, and to let the crowd know why he was off to the side. Still no idea if the idea of him not playing the rest of the show was talked about between the band, im sure it was obviously. So Ron did his solo, and Dont Cry, and i saw him joke around with the other guys a few times, like hitting them on the back and smiling, etc. Multiple times Richard had gone over to him to check on him to see if he was ok.

This is a long review, sorry. Civil War was an absolute highlight of the night. My buddy ( same guy i referenced above ) said it was his favorite moment of the night. The crowd was really into it. Shacklers Revenge, while still not received as well as an old song, is killer live in my opinion. KOHD was what it always is - if you ask me, its a fun song and Axl seems to really enjoy singing it, but.... i could do without it i think. I still cant get "Tracy and Roberta" out of my head when that song is played..... Nightrain was ridiculously good, and it sort of gave the crowd a 2nd wind. Nightrain was played around 2 AM, so some of the crowd was just getting tired. Still loving the show and responding well, but just losing some energy. So, Nightrain brought them back. Unfortunately, Madagascar didnt do anything to keep that energy going. It's one of my favorite songs on CD, but my personal opinion is it would fit better earlier in the set. I know Axl really likes the song, so, i get it why he's featuring it. But at 2:10 AM, the crowd doesnt respond much at all. Still sounded great. Better got a "better" response, and i still am looking forward to the song being well known enough where the crowd joins in with Axl when he does his jump-stomp during the guitar bridge. I was going nuts up on the balcony and almost took a guy out doing it. Patience was good, and of course Paradise was fantastic. I'd never been that close to the confetti, it was blinding and awesome.

All in all, probably my best GNR show i've personally been to ( i know, small sample size ). Oh, i forgot about the huge topic of him mentioning 2002. I posted the transcript earlier last night during the show, so, go read that haha. My impressions are 1) The crowd thought it was awesome that he was bringing it up, 2) I dont think the crowd bought his explanation at all, as it sort of sounded like BS, even though i do believe him that he probably tried to cancel it at 6 AM the day of because i remember hearing rumors that almost immediately after the NYC show the night before, he wasnt up to / in the mood / healthy enough to play Philly that night. But 3) They literally didnt care if his explanation sounded like BS, because as soon as he said " but I love Philly " they errupted and it sort of seemed like, at that moment, all was forgiven. At the very end of the night, after the bow when he was saying " drive home safe", etc, he also said " and again... my apologies for yester years ".

And, im done