1991.12.09 - Madison Square Garden, New York, USA

Review/Rock; Guns 'n' Roses Brings New Lineup to the Garden
By JON PARELES
Published: December 11, 1991

Guns 'n' Roses has staked its reputation on its volatility. W. Axl Rose, its lead singer, is famous for his temper, his onstage tirades and his conviction that self-indulgence plus self-importance equals integrity. The band's songs, which veer from raging hard-rock to wistful ballads, are a secondary draw. Yet when Guns 'n' Roses came to Madison Square Garden on Monday night for the first of three sold-out shows -- the final show is Friday night -- the most surprising part of its set was how routine it seemed.

The band has a new lineup for this part of its tour. Izzy Stradlin, the rhythm guitarist who co-wrote many of the songs on "Use Your Illusion" I and II (Geffen), the band's current best-selling albums, has quit, replaced for the tour by Gilbey Clarke. The band has also added two backup singers and three horn players, all women dressed in black lingerie. It's a horn section valued primarily for its G-strings. The women pouted and posed like Motley Crue's backup singers; also like Motley Crue, Guns 'n' Roses had an electronic display to flash its name between the set and encores, like an "Applause" sign.

As usual, the band went on late, nearly 90 minutes after the opening act, Soundgarden, had finished. As usual, the audience amused itself mightily between sets, aided by lighting and video crews who spotlighted girls who took off their shirts. As usual, the band worked hard once it appeared, playing for nearly 2 hours 45 minutes, with Mr. Rose and the other band members running and leaping around the stage as they knocked out one riff-and-screech song after another. (Near the end of the show, Mr. Rose announced that overtime would cost the band $24,000.)

And as usual, Mr. Rose stopped the show for his obligatory rant against the press. He excoriated Circus magazine, threatened lawsuits and asserted that someone had been hired to shoot him as revenge for nasty things he said in "Get in the Ring," the anti-press diatribe on "Use Your Illusion II." "I'm not really worried about what opening my mouth will do to my record sales," he announced, knowing he'd draw cheers. Lest anyone misunderstand his role in current rock, during "Civil War" he was dressed in a jacket with the word "rebel" above a Confederate flag.

Guns 'n' Roses' song choices vary from show to show, and Monday's set had a wildly uneven pace. Rockers like "Double Talkin' Jive," "Mr. Brownstone" or "You Could Be Mine" chomped down hard on the music, creating the perfect tension between muscular riffs and Mr. Rose's snarling or howling voice. Some ballads, like "Don't Cry," had terse, telling lead-guitar solos by Slash; others, like "Sweet Child o' Mine" or "November Rain," sounded mechanical as they shifted from a slow main section to a fast finale. It's hard to maintain momentum in such a long set, but at times Guns 'n' Roses seemed to be deliberately dragging the songs out, or just noodling through unaccompanied drum and guitar solos.

Hard-rock bands that sell millions of albums can usually count on their fans to shout and sing along, but Monday's audience was oddly restrained. Beyond the front rows, many people simply stood and watched as Mr. Rose raced around the stage, shimmying his shoulders or twirling his microphone stand and changing his costume every song or two; although the band played its ballad "Patience" quietly, as if expecting a sing-along, the audience didn't oblige. Only when Guns 'n' Roses played its MTV-promoted singles, or the house lights went on, did concertgoers make a show of enthusiasm. Partway through the set, Slash jokingly called the band "the No. 1 rock-and-roll cabaret act," but that's how its fans treated it.

David Fricke wrote:For once, Axl Rose had a good excuse for coming on an hour and a half late: He was sick, bitten by a demon flu that left him throwing up backstage between songs. Rose's illness accounted for both his extended absences from the stage and the rocky pacing of the show. Slash - looking, in his top hat and Cousin It curls, like the cover of T. Rex's Sliver come to life - covered for Rose with overlong guitar solos, and bassist Duff McKagan stepped in with a couple of lead vocals of his own. Rose also kept his stage oratory to a minimum, indulging in a brief anti-rock press rant "so the parasites looking for a meal ticket have something to write about" and making only a passing reference to departed guitarist Izzy Stradlin when he introduced new boy Gilby Clarke ("We got somebody who felt a little more like touring and hanging out with us").

But in spite of Rose's handicap, the Gunners didn't cheat on show time - nearly three hours - or shake appeal. When they were good, they rose to the heights of feral hysteria from Appetite For Destruction and the best parts of the Use Your Illusion twins. Once they hit the boards (to a tape of Leonard Cohen singing "Everybody Knows" - "Everybody knows that the dice are loaded … Everybody knows the good guys lost"), they ripped straight into "Nightrain" and "Mr. Brownstone," Rose racing all over the multitiered stage and hurling his mike stand javelin-style into the air, usually in a dangerous proximity to another Gunner. "Civil War," arguably the band's finest seven minutes on record, was a fierce, intensely focused serving of slow-burn agit-slam, sandwiched by Slash's burbling wah-wah quotations from Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)."

Even when they stumbled, the band members showed flashes of inspiration. "Don't Cry" was unwisely shoehorned between a storming "It's So Easy" and a long, unremarkable drum solo by Matt Sorum, but this rendition packed a greater anthemlike wallop than in the two Illusion versions. A formulaic reading of "Sweet Child O' Mine" was prefaced by Rose's soulful a cappella crooning of Grand Funk Railroad's "Bad Time" just as Slash hit the piercing signature riff of "Sweet Child."

The main downer of Guns N' Roses extramusical reputation and Axl Rose's loose-cannon antics is that they obscure the band's real rock & roll worth. Tonight, they ran the gamut from the sublime (a ravishing twin-guitar snippet of the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" by Slash and Clarke) to the seething (a ferocious "Double Talkin' Jive") to the silly (a female brass section and backup singers decked out in heavy-metal harlot lingerie). As for their aversion to punctuality, it's become a kind of ritualized anarchy, which is a contradiction in terms. Besides, the best rock & roll - and rock & roll spirit - is about not wasting time: it's about seizing the moment and jump-starting the vibe, not just waiting for it to hit. If Guns N' Roses really want to be unpredictable, they should try a surprise attack: Get the opening band offstage pronto, plug in straightaway and whip into "Nightrain" or, better yet, "Don't Damn Me" (alas, not in tonight's set) before the fans know what hit 'em.

Time and the next album (whenever that comes) will tell how they recover from the loss of Stradlin, who was a formidable rhythm guitarist and a key songwriter. But the primal GN'R snarl of "You Could Be Mine" - delivered tonight with vehement enthusiasm - was vivid proof that there is still a lot more here than makes the headlines. "That was gun," Rose announced with a smile afterward. Amen to that.

REVIEW

Going great Guns at Garden

By MATTHEW AUERBACH

WELL, THEY LIVED UP TO ALL of it, folks. The rock ’n’ roll war machine known as Guns N’ Roses has came to town and taken over Madison Square Garden for three shows (Mon., Tues., Fri.). They’re dug in deep, unleashing the most ferocious hard rock since the glory days of this genre some 20 years ago.

Monday’s show had “event” stamped all over it. After an ample set by opening act Soundgarden, whose heavy-metal grunge was a perfect table-setter for the barrage yet to come, there was a 90-minute wait for GNR. During that time, there were fights and females flashing their breasts (the flashings outnumbered the fights). This goofy frat-house atmosphere could not hide the growing anticipation, however.

Finally, at 10:45 p.m.. Guns N’ Roses hit the stage, slamming into “Nightrain.” It was off and running for the next three hours, with the band resurrecting all the best parts of Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Aerosmith, etc., without sounding derivative. The fact that the most popular rock band of the '90s could do songs by Paul McCartney (“Live and Let Die”), the Stones (a subdued version of “Wild Horses”) and Bob Dylan (“Knocking on Heaven’s Door”) in surprisingly faithful fashion without losing any credibility with their mostly young audience was testament to their talents.

The show was balanced with almost equal helpings of ballads and rockers. Lead guitarist Slash was on fire all night, with a style that harked back to the old days. No Eddie Van Halen hammer-ons or whammy-bar displays — just the fat tone of a Gibson Les Paul launching melodic riffs. The rest of the group, led by monster drummer Matt Sorum and aided buy three scantily clad female horn players and two backup singers, pushed the sonic limits all evening, and on “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Bad Obsession” and “Rocket Queen,” they hit warp drive.

It wouldn’t be a Guns N’ Roses concert without some sort of diatribe from Axl Rose, and this show was no different He railed against several rock publications, and East Coast journalists in particular, to huge cheers before the band began the appropriately titled “Double Talkin' Jive.” He may be the essence of contradiction when he speaks, but when he sings, Axl, like the rest of Guns N’ Roses, could do no wrong on this night.

(Auerbach writes on pop music.)

GUNS II: New guitarist . . . same old antics.

Guns N' Roses may now be performing with guitarist Gilby Clarke in place of Izzy Stradlin, but everything else appeared true to form as GNR rolled into New York’s Madison Square Garden last Monday for the first of three shows.

The band went on late—nearly 11 p.m.—and played until 1:30 a.m., which was well past the union curfew. Typically, Axl Rose turned this into a bond with the fans as he bragged about having to pay hefty union fees for running late. “You people are worth more than the $24,000 we’re paying in overtime,” he told the crowd.

Rather than have Clarke or Rose take over the lead vocal on the songs that Stradlin had sung on earlier legs of the tour (“Dust N’ Bones” and “14 Years”), the band just skipped the songs. Bassist Duff McKagan, however, did sing lead on his own “So Fine."

This tour leg is scheduled to run through early February with shows in San Diego, Las Vegas and Phoenix expected to be announced shortly.

—Wayne Robins

Soulmonster wrote:Review in New York Times, December 11, 1991:

Review/Rock; Guns 'n' Roses Brings New Lineup to the Garden
By JON PARELES
Published: December 11, 1991

Guns 'n' Roses has staked its reputation on its volatility. W. Axl Rose, its lead singer, is famous for his temper, his onstage tirades and his conviction that self-indulgence plus self-importance equals integrity. The band's songs, which veer from raging hard-rock to wistful ballads, are a secondary draw. Yet when Guns 'n' Roses came to Madison Square Garden on Monday night for the first of three sold-out shows -- the final show is Friday night -- the most surprising part of its set was how routine it seemed.

The band has a new lineup for this part of its tour. Izzy Stradlin, the rhythm guitarist who co-wrote many of the songs on "Use Your Illusion" I and II (Geffen), the band's current best-selling albums, has quit, replaced for the tour by Gilbey Clarke. The band has also added two backup singers and three horn players, all women dressed in black lingerie. It's a horn section valued primarily for its G-strings. The women pouted and posed like Motley Crue's backup singers; also like Motley Crue, Guns 'n' Roses had an electronic display to flash its name between the set and encores, like an "Applause" sign.

As usual, the band went on late, nearly 90 minutes after the opening act, Soundgarden, had finished. As usual, the audience amused itself mightily between sets, aided by lighting and video crews who spotlighted girls who took off their shirts. As usual, the band worked hard once it appeared, playing for nearly 2 hours 45 minutes, with Mr. Rose and the other band members running and leaping around the stage as they knocked out one riff-and-screech song after another. (Near the end of the show, Mr. Rose announced that overtime would cost the band $24,000.)

And as usual, Mr. Rose stopped the show for his obligatory rant against the press. He excoriated Circus magazine, threatened lawsuits and asserted that someone had been hired to shoot him as revenge for nasty things he said in "Get in the Ring," the anti-press diatribe on "Use Your Illusion II." "I'm not really worried about what opening my mouth will do to my record sales," he announced, knowing he'd draw cheers. Lest anyone misunderstand his role in current rock, during "Civil War" he was dressed in a jacket with the word "rebel" above a Confederate flag.

Guns 'n' Roses' song choices vary from show to show, and Monday's set had a wildly uneven pace. Rockers like "Double Talkin' Jive," "Mr. Brownstone" or "You Could Be Mine" chomped down hard on the music, creating the perfect tension between muscular riffs and Mr. Rose's snarling or howling voice. Some ballads, like "Don't Cry," had terse, telling lead-guitar solos by Slash; others, like "Sweet Child o' Mine" or "November Rain," sounded mechanical as they shifted from a slow main section to a fast finale. It's hard to maintain momentum in such a long set, but at times Guns 'n' Roses seemed to be deliberately dragging the songs out, or just noodling through unaccompanied drum and guitar solos.

Hard-rock bands that sell millions of albums can usually count on their fans to shout and sing along, but Monday's audience was oddly restrained. Beyond the front rows, many people simply stood and watched as Mr. Rose raced around the stage, shimmying his shoulders or twirling his microphone stand and changing his costume every song or two; although the band played its ballad "Patience" quietly, as if expecting a sing-along, the audience didn't oblige. Only when Guns 'n' Roses played its MTV-promoted singles, or the house lights went on, did concertgoers make a show of enthusiasm. Partway through the set, Slash jokingly called the band "the No. 1 rock-and-roll cabaret act," but that's how its fans treated it.

Kim Neely wrote:KN: When you were in New York recently, you took offense at a review Jon Pareles wrote in the 'New York Times' and invited him to come onstage to talk about it. (Pareles, reviewing a December G n' R show at Madison Square Garden, described the audience as "oddly restrained." Pareles was invited to come to the following night's show and "tell the crowd why they weren't having a good time.")

Axl: I was actually just going to sit down and talk. I wasn't going to make him look like an ass.

KN: Still, he would've been walking into a minefield. No matter what he said, they'd boo him and cheer you.

Axl: He didn't have the balls to stand behind what he wrote, and he got exposed.

KN: A lot of people would say that in inviting him to talk about that on your turf, you were the one who didn't have the balls. Why didn't you call him and talk about it personally on neutral territory?

Axl: I'm not gonna make the New York Times any more money. It was an obnoxious piece. It was shit journalism. He could've written: "I didn't like the show, personally. I think they suck." Okay, fine. Cool. You can think we suck, and I can think you're an asshole. But don't just try to make it look like nobody enjoyed it.

KN: Couldn't he have been just calling it like he saw it?

Axl: Then that's a person with some severe fucking personal problems, and he has no business being there writing about our show. It's a different crowd at a G n' R show now than it used to be. He didn't understand it. Most people that have been into G n' R for years don't understand it, but they can feel it. Having a nice time is weird for people that don't have nice times in their lives. When you don't really know what a nice time is, a nice time is for pussies.