1991.12.16 - Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, USA

You’re going great, Guns

Impressive: Guns Ν' Roses’ offered a roaring good Spectrum concert.

By CHUCK DARROW
Courier-Post Staff

Until Monday night, the best concert of the year was the June 13 Spectrum rave-up by Guns N’ Roses.

But the controversial hard rock band from Los Angeles outdid itself when it opened a two-night stand at the South Philadelphia arena Monday.

Since that late-spring engagement, the group has added a three-woman horn section, two female singers and replaced guitarist Izzy Stradlin.

It also has polished some rough edges. The unit has lost none of its trademark ferocity or crackling energy. But it has developed more cohesive and self-assured in-con-cert sound.

Much of this has to be attributed to the improved work of drummer Matt Sorum, who replaced Steven Adler last year.

In June, Sorum’s time-keeping was plodding and pedestrian at best, and certainly not up to the stunning musicianship of fretmen Stradlin and Slash.

Monday night, Sorum propelled the roaring but melodic songs with crisp cross rhythms and percolating fills.

Equally impressive was recent recruit Gilby Clarke, who ably filled Stradlin'a large shoes.

Clarke wasn’t as flashy as his predecessor, nor as in-synch with long-time partner Slash.

But his rhythm guitar work was straight and true from start to finish, neatly filling in the sturdy foundations by Sorum, bassist Duff McKagan and keyboardist Dizzy Reed and Slash's razor-
Of course, when you’re teamed with a guitarist as proficient as Slash, it's easy to look good.

Slash's lead playing provided the sonic ballast to Axl Rose’s call-to-arms vocalizing. His lines sizzled and hummed as they soared over the chord progressions pounded out by the rhythm section.

Still, the burden of any Guns 'Ν' Roses show rests on the wiry shoulders of lead singer/chief agitator Rose. His performance Monday was superior to his excellent springtime turn.

One reason was simply physical.

On his last Spectrum visit, Rose had a cast on his right leg from the knee to the ankle. Though he did his best, he was obviously reined in.

Monday, a healthy Rose was all over the smartly laid out stage, swaying, stomping and motoring almost non-stop.

His voice was better, too. While it was still too rough for delicate ballads like "Don’t Cry" and "November Rain," it was clear and expressive, and it infused the material with drama, angst and enthusiasm.

The well-paced set was filled with outstanding songs.

Among the highlights were the show-opening "It’s So Easy;" the hard-charging “You Could Be Mine;" the nasty "Double Talkin' Jive," to whose flamenco guitar coda Slash added a Jeff Beck-inspired blues exercise; "Move to the City," on which the provocatively dressed ladies of the brass section got to jam; and a Richter-scale version of “Welcome to the Jungle," which threatened to blow the Spectrum roof off.

Although opening act Soundgarden was off by 9 p.m., Guns ’N’ Roses didn’t hit until 10:25. This just wasn’t right.

Guns ’N Roses/ Soundgarden

Guns N’ Roses may hold the biggest howitzers in hard rock, but even it isn't recession-proof.  Axl Rose’s lovable bad boys pull into the Spectrum to spread a little holiday cheer for shows Monday and Tuesday night, and there are still seats left for the second show. The band's appearance in town in June was by all accounts a properly ripsnorting affair, but this time Izzy Stradlin won’t be on board. Stradlin, the rhythm guitarist who cowrote 11 of the 30 tracks on Use Your Illusion I and II (Geffen), and who presumably came up with a good deal of the killer riffs that blare away as Axl shrieks like a dying dog in the foreground, has left the band. He has been replaced by ex-Kill for Thrills guitarist Gilby Clarke and, for this leg of the band’s road show, five new female members: a three-woman horn section and two backup singers, all decked out in intentionally politically incorrect lingerie.

Buyer, beware: the scheduled start time for worth-seeing Seattle rockers Soundgarden, who open, is “around 8 p.m.” The always-accommodating Gunners, however, didn’t see fit to begin their two-hour-45-minute set until nearly 11 at their New York gigs earlier this week.

- D.D.

Guns Ν' Roses with Soundgarden at the Spectrum, Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, around 8 p.m Monday (sold out) and Tuesday. Tickets: $20. Phone: 336-3600.

Guns N’ Roses: Rock n’ roll n’ rebellion

Guns N’ Roses with Soundgarden, Monday and Tuesday. The Spectrum, Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, Philadelphia. Performances nightly at 8. $20. 984-2000.

MUSIC REVIEW
Al Mascitti

PHILADELPHIA - Guns N’ Roses showed why it’s America’s reigning No. 1 rock band, delivering a sweaty, sexy set that left a sell-out Spectrum crowd howling for more.

Lead singer W. Axl Rose and lead guitarist Slash belied the band’s reputation for sloppy, besotted stage shows, delivering a coherent, physical performance that tapped directly into rock’s roots in anti-authoritarianism and sexuality. If the crowd, which contained more college boys in bandanas than MTV diehards, couldn’t sing along, at least it punched the air with enthusiasm.

The crowd was only beginning to get unruly when the musicians appeared at 10:25, about 90 minutes after Soundgarden finished its opening set, and ripped into "It’s So Easy’’ from their 1988 breakthrough album, "Appetite for Destruction.”

Rose cavorted in a red jacket over what looked like a shredded kilt, which he soon doffed in favor of a tight pair of hot pants. Slash raced from one side of the bare, multilevel stage to the other, finishing with leaps that kicked off his solos.

Early on, the band played what might be called its movie medley first "You Could Be Mine,” which Arnold Schwarzenegger appropriated for "Terminator 2,” then the G Ν’ R cover of Paul McCartney’s "Live and Let Die,” which showed off Rose’s bandsaw whine vocals and the scantily dressed, all-female three-piece horn section.

The band finally got around to its newer material from its current "Use Your Illusion" albums after a long Rose soliloquy about challenging authority. "I don’t have anything against education,” he explained. "I just didn’t like the way they educationed me.” The band then launched into "Double Talking Jive” and "Civil War,” the latter after another of Rose’s frequent costume changes, this time into a leather Stars and Bars jacket, which he then doffed mid-song in favor of the Stars and Stripes.

By then, the rest of the band was showing almost as much skin as the horn section. New rhythm guitarist Gilby Clarke didn’t shed his shirt, even when he and Slash shared center stage for a guitar duet on the Rolling Stones’ "Wild Horses.”

The opening set by Seattle’s Soundgarden was drawn mostly from its latest album, "Badmotor-finger.” One exception: "Big Dumb Sex,’’ which lead singer Chris Cornell dedicated to "Danny Partridge." "I hear he’s living in Philadelphia,” Cornell said of child actor-turned-disc jockey Danny Bonaduce. "Don’t feel bad — he had to end up somewhere."

The band is confident enough in its buzzing sonic assault that it played its best-known song, "Jesus Christ Pose,” right up front, closing with "Outshined” ("It’s not an anthem, it’s a confession,” Cornell explained), which tempered the slow, grungy mix with a dose of melody.

A. Mascitti is a staff critic.

Home shopping network?

The Bad Boys of Guns 'N Roses apparently have their own take on the Home Shopping Network.

During the looong intermission before taking the stage Monday and Tuesday at the Spectrum, Axl Rose’s crew ventured into the crowd with video cameras to shoot female fans who were willing to remove their tops. The images were projected on the band’s screens.

Dozens of hard-core female fans, most of them bra-less, obliged, to the hoots of the crowd. A few enthusiastically whipped their tops over their heads. (Women who didn’t join in the fun were booed.)

Stu’s Spies say Axl likes to watch the videos from his dressing room backstage, then send some roadie out to invite the more attractive “ladies” to come and “visit” with the band.