1993.04.16 - Dean Smith Center, Chapel Hill, USA

GUNS N' ROSES CLEANS UP ITS ACT

EDDIE HUFFMAN
Special to the News & Record

Guns N' Roses showed Friday that toning down obscene lyrics hasn't drained the group of its musical power.

Nobody's likely to confuse Guns N' Roses with Wilson Phillips, but when the Hollywood rockers were introduced as "the feelgood band of the '90s" at the Smith Center in Chapel Hill Friday night, it wasn't altogether a joke.

That's because Guns N' Roses no longer has a chip on its collective shoulder the size of a tour bus. In 1993, Axl Rose's band has toned down the venom considerably, losing little of its musical power but dumping Rose's obscenity-saturated rants against everything from fellow metal band Warrant to the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Before the kinder and gentler GN'R took the stage, the 12,000 or so people gathered in the Smith Center got to hear a set from Rose's childhood buddy, Shannon Hoon, and his band, Blind Melon. It's a good thing Blind Melon - which was based in Durham for awhile - has friends in high places, because its set consisted of self-absorbed tedium from Hoon and meandering, interminable strings of notes and verses not resembling anything you might call songs.

Much more popular was the entertainment between bands, when the video cameras for the GN'R set were trained on members of the crowd. Numerous scantily clad women bared their breasts for projection on the big screen.

Additional images of adult sexuality came courtesy of GN'R, which had three nearly naked women deliver drinks to the band during an "unplugged" portion of the concert. If parts of the concert reduced women to the sum of certain body parts, however, GN'R wisely avoided the woman-bashing songs that occupy too much space on its "Use Your Illusion" albums.

If GN'R lacked the raw power and endurance it showed in an unforgettable marathon concert at the Greensboro Coliseum in 1991, Rose still performed in a T-shirt that bore the face of cult-leading hippie murderer Charlie Manson on the front and the words "Charlie Don't Surf" on the back. Rose has always been out to shock, and songs like "It's So Easy," "Mr. Brownstone," "Double Talking Jive," and "You Could Be Mine" sounded as fierce as ever.

The band played with the fire that earned it its reputation, and the loss of rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin was barely noticeable. The only weak link Friday night was lead guitarist Slash, who is at least as important to GN'R as Rose himself. Slash - whose substance abuse is the stuff of legend - seemed distracted and unfocused Friday night, not touching the emotional fury he brought to the '91 Greensboro show.

In 1991, GN'R was a band with something to prove, headlining for the first time, touring after a four-year wait between complete albums, and previewing two new double-length albums. In 1993, GN'R was just a band with something to do. If Friday night's show wasn't an unforgettable concert, it was still a great one.