2002.11.27 - Pepsi Arena, Albany, USA

GUNS BLAZING
A GUNS N' ROSES A-TO-Z OF COURSE BEGINS (WHERE ELSE?) WITH AXL
 
Among local rock fans, claiming you saw Guns N' Roses at the Palace Theatre in 1987 is the equivalent of saying you voted for John Kennedy in 1960. Everyone wants to be present at the creation.
 
It was shortly after the band's breakthrough album “Appetite for Destruction'' was released, although the record hadn't broken through yet -- nobody knew who Guns N' Roses were. (Nobody knew who the opening act was, either -- EZO, a Japanese heavy metal band that performed in kabuki-meets-Kiss makeup.)
 
That night, the members of Guns N' Roses were everything a lean, mean rock act should be. They pumped out raw, powerful and genuinely dangerous music with little regard for the consequences. If memory serves, the band was furious that the orchestra pit had been lowered to create a moat between the stage and the fans. It must have been Slash, the guitarist, who jumped into the pit like a buccaneer -- guitar in one hand, bottle of Jack Daniels in the other.
 
Ironically, there was no need to separate the band from the fans: Only 187 fans attended the show, in a theater that could have held 2,500 more.
 
There would be few empty seats for Guns N' Roses in the years to come. A few months later, “Welcome to the Jungle'' and “Sweet Child O' Mine'' made it to MTV and rock radio, and the band was launched on a rocket ride that included big albums, bigger tours (including a slot opening for Aerosmith at SPAC in 1988), and even more monumental tales of excess, debauchery and bad manners.
 
A very different Guns N' Roses -- essentially lead singer Axl Rose and a crew of hired Guns -- plays the Pepsi Arena on Wednesday. Here's a guide to one of the most lethal bands of the Reagan-Bush era:
 
A is for Axl Rose, born in 1962 in Layfayette, Ind., and raised as Bill Bailey. “Rose'' comes from his biological father, who left the family when Axl was 2 (something he didn't discover until age 17; “Axl'' was borrowed from the name of one of his teenage bands. The former choirboy hitchhiked to Los Angeles in 1985 to join boyhood friend and guitarist Jeffrey Isbell, aka Izzy Stradlin.
 
B is for the much more bohemian upbringing of Saul Hudson, better known as the top-hatted, Cousin It-lookin' guitarist Slash. Born in Britain, Slash's father designed album covers (including Joni Mitchell's ‘Court and Spark''); his mother designed costumes for David Bowie.
 
C is for the Los Angeles club circuit, where Rose, Slash and Stradlin worked in various groups before forming Gun N' Roses in 1985 with drummer Steven Adler and bassist Duff McKagen. Alternate band name suggestions included Heads of Amazon and AIDS.
 
D is for the band's March 1986 deal with Geffen Records, which followed the release of the ferocious EP “Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide'' on the Uzi/Suicide label. The first fruit of the contract, the 1987 album “Appetite for Destruction,'' was recently selected as the best heavy metal album of all time by Spin magazine.
 
E is for Erin Invicta Everly, the daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers and the inspiration for the band's 1988 monster single “Sweet Child O' Mine.'' Her relationship with Rose is an old-fashioned romance: boy meets girl, girl marries boy at Cupid's Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, boy files for divorce four weeks later, girl and boy reconcile and then break up again, boy annuls marriage, girl tells People magazine that boy was physically abusive.

F is for the 1990 firing of Steven Adler. In 1991, the deposed drummer filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming that he was canned unfairly. In a neat touch, the suit blamed his drug addiction on his former bandmates.
 
G is for the Guns who are gone, including all four charter members -- Slash, Stradlin, Adler and McKagen -- as well as sometime members Josh Freese, Tracii Guns, Gilby Clarke, Matt Sorum, Dave Navarro, Paul Huge ... frankly, we've lost track.
 
H is for heroin. (You were expecting maybe ham sandwich?) The band's appetite for chemical self-destruction has been an integral part of its story from the beginning. The contract for its first big tour slot, opening for Aerosmith in 1988, included a special rider stipulating that the members of Guns N' Roses would keep their drug use confined to their dressing room in order not to tempt the recently detoxed Boston rockers. “I used to do a little/But a little wouldn't do/So the little got more and more.'' – “Mr. Brownstone,'' 1987.
 
I is for “Use Your Illusion I'' and “Use Your Illusion II,'' the band's much-delayed, double-barreled 1991 follow-up to “Appetite for Destruction.'' The CDs were released simultaneously, and immediately took up the top two spots on the Billboard charts (dislodging comedian Bob Newhart from the record books). Hits generated by the albums include the epic “November Rain'' and the band's cover of Wings' “Live and Let Die.''
 
J is for William James, Jesus Christ and Carl Jung, three of the scores of highfalutin references cited in Danny Sugerman's 1991 Guns N' Roses bio “Appetite for Destruction.'' And that's just the J's: Sugerman, a former Jim Morrison hanger-on who co-authored the bestselling Doors chronicle “No One Here Gets Out Alive,'' slathers the band with enough pseudoscholarly pseudoprose to make any comp-lit student's head explode. The book does contain one classic line: “If reports and my own eyewitness accounts can be trusted, Axl Rose has been relatively drug-free for almost a year now ... .''
 
K is for Kmart, the retail giant sued by the band in 1990 for allegedly using its name and picture in ads for a toy drum kit. Managing not to giggle, the band's lawyers claimed Kmart damaged Guns N' Roses' reputation.
 
L is for lithium, which Rose began taking in the late '80s after he was diagnosed with manic depression: “Lithium hasn't done one damn thing for me,'' Rose is quoted in Sugerman's book as saying, “except it's made people think, ‘Axl's trying to do something to help himself, so this must be a good thing.' In other words, if I trash my hotel room it's accepted more as long as I'm taking my lithium.''
 
M is for MTV, which helped make GNR stars, even though the music video channel didn't begin playing the band's breakthrough video, “Welcome to the Jungle,'' until nearly six months after the album “Appetite for Destruction'' was released.
 
N is for new members, which include guitarists Buckethead (joined in 2000), Robin Finck (joined in 1997) and Richard Fortus (2002), keyboardists Dizzy Reed (1990) and Chris Pittman (1999), bassist Tommy Stinson (1998) and drummer Brian ``Brain'' Mantia (2000).
 
O is for “One in a Million,'' released on 1989's “G n' R Lies'' EP. Sung from the point of view of a white boy on the mean streets of L.A., the lyrics inveigh against immigrants and gays. The EP also includes the song “Used to Love Her'' (“but I had to kill her'').
 
P is for “Patience,'' a much more soothing cut from “G n' R Lies.'' Also one of the Seven Virtues, and something the band's live audiences have become familiar with. In its salad days, the band's serial tardiness was enough to make today's rap caravans seem downright punctual: Fans in Dayton, Ohio, are probably still talking about the 1992 concert in which the band didn't go on stage until 12:25 a.m.
 
Q is for Queen. GNR played “A Concert For Life,'' the Freddie Mercury tribute extravaganza staged at Wembley Stadium in 1992, and recruited Queen guitarist Brian May as their opening act for a tour later that year.
 
R is for riots. Since space is limited, let's just mention the latest: At Vancouver's General Motors Place arena on Nov. 7 -- the first scheduled stop on the “Chinese Democracy'' tour -- fans responded to the bad news that bad weather had canceled Rose's flight from Los Angeles by smashing glass windows and doors and setting off fireworks. A small army of police and canine units responded. Is that warm glow that fans were feeling nostalgia for the early '90s, or just pepper spray?
 
S is for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The actor starred in two films with Guns N' Roses songs on their soundtracks: 1991's smash hit “Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' (the hit “You Could Be Mine'') and 1999's dud “End of Days'' (the non-hit “Oh My God'').
 
T is for tantrum, trouble and tabloid, all of which Rose knows on an intimate basis.
 
U is for unreleased, the status of Guns N' Roses new album, known as “Chinese Democracy.'' Rose claims the album will be released in 2003.
 
V is for Black Death Vodka. Slash's endorsement deal with the maker of this jauntily monikered beverage drew the ire of U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Novello in 1992.
 
W is for where are they now? Charter members Slash, McKagen and Stradlin are reportedly writing new material and looking for a singer. A cleaned-up Steven Adler and his mother have put together a book, “No Bed of Roses,'' about his tenure with the band.
 
X is for -- well, take your pick.
 
Y is for “Look at Your Game Girl,'' an unlisted track on the band's 1993 rack-filling covers album “The Spaghetti Incident.'' Controversy arose when someone realized that royalties for the song would go to its author, imprisoned mass murderer Charles Manson. The song was dropped from subsequent editions.
 
Z is for New Zealand, the nation to which the band fled in December 1988 after Australian officials issued a warrant for Rose's arrest after the singer allegedly made statements condoning drug use during a concert. When you're too wild for Australia, you are bad.
 
-- Casey Seiler, Greg Haymes and Mark McGuire, with much thanks to the invaluable “Encyclopedia of Rock Stars'' (DK Publishing) by Dafydd Rees and Luke Crampton.
 
*
 
HEAR AXL
GUNS N' ROSES with Mixmaster Mike and CKY
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: The Pepsi Arena, 51 S. Pearl St., Albany
Tickets: $46, $56
Info: 487-2000

GUNS N' ROSES OFFERS PARODY

By GREG HAYMES
Staff writer

ALBANY -- Welcome back to the jungle.

Or at least the back yard badly in need of mowing.

Guns N' Roses are back -- sort of. On this comeback tour -- their first in about a decade -- vocalist Axl Rose is back with a whole new army of hired Guns. His new crew features mysterioso gonzo guitarist Buckethead (who does indeed sport a KFC bucket on his head over a wire mask), as well as ex-members of the Nine Inch Nails, the Replacements, the Primus and the Psychedelic Furs.

The band, bulging with the excess of three guitarists as well as a pair of keyboardists, launched into their Pepsi Arena show in Albany on Wednesday night with the predictable anthem, "Welcome to the Jungle,'' as Rose roared through his fierce call to action.

The crowd, which had waited impatiently for more than 75 minutes after the second of two opening acts wrapped up its performance, finally had something to cheer about at 10:30 p.m., but let's face it, the current GNR incarnation bares little resemblance to the old powerhouse.

GNR was once a lean, ferocious rock 'n' roll machine, seething with raw, primal energy. But the new lineup was a far cry from the band's heyday.

Clad in baggy pants and an oversized New York Rangers hockey jersey to offset his long braids, Rose unleashed his trademark howl on old favorites like "It's So Easy'' and "Mr. Brownstone'' as the lyrics scrolled by on his TelePrompTer amid a seemingly endless barrage of videos, special effects lighting and nonstop pyrotechnics.

This wasn't rock 'n' roll. It was, in fact, a parody of rock 'n' roll. The pompous, overblown rendition of Paul McCartney's James Bond theme, "Live and Let Die,'' was a clear tip-off, and Rose's turn at the grand piano for "November Rain'' cinched the deal.

Buckethead had the only featured spot and his other-worldly solo stretched from John Williams' "Star Wars'' theme to a bluegrass breakdown.

Is GNR really back? Yes they are, but they're certainly not at the top of the rock heap anymore.
Maverick hip-hop DJ Mixmaster Mike -- best known as turntablist for the Beastie Boys -- manned the wheels of steel for a 45-minute set that careened from Led Zeppelin to Gary Numan, while openers CKY plowed through a half-hour of nu-metal sonic sludge to warm-up the evening, belching and plugging MTV's "Jackass.''

FACTS: MUSIC REVIEW GUNS N' ROSES with Mixmaster Mike and CKY
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Pepsi Arena, Albany
Length: GNR, 2 hours; Mixmaster Mike, 45 minutes; CKY, 30 minutes

GUNS WERE BLAZING

It's a shame that Greg Haymes, like most rock 'n' roll journalists, just doesn't get it. "The current GNR incarnation,'' as he called them (in his review of the band's Pepsi Arena concert on Nov. 27), is better than any other so-called rock act on the current music scene. I thought that the band (Guns N' Roses) was tight, the show -- including the video screens and the pyrotechnics -- was great and Axl never sounded better.

Why does everyone feel that this band has to somehow "measure up'' to the Guns of the '80s and '90s? Why can't people just appreciate them for being a real, honest rock 'n' roll band? I usually agree with most of Haymes' reviews, but this time I feel that he got it wrong. Of course that's just my opinion, as the review was his. Thanks for letting me vent. Bob Rose Clifton Park Roses better than ever Nice review (of Guns N' Roses). Did Greg Haymes forget to mention that the 10,000-plus people there were blown away and remained on their feet for the entire two hours to watch the "parody''? Did he forget to realize that Axl is now 40 and also one of the most successful entertainers of our time? Don't you think that could lead to him putting on a more polished act?

I would find it a little absurd for him to come out and put on an outta-control show filled with his patented tirades at age 40. That, my friend, would be over the top. This was a perfectly produced show loaded with amazing performances from beginning to end. Everyone who has gone into these shows has expected the worst because of silly reviews like Haymes' but comes out blown away.

These articles may have worked for round one, but this band is a snowball rolling downhill -- so don't forget your words as Axl and company take back the throne as the biggest band on the planet.

Rocque Trem
Cleveland