2002.12.05 - Madison Square Garden, New York, USA

When the band (now Axl and a bunch of ringers) returned after an eight-year layoff, its front man had hardly mellowed. At this gig, Larry Magid, one of the promoters for GNR’s Philly tour stop, started to worry when Mix Master Mike’s opening set went on well beyond its scheduled last song. “The managers weren’t able to persuade the band to go on,” recalls Magid. “Whatever psychological issues Axl was having, he just couldn’t get onstage.” By 9:30, Mike was finished, but GNR still hadn’t shown; near midnight, an announcer declared the band would not be performing. (The rumor was that Rose was in New York watching basketball on TV.) “The audience responded,” Magid says, “by wrecking the place — almost $200,000 in damages.” As the Philly papers reported, fans threw bottles, chairs, and (somehow) ceiling tiles. “They’re not my favorite band,” says Magid. Things were bad outside the arena, too: In the parking lot, somebody threw a trash can through a Toyota Camry’s windshield. “I did one show with them, and that’s all I wanted to do,” Magid says. “Why would you subject yourself to the promise of more punishment?”

There’s also an onslaught of names missing from action in recent years, like Axl Rose, who ends a seven-year hiatus when Guns N’ Roses’ kicks off in Vancouver on Nov. 7. Starting from scratch, Rose has an entirely different backup crew - Dizzy Reed and Chris Pitman on keyboards, Brain on drums, Buckethead, Robin Finck and Richard Fortus on guitars and Tommy Stinson on bass. It’s a move in the right direction, but there’s still no word on the new GNR album, “Chinese Democracy.” The bad news is that tickets for MSG’s Dec. 5 were snapped up in record time.

When famously reclusive singer Axl Rose brought the new lineup of '80s hard rock behemoth Guns N' Roses to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards in August, the set was kept a secret until the very end of the broadcast. Rose, whose estrangement from original GNR lead guitarist Slash is now almost as long-lived as their friendship was, is the sole survivor of the original five-man band. But watching Rose, 40, prowling the stage with his old fire was a boon for fans, who gobbled up tickets for the band’s “Chinese Democracy” tour, its first in nearly a decade.

After a false start in Vancouver, where one of Rose’s last-minute no-shows triggered a riot. Guns N’ Roses finally touched down in Tacoma. Wash., on Nov. 8. The band’s concert on Thursday at Madison Square Garden sold out in 15 minutes.

A further itinerary can be found, along with a merchandise link, at the Official Guns N’ Roses site (www.gnronline.com).

While grunge is often thought as the first musical style successfully to meld punk and more serious alternative sensibility, Guns N’ Roses paved the way by improving on the undistinguished melodies of hair bands like Motley Crue and Skid Row — without sacrificing attitude. In 1987, when grunge was beginning to evolve in Seattle bars and garages, Guns N’ Roses released "Appetite for Destruction," which took a year to climb to the top of the Billboard charts, but went on to become the best-selling debut album in history.

Subsequent albums (“GNR Lies,” “Use Your Illusion I & II”) were also hits, but the band always seemed to be on the verge of self-destruction, not least because of its volatile relationship with its record label and internal conflicts. Finally, in 1996, Slash announced that he was no longer associated with Guns N’ Roses.

Each original band member’s version of the group's tumultuous history is available in multiple interviews and articles at "Here Today ... Gone to Hell: An Unofficial Guns N’ Roses Web site" (www.heretodaygonetohell.com). The page also has interviews with girlfriends and other people associated with GNR, plus the latest news and reviews from local newspapers at each stop on the tour.

If it’s pictures of the band, guitar tablatures and lyrics you want, pay a visit to The Lost Rose (www.lostrose.com).

Bruno Blumenfeld

AXL'S HIRED GUNS COME UP ROSES

By DAN AQUILANTE

GUNS N' ROSES

WITH Axl Rose as the only original member of Guns N' Roses onstage at Madison Square Garden last night, naysayers might call them Guns N' Posers - but, defying all the negative word of mouth, the band pulled off an excellent concert that lived up to it's name.

It has been almost a decade since Rose last sold out MSG, so it was no wonder he actually was ready 'n' raring to play, getting onstage in a timely manner, something he had yet to do on this tour.

This one-night sellout was the turning point for the refitted Guns N' Roses. Axl was greased and the band was terrific. It was an amazing transformation from the group that stunk up the MTV Awards earlier this year. GN'R played a crisp concert worthy of a punk-metal band that had as big an appetite for destruction as it had 15 years ago.

Opening with the apropos "Welcome to the Jungle," Rose was uncharacteristically subdued and the band's sonics didn't boom; instead, they were stuck in the mud. Maybe that initial misstep was a case of NYC jitters, because on subsequent numbers, the man and band fared much better.

That doesn't mean this was a perfect show, but it was exciting to hear Rose's sonorous primal scream again, even if his pipes were just a little rusty when he was in his upper register. While he didn't hit all the highs as he did when he was in his glory daze of the late '80s, this poster boy for bad living still thrilled.

Rose was best on a pair of cover songs - Paul McCartney's "Live And Let Die" and Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door." The staging for "Live and Let Die" was especially good, with its combination of seizure-inducing lighting and pyrotechnics.

Rose showed a soft-belly bottom when he dusted off the power ballad "November Rain." He worked the tune soulfully as he accompanied himself on piano. Although it was just this side of sappy, it ignited Bics and had the house on its feet in a synchronized sway. Some might complain that this tune pulled the plug on any momentum that the performance had built to that point, but there's no arguing with the solid roar of cheers it elicited.

While there were a handful of new tunes offered, the best turns of the evening came when the band worked it oldies from "Appetite for Destruction."

It would be easy to dismiss Axl and his new gunners as irrelevant in today's music world, but this night found Rose in bloom.

Rose Garden

Older and wiser, Axl brings out heavy Guns

By JIM FARBER
DAILY NEWS MUSIC CRITIC

Even the biggest brats eventually grow up. Look at Axl Rose.

In the singer’s first New York show in nine years, Thursday at the Garden, he repeatedly expressed gratitude to the crowd, made light jokes, put on a slick, professional set and even showed up relatively on time.

It was quite a change from the Axl of old, who liked to launch into wild-eyed rants, fight with his own fans, show up hours late and pace his performances with the discipline of a kid suffering from attention deficit disorder.

Then again, Rose has much to prove with this tour. By eluding the public’s view for nearly a decade, Rose had become the Norma Desmond of rock — a recluse and a rumor-magnet of legendary proportions. After so much time away, Rose has not only dared to try to fill the nation’s top arenas, he has billed the event as a Guns N’ Roses tour, even though his seven-member band features not a single other member of the original group.

Curiosity alone probably could have filled the Garden (it was sold out). But the band’s first tiptoe back into the pop pool — an appearance at August’s MTV Awards — sounded unfocused and desperate. It was “Welcome to the Bungle” time.

Here, Rose was in far better yowl, and his group seemed much more rehearsed. Rose did, however, cut an odd physical figure. At 40, the once-svelte star appears to have taken one too many trips to the dessert table.

To cover for it, he sported an array of muumuu-size sports jerseys, matched with pants large enough to hide Fat Joe. His cornrowed hair looked like something ripped off Bo Derek and ghoulishly sewn into his head.

Yet, in his classic role as cater-wauler, Rose was king. He hit all the right screeches in such songs as “Rocket Queen,” “Nightrain” and “My Michelle.”

The band, featuring veterans of acts from Primus to Nine Inch Nails, played forcefully. Lead guitarist Buckethead (who sports a KFC container on his noggin) showed particular skill — far more, in fact, than original GN’R axman Slash. As musicians, the old band were hardly missed. But there was no rapport between the new guys and Rose. Essentially, these players operated as a top-shelf tribute band.

Naturally, this gave the show a deeply nostalgic feel. It featured just two new songs from GN’R’s upcoming album, “Chinese Democracy,” neither of which made an impression.

Not that it mattered. The two-hour performance stressed songs from 1987’s “Appetite for Destruction,” which represents the band’s sole great achievement. Ultimately, the evening worked as a tame and misty look-back for late twentysomethings, featuring the unlikely transformation of Axl the loon into Axl the warm and fuzzy.

ROCK REVIEW; No Longer the Bad-Boy Sex Symbol but Still Light on His Feet

By Jon Pareles

W. Axl Rose went bounding across the stage of Madison Square Garden on Thursday night like a man trying to make up for lost time: exactly what he is.

A decade ago his band, Guns N' Roses, was the epitome of hard-rock: swaggering and alluring, reckless and skillful, playing songs about Hollywood lowlife and stormy romance with bare-knuckled ferocity. Then it fell apart. Mr. Rose got rid of the band's founding members, keeping only a keyboardist who joined in 1990, Dizzy Reed. Mr. Rose has been working for a decade on a sequel to the 1991 albums, ''Use Your Illusion'' I and II. The new Guns N' Roses made its debut in 2001, and it has been touring the world this year, while the long-awaited album, ''Chinese Democracy'' (Geffen), is due next year. Onstage Mr. Rose jokingly called the concert a reunion because, he said, ''I managed to get enough of myself together to do this.''

Mr. Rose sought to start where he left off. As at past shows, a video crew searched during intermission for women willing to take off their shirts; there were fewer volunteers now that early fans are 10 years older. When he appeared, he was no longer the bad-boy sex symbol he was, but a portly-looking character in long blond dreadlocks and a succession of giant sports jerseys. The set included another hoary Guns N' Roses ploy: a denunciation of the press, including a 1991 review in The New York Times. Mr. Rose's is still playing the self-righteous underdog.

Running around the stage, he worked hard to please the crowd. There were only three new songs -- two ballads, ''Madagascar'' and ''The Blues,'' and a rocker, ''Chinese Democracy'' -- but the sold-out audience happily sang along with familiar ones. Mr. Rose trotted out his old stage moves, a snake-hipped swivel and a kind of skipping strut.

He's still light on his feet. But the songs weren't. The old Guns N' Roses was a nervy wrangle of guitars, with Slash's bluesy leads goading Mr. Rose's voice or curling around power chords. The new one is an unyielding wall of sound. Tommy Stinson, on bass, was in the Replacements, and Robin Finck, on guitar, was in Nine Inch Nails. Buckethead, on speed-demon lead guitar, replaces Slash in the role of wearing a funny hat: a fried-chicken bucket.

For all its precision, the new Guns N' Roses doesn't have a glimmer of the blues, which could give the music breathing spaces and ironies. It plowed through songs with little change from start to finish, leaving Mr. Rose to rattle off the sleaze chronicles of ''Mr. Brownstone'' or ''Welcome to the Jungle'' as if they were elocution exercises. Guns N' Roses was once touted as the next Rolling Stones; on Thursday it, like the Stones, was an oldies act, but without the Stones' spontaneity or huge repertory.

Although the rockers turned mechanical, the new band was just right for the bombast of power ballads like ''November Rain.'' When Mr. Rose reached for high notes, something else had changed: the serrated rasp that used to slice the sentimentality out of his ballads had smoothed out and disappeared, making him sound almost like Geddy Lee of Rush. In ''Madagascar,'' a song about soul-searching, a montage of civil-rights clips played during the big crescendo. Perhaps Mr. Rose, the aging bad boy, is gearing up for a second act as an inspirational balladeer.