2006.05.14 - Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, USA

Welcome Back to a Defoliated Jungle

Revamped Guns N' Roses Returns, but Seems Out of Sorts

By David Segal

NEW YORK -- One of the great upsides of earning a reputation as an ornery, thin-skinned nutter is that it sets the bar really low. Fire enough musicians, cancel enough concerts and stay out of sight long enough to be tagged a recluse, and pretty soon you're a hero just for showing up and shouting, "Are you ready to rock?"

Axl Rose surely didn't cultivate his legendarily prickly persona to keep expectations to a minimum, but on Sunday night he and the rest of Guns N' Roses could have Jazzercised for the opening five minutes of the show and nobody would have cared. These fans are among the most deprived tribe in rock.

After canning or alienating every other original member of the group, Rose is GNR these days, and he isn't delivering much product. He has been working and reworking the same album for the last 10 years, and the last time he hit the road, in 2002, he scuttled the tour for unknown reasons before he hit Washington. (This time Washington isn't even on the schedule.)

So when the lights in the Hammerstein Ballroom went down and Rose himself sprinted onstage -- dressed in a black leather jacket and sporting weird-for-his-age cornrows in his confoundingly blond hair -- it felt like a taxidermic miracle had unfolded before our eyes. An animal once believed extinct was running wild.

The guy hasn't lost many steps, though he hasn't added any new ones, either. Guns N' Roses seems like a band that has become a nostalgia act against its will, which is perhaps inevitable given the dearth of new material and the durability of the hits it recorded nearly 20 years ago. A good chunk of the crowd wasn't born when "Appetite for Destruction" was released in 1987 and turned GNR into the last great heavy-metal phenomenon.

The trick now for Rose is somehow connecting to the late-'80s macho girlie-dude aesthetic without letting his show devolve into kitsch, which it teetered pretty close to the first time around. So: vintage red bandannas, out; vintage stage moves, in.

From originals like "Welcome to the Jungle" to covers such as "Live and Let Die," Rose brought back the hunched-over rain dance, the slithery snake and the mike-stand toss, the latter of which he executed with casual fury, carefully aiming at a target behind him so it didn't hit anybody. Melodramatic rage is still Rose's favorite pose. On songs like "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "Out ta Get Me," he nailed the spirit of louche, middle-finger defiance that made GNR so appealingly nasty.

But Rose, 44, has lost some decibels. At times the music all but smothered his voice, and whenever there was a break in vocal duties he bolted offstage, adding to the sense that he was struggling. Sunday was just the second night of the band's tour, which is supposed to head to Europe this summer. Rose explained halfway through the show that he could sing only after the miraculous intervention of a throat doctor.

How Rose could possibly sustain a full-fledged tour is hard to imagine. The band is already picking up a lot of slack. Guitarists Richard Fortus, Robin Finck and Ron Thal (also known as Bumblefoot) took turns soloing alone onstage, often for four or five minutes at a time. You could occasionally detect a melody in all the noodling, such as during Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing," and more surprisingly in "Over the Rainbow" and Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful."

You could also detect some restlessness in the audience. These Axl-free interludes began to seem like timeouts. That, plus the occasional moments when nothing happened onstage, made the show feel a bit like a dress rehearsal. Or maybe the new GNR is still becoming a band. Bumblefoot, Rose announced, joined the group less than a week ago.

Rose played a couple of tracks from "Chinese Democracy," the album he's been tinkering with all these years -- the most talked-about long player you can't buy, now that Brian Wilson has released "Smile." Of the new tracks, only "Better," with its alarm-like guitar riff, stood out. The title track sounds shockingly like a Nirvana song, mimicking a beat that so clearly belongs to Kurt Cobain & Co. that it might be a tribute. Which is strange, since Nirvana really ended the career of GNR, making the vanity, excess and exhibitionism of metal seem out of touch.

"It's obvious that many of you can hold your breath a lot longer than David Blaine," Rose said, the only time he brought up "Chinese Democracy." "I thank you for that."

It's anyone's guess if the album will ever emerge, but Rose can always find work feeding fans the back catalogue, no matter whom he recruits to the act. The presence of all those teenagers proved it: GNR owned a moment in rock history, a moment that was loud and a little lewd, excessive and unashamed about it, not afraid of a rhyme as silly as "Take me down to Paradise City / Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty."

As shtick, it's a little dated, and it's not obvious that Rose can sustain it for more than two nights in a row. But if you had to be stuck in a moment, you could do a lot worse.

GUNS ROSE TO OCCASION

JIM FARBER
DAILY NEWS MUSIC CRITIC

Someone must have given Axl Rose a personality transplant. At a rare Guns N' Roses show at Hammerstein Ballroom on Sunday, rock's most celebrated loon often acted like the perfect gentleman. He smiled broadly, cracked jokes, thanked the crowd incessantly and even saluted his mom for Mother's Day.

He did not, however, change his famously tardy ways. Seventy- five minutes past the stated start time, the band took the stage at 11 p.m. With a 21/2 -hour show, that meant fans didn't go home until after 1 a.m., leaving them necessarily bleary-eyed the next day.

On that level, Rose conformed to his old operating principle, which is the opposite of Jesus' "We must suffer for His sins."

Few in the crowd could complain, however, given the punch, vim and authority of this performance. (A final show takes place tomorrow, then the band heads off for some Euro dates.) Though Rose remains the sole original member of the band, the show recalled GNR's prime, packed with expert solos, a churning rhythm section and Axl in (largely) fine yowl.

Fans had reason to doubt things would end so happily. The band had previously toured only once in more than a decade. That stint, in 2002, ended, inexplicably, after Rose didn't show for a Philly date, sparking a riot.

Consider, too, that Rose hasn't put out an album of new material in 15 years. And every time he claims a release date for his work in progress ("Chinese Democracy"), it never seems to show. It's the Big Foot of CDs. Rose's latest claim is that it will arrive in December.

We'll see.

Sunday's show featured several songs from "Democracy," but they earned little audience response. Mostly, the band dutifully twisted to the oldies and did so with verve. The three guitarists traded solos with aplomb.

Rose himself did a credible version of his old serpentine dance, though he's got less swivel in the hips. The now meatier, 44-year- old Rose looks like Gregg Allman with Bo Derek's hair. But his energy made up for some loss in finesse.

Otherwise, the show was largely about re-creation rather than reinvention. With much of the material drawn from the band's debut "Appetite for Destruction," they were partying like it was 1987.

If that meant the show ended up an exercise in nostalgia, at least it was a rare brand. Most in the crowd probably hadn't seen Rose in over a decade. Many probably never had at all and, surely, not in a theater this cozy. For their wait, Rose and company exuded plenty of old-time rock star charisma and showcased a catalogue still worth celebrating.

Axl Rose welcomed to the jungle in New York

By Gelu Sulugiuc

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Reclusive rocker W. Axl Rose was on his best behavior as the new-look Guns N' Roses played its first concerts in more than three years over the weekend and dusted off a few songs from its long-delayed album.

His trademark shriek complemented by a trim goatee, the 44-year-old vocalist is the only holdout from the original lineup of the self-destructive band that ruled MTV and the pop charts in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

As Guns N' Roses struggled to record its follow-up to the two "Use Your Illusion" albums from 1991, Rose took control of the band and either fired his bandmates or watched them leave in frustration. His efforts over the last decade to record the new album "Chinese Democracy" with a revolving cast of hired hands have become something of a music industry joke.

In his early days, Rose had a penchant for antagonizing pretty much everyone, but on Sunday he repeatedly thanked the sold-out 3,300-strong audience at the Hammerstein Ballroom for its support, and shook hands with fans.

Guns N' Roses performed nine of the 12 songs from its 1987 debut album "Appetite for Destruction," including "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Sweet Child O' Mine." Other crowd pleasers included "You Could Be Mine," "Live and Let Die," and the ballads "November Rain" and "Patience."

It was the second of four sold-out shows scheduled at Hammerstein. After Friday and Sunday, the band will play again Monday and Wednesday before a series of European festival appearances that will begin May 25 in Madrid and will include two dates opening for the Rolling Stones in Germany.

While the crowd came to hear the old hits, Guns N' Roses also played several songs from "Chinese Democracy," including "Madagascar" and "IRS." Rose told a New York radio station last week that the album might come out this fall. During the show, he thanked the crowd for its patience.

"You can hold your breath a lot longer than David Blaine. I want to thank you for that," he said, referring to the New York stuntman who last week failed in an attempt to break the world record for holding his breath underwater.

Rose is no longer the scrawny kid who ruled Los Angeles' Sunset Strip in the 1980s, but he displayed a surprising amount of energy. He wore his braided long hair tied up in a pony tail, designer sunglasses, blue jeans and a leather shirt unbuttoned to reveal a crucifix hanging from a large necklace.

He dedicated the show both to his mother and to former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach, whom he credited for finding a vocal coach and a throat doctor when Rose lost his voice after the Friday show. The two reunited after not talking to each other in 13 years.

"I was busy trying to save my life, he was busy trying to destroy his," Rose said, before inviting Bach on stage to sing along on "My Michelle."

Rose's previous comeback fizzled in late 2002. After a triumphant performance at New York's Madison Square Garden, he failed to show up for the following day's show in Philadelphia. The crowd rioted and the promoters canceled the rest of the tour.

Despite rumors that Guns N' Roses refugees, such as equally reclusive guitarist Izzy Stradlin, might appear at Hammerstein, none materialized. With one exception, the seven musicians backing Rose played with him in 2002.

They were keyboardist Dizzy Reed (who has been with Guns N' Roses since the "Use Your Illusion" days), guitarist Robin Finck (formerly of Nine Inch Nails), drummer Brian "Brain" Mantia (formerly of Primus), guitarist Richard Fortus from the Psychedelic Furs, keyboard player Chris Pittman, and bassist Tommy Stinson from the Replacements.

The new addition was Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, an obscure New York City musician hired last week to replace enigmatic guitar wizard Buckethead. Occasionally, Bumblefoot played an unconventional guitar modeled to look like a hybrid between a bee and a foot, complete with retractable wings.

Guns N' Roses come up with new tracks

BY RAFER GUZMÁN
STAFF WRITER

The latest incarnation of Guns N' Roses played a "warm-up" show at Manhattan's filled-to-bursting Hammerstein Ballroom Sunday night, showcasing songs from the long-awaited album "Chinese Democracy" and promising - yet again - that the disc would be out soon.

The four nights at the venue - Friday, Sunday, last night and tomorrow - are being dubbed warm-up shows before the band tours the European festival circuit this summer and opens two dates for the Rolling Stones in Germany.

Axl Rose, 44, remains the only original member of Guns N' Roses. Sunday's lineup was essentially the same as in 2002, featuring bassist Tommy Stinson, drummer Brian "Brain" Mantia, guitarists Robin Finck and Richard Fortus, and keyboard players Dizzy Reed and Chris Pittman. Former guitarist Buckethead, known for wearing a KFC bucket on his head, was replaced by Ron "Bumblefoot" Thall, who played a guitar shaped like a foot with movable bees' wings.

The band kicked off with the urban anthem "Welcome to the Jungle" and played a two-hour, 15-minute show punctuated by on-stage fireworks and a roster of old favorites such as "Mr. Brownstone," "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "My Michelle," a duet with Skid Row's Sebastian Bach. Though plagued by microphone problems, Rose revealed a voice that's as powerful and piercing as ever.

The crowd, which included Lenny Kravitz sitting with friends in a private box, seemed familiar with the unreleased songs from "Chinese Democracy," many of which have leaked onto the Web. The newer numbers included a theatrical epic called "The Blues," the jagged rocker "Better" and the album's chaotic title track.

Regarding the disc, which has been in the making since the late 1990s, Rose said, "You and a whole lot of -- like you can obviously hold their breath a lot longer than David Blaine. I want to thank you."

Guns N' Roses bared its musical chops on two covers: a Satanic version of Wings' "Live and Let Die" and a soulful take on Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Finck's solos incorporated a number of unusual tunes, from "Over the Rainbow" to Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful."

The band closed with "Paradise City" around 1:10 a.m., and Finck dove into the crowd.