2006.10.24 - BankAtlantic Center, Sunrise, USA

THE LAST ROSE AMONG THORNS

Leslie's appreciation of all things Guns N' Roses

By LESLIE GRAY STREETER

The version of celebrated rock hooligan collective Guns N' Roses coming to BankAtlantic Center on Tuesday is a very different group from the one we came to know in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For starters, GN'R's rotating colorful cast of musically and chemically gifted players like Slash, Duff McKagan, Gilby Clarke and others has changed, leaving lead singer Axl Rose the sole original member.

But that's cool. If it's hard to imagine hits like "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O' Mine," "Patience" and "November Rain" without Slash and the other original players, it's impossible without all the integral ingredients Axl brings to the table. There's his snarly-raspy vocal delivery, his Davy Jones-esque moves, and the fact that, if his behavior over the past two decades is an accurate indication -- the drunken brawls, controversial lyrics and questionable use of dreadlocks -- he's a walking Nutty Buddy. With extra nuts. (Seriously, dude .?.?. you hired a guitarist named Buckethead?)

Then again, what fun is a well-adjusted rock star? Behold a brief timeline of the madness of King Axl. Long may his red dreadlocks reign.

1985: W. Axl Rose (born William Bailey) forms Guns N' Roses with guitarist Tracii Guns, combining their bands Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns. (Rejected names reportedly include Heads of Amazon and AIDS). Guns doesn't last long, leaving Axl the only namesake, and therefore really hard to ever get rid of.

July 1987: GN'R releases their major label debut, "Appetite For Destruction." The original cover art, featuring a robot rapist, comes under fire from religious groups and retailers and was replaced -- by a drawing of the band members as skeletons positioned on a cross taken from one of Axl's tattoos.

1988: Here he comes, dancing down your street: For the video for "Patience," Axl borrows a signature move from an unlikely source -- the "Daydream Believer" shuffle of criminally cute Monkee Davy Jones. This is surprisingly hot.

November 1988: GN'R "Lies" is released, featuring, among other songs, the Axl composition "One in a Million," with derogatory references to gays and blacks. Axl's many goofy explanations is that the song is not only not racist, but a realistic tool at understanding the realities of racism. As of press time, the Nobel Peace Prize committee has yet to call.

July 1991: Axl shows his smooth way with the crowd in two different shows, threatening vigorous fisticuffs to any audience member who throws anything onstage at a show in Uniondale, N.Y., and jumping into the crowd in St. Louis to slap around someone taking pictures before walking off stage and inciting a riot. Whoops.

April 1992: GN'R performs at a Freddy Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness, performing with Queen. He also plays with Elton John, becoming the first allegedly homophobic musician to play the Elton John card. Somewhere in Michigan, a young Eminem takes notes.

June 1992: Note to Stephanie Seymour -- appearing in a coffin in your boyfriend Axl's video for "November Rain" is not sexy. It's creepy. And the dude looks like Eddie Munster in that suit.

November 1993: The band releases "The Spaghetti Incident," featuring a hidden track -- "Look At Your Game Girl," written by noted music fan and convicted mass murderer Charles Manson.

2000: The first release date for "Chinese Democracy," which would be the first original studio album from the band since 1993's "Use Your Illusion II," comes and goes. A lot. The album, which has cost reportedly more than $13 million, features band members no longer in residence and will reportedly be culled from more than 300 tapes, including a recording of Shaquille O'Neill rapping. Aren't we sorry that's been delayed.

September 2002: Still no "Chinese Democracy," but Axl appears on the MTV Video Music Awards anyway. He sports inexplicable dreadlocks, a very tight face, and leads the new version of Guns N' Roses, featuring the inexplicably KFC bucket-wearing guitarist Buckethead. Chickens would protest this but they're too busy beating their little wings and cracking up.

September 2006: Axl, looking like a combination of Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall, movie musical star Russ Tamblyn, Heat Miser and the dude from that lame reggae group Big Mountain, introduces The Killers at the VMAs. Rumors of a fall 2006 release date for "Chinese Democracy" persist. Those holding their breath change the oxygen in their tanks.

October 2006: A Buckethead-less Guns N' Roses begins their "Chinese Democracy" tour, named after an album that has still not come out yet. That's pretty crazy. But not the craziest thing Axl's ever done.

GN'R KICKS OFF NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
By Doug Miller / GunsNRoses.com

It's been over a decade since Guns N' Roses last went on a full-blown North American tour, but it didn't take very long at all for fans and critics to embrace them once again.

The first show of the Chinese Democracy Tour, which celebrates the long-awaited, upcoming album that features Axl Rose's latest all-star collection of musicians, went off without a hitch Tuesday night at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla.

Rose and his new lineup -- guitarists Robin Finck, Richard Fortus and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, familiar keyboard players Dizzy Reed and Chris Pitman, bassist Tommy Stinson and drummer Frank Ferrer –- tore through a more-than-two-hour set that included most of GN'R's classics plus a handful of eagerly anticipated new classics.

A dramatic introduction set the stage and, appropriately, "Welcome To The Jungle," the song that put GN'R on the map in the late 1980s, followed, with, as the Palm Beach Post blog described as "geysers of pyrotechnic flare-ups and the appearance of the strutting Rose, his multi-colored braids tied back behind his head."

After that, the band ripped through "It's So Easy," "Mr. Brownstone," and the Wings cover "Live And Let Die."

After that came the first of individual solos from each of the very talented members of the band. Guitarist Robin Finck, formerly of Nine Inch Nails, took the first one, which led into the familiar lead riff of what the Post called a "gleeful" rendition of one of GN'R's all-time hits, "Sweet Child O'Mine."

GN'R's famous Bob Dylan cover, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," came next, which led into "You Could Be Mine," a jam by keyboard player Dizzy Reed and a new song called "The Blues."

After Rose introduced the band, guitarist Richard Fortus took an extended solo, warming the band up for a run through "Out Ta Get Me," new track "Better," the hit ballad "November Rain" and new song "IRS."

"Don't Cry" was the centerpiece of the solo by Bumblefoot, the third member of the GN'R guitar trio, which had fans singing along at the top of their lungs.

That set the tone for "My Michelle." Then GN'R slowed things down a bit and fans heard what the Post described as "the welcome whistle of 'Patience.'"

After a super-adrenalized version of "Nightrain," the band left the stage, returning for an encore of "Chinese Democracy" and "Paradise City." The new song, according to the Post, "blended seamlessly into the rest of the Guns N' Roses canon, and the modern Guns N' Roses blends seamlessly into the band's legend."

The fireworks of the evening added up to what the Post concluded to be "pretty much the most exciting, gut-pumping, lighter-flicking thing seen so far this year in South Florida."

Soon enough, GN'R fans throughout the rest of the continent will find out for themselves.

Guns N' Roses: Welcome to the Awesome

By LESLIE GRAY STREETER
Palm Beach Post Music Writer

Before we commence to embarrassingly gushing over Tuesday's Guns N' Roses "Chinese Democracy" tour opener at Sunrise's BankAtlantic Center, it is necessary to give Axl Rose a strict finger-wagging.

It is completely inexcusable to make your fans wait more than an hour after the last opening act for you to deign to come onstage at 11:20 p.m. Especially since the bulk of your demographic is in their late 20s and early 30s, have jobs and/or families, and are going to be completely wiped out and useless at work the next morning because your portion of the show didn't end until 1:30 a.m. So, shame, shame, shame.
However, the show was pretty much the most exciting, gut-pumping, lighter-flicking thing seen so far this year in South Florida.

Yes, it's true - long the butt of jokes for his stage shenanigans, band lineup shuffling, creative hairdo and long-delayed Chinese Democracy album, frontman Axl Rose and his reconstituted Guns delivered a more than two-hour set that covered most of their older hits and at least one new number.

The relaxed, friendly and cheerfully profane Rose admitted to being a little worse for wear following some debauched evenings in Miami ("I'd like to know where I was in the wee hours of this morning"), which may have explained his many departures from the stage to allow various band members solos that occasionally slowed the evening down.

But those solos, including a strong guitar jam by former Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck and an almost Jim Brickman-esque piano piece by longtime keyboardist Dizzy Reed, still couldn't zap the energy of Capt. Axl and his still-seductive stage snakiness.

The concert started strong and mostly stayed that way. After the hideous wait (and there's still no excuse for that), the lights went down on a stage flanked by the letters G N' R in Chinese-like characters. Ominous storm trooper-type music began to play as the restless fans began yelling things like "Come on!"

And BOOM!, just like that, the staccato strains of Welcome To The Jungle greeted geysers of pyrotechnic flare-ups and the appearance of the strutting Rose, his multicolored braids tied back behind his head.
"You know where you are?" Rose screamed along with the crowd. "You're in the junnn-gal, bay-BAYY!"
Why, yes we are. Grab that pith helmet and stun gun and elaborate, my friend.

Rose's voice has always been something of a contradiction - a pleasant raspiness that turns into a seductively dangerous shriek. It was in evidence during Jungle, as well as the intense You Could Be Mine, Mr. Brownstone and It's So Easy. By the end of the show, he sounded like he'd over-extended himself, but he never stopped throwing himself into it, even with the probable hangover pounding on his cornrows.

The band did pretty much everything you'd think they would - the strongest bits included the expert bombast of Wings' Live And Let Die (and did you remember how good that thing was?), the welcome whistle of Patience and a gleeful Sweet Child O' Mine.

Oddly, for a tour named "Chinese Democracy," there was very little evidence of the still-unreleased album that lends it its name. Toward the end, before the stomping encore of Paradise City, Axl and company did the title song, a loud and solid number that invokes the importance of thinking for yourself and not letting them fool ya and what-not.

It's OK, although it's no November Rain. However, it blended seamlessly into the rest of the Guns N' Roses canon, and the modern Guns N' Roses blends seamlessly into the band's legend.