2006.10.31 - Veterans Memorial Arena, Jacksonville, USA

GNR ready for show despite slow sales

By Charles Runnells

Don't worry, Guns N' Roses fans. Axl is still coming to Southwest Florida.

It didn't look promising last week, though.

GNR was supposed to kick off the Southern leg of its 'Chinese Democracy' tour Oct. 20 in Jacksonville, but that show got rescheduled for Oct. 31. Then its Nashville stop Sunday was canceled altogether.

But those changes weren't because of poor ticket sales or Axl Rose's mood, said John Stoll, president of West Palm Beach promoter Fantasma Productions, Inc.

The head Gunner just got hung up in the recording studio.

'He was putting the finishing touches on the new album,' Stoll said. 'But now Axl's in town (in Miami), and he has been rehearsing for two days.'

Guns N' Roses were set to start the Southern tour in Sunrise Tuesday night. The Nashville show couldn't be rescheduled, so they added another stop in Puerto Rico, Stoll said.

The tour includes singer Axl Rose, but no other members of the original lineup.

Guns N' Roses' long-awaited album 'Chinese Democracy' has been in the works for about 10 years, and it’s become a recurring joke among rock journalists. Spin magazine even wrote a fake album review this year for April Fool's Day.

But now Axl has been telling interviewers the album will finally come out by Christmas. Finally. Guns N' Roses is performing many of its songs on tour, Stoll said.

Ticket sales have been strong throughout Florida ' the Sunrise show was almost sold out Tuesday morning ' but the Estero show has lots of good seats left, said Jeff Hickox, regional marketing manager for Beasley Broadcast Group.

The concert is the centerpiece of K-Rock's 20th-annual Birthday Bash. The radio station is part of the Beasley Group.

Germain Arena is about 60-percent sold out for the Guns N’ Roses show, Hickox said, but the radio station had hoped for more. The arena can hold 8,300 people for concerts.

'Ticket sales aren't what we thought they'd be,' Hickox said.

Still, Hickox said that isn't unusual. Many big shows don't sell out until the last minute, and there are always a lot of walk-up sales at the box office the day of the show.

No matter who shows up, the band Papa Roach is excited about touring with Guns N' Roses and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. And they're looking forward to reaching a new hard-rock audience.

'We're really stoked,' said singer Jacoby Shaddix. 'It's just real rock n' roll, you know what I'm saying?'

The band has played a few dates before with Guns N' Roses, but never for more than one show. Now they'll be touring with GNR for three weeks.

Shaddix is still not sure what to expect. 'It's going to be interesting,' he said.

GUNS N' ROSES TO PLAY ARENA ON HALLOWEEN

The Guns N' Roses concert in Jacksonville has turned into a Halloween treat.

The concert, originally scheduled for Friday, has been pushed back to Oct. 31 at Veterans Memorial Arena. Sebastian Bach and Papa Roach will open the show.

Jacksonville had been the opening night of the tour, which only features vocalist Axl Rose from the band's original lineup. A spokeswoman for Fantasma Productions, the show's promoter, said the band wanted another week for rehearsal.

People who bought tickets can get a refund at the place of purchase or can use the tickets on Halloween night.

Welcome back to the jungle
Guns N' Roses is touring for first time since '93, albeit minus a few members

By ROGER BULL

For one stretch there (hard to believe it's been almost 20 years), Guns N' Roses was rock 'n' roll. They showed up in the late '80s and when the guitars really kicked in on Paradise City, they were exactly what a rock band should be: hard rocking, great songs and more than a little dangerous.

Axl Rose had a unique voice, not to mention that swaying thing going. Welcome to the Jungle, Sweet Child O' Mine, Patience . . .

It all came and went quickly, though, blown up from the inside by egos and squabbles. There were late-shows, no-shows and riots.

But the band (at least some of it) is back and playing at Veterans Memorial Arena on Tuesday night. That's Halloween, by the way. Figure that: Guns N' Roses and Halloween.

It's still led by Rose and his promise that Chinese Democracy, his album in the works for a decade, will come out later this fall. But besides Rose, only keyboardist Dizzy Reed dates back to the band's glory days. And he didn't join until 1990. Slash and Duff McKagan are long gone, replaced by Robin Finck (Nine Inch Nails), Tommy Stinson (The Replacements), Bryan "Brain" Mantia (Primus), Chris Pitman, Richard Fortus (Psychedelic Furs) and Ron Thal.

The concert was originally scheduled for Oct. 20 as the opening of a 36-city tour, the band's first since 1993. But it was moved back so the band could get a little more practice time in, a spokeswoman for the promoter said. Instead, the tour opened Tuesday night in Sunrise.

Sebastian Bach, former Skid Row frontman, will open the show; he has been joining Rose on stage for My Michelle. Bach also gained recent fame for his part in the VH1 reality show Supergroup where he somehow made Ted Nugent the second-most obnoxious person in the room. Hard-core rockers Papa Roach will play after Bach.

HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT GUNS N' ROSES?

1. Which guitar player has never been a member of Guns N' Roses?
A. Brian "Buckethead" Carroll
B. Saul "Slash" Hudson
C. Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal
D. Eric "Slowhand" Clapton

2. Axl Rose's birth name was:
A. Axl Foley
B. Stewart Ransom Miller
C. William Bruce Rose Jr.
D. Edgar Rice Burr Rose

3. What was the last album of new, original material by GNR?
A. The Spaghetti Incident?
B. Use Your Illusion II
C. GN'R Lies
D. Chinese Democracy

4. Which personnel change happened in GNR
A. Daffy replaced Goofy
B. Dizzy replaced Duffy
C. Sneezy replaced Grumpy
D. Gilby replaced Izzy

5. True or false: Don Henley played drums with Guns N' Roses on the American Music Awards in the late 1980s.

6. Axl Rose married the daughter of:
A. Robbie Krieger of the Doors
B. Alice Cooper
C. Don Everly of the Everly Brothers
D. Keith Richards

7. Slash formed a band named:
A. Slash's Snakepit
B. Slash's Surfdogs
C. Slash's Slashers
D. Slash's Sinners

8. The Spaghetti Incident? included a song written by:
A. John Wayne Gacy
B. Charles Manson
C. Ted Bundy
D. Son of Sam

9. In 1992, Rose caused a riot in Montreal when he arrived late and walked off the stage after nine songs. Co-headling that tour with GNR was:
A. Metallica
B. Van Halen
C. Aerial Tribe
D. Pearl Jam

10. Name the guitar player who has been a member of Guns N' Roses.
A. Tracii Guns
B. Izzy Stradlin
C. Slash
D. Gilby Clarke
E. Paul "Huge" Tobias
F. Robin Finck
G. Buckethead
H. Richard Fortus
I. Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal
J. All of the above.

It's Guns N' Roses, aka 'The Late Show'

Good concert hurt by frustrating delays

By ROGER BULL

There is something about standing there at 1:30 in the morning, listening to yet another guitar solo but knowing you're not going to leave until you hear Paradise City. Yes, Guns N' Roses did make it to the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena on Tuesday night and put on a good -- but not great -- show.
All you needed was a little Patience.

It wasn't the full, original band, of course. But Axl Rose was there, and that's who people came to see. They just had to wait until midnight to see him.

The whole delay thing started at the beginning. Though the concert was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., the doors didn't open until 7:30. So hundreds of people stood in line, listening to a monotonous recording telling them over and over that guns, knives and clubs were prohibited. The crowd was mostly in their 20s and 30s, but there were plenty several decades past that.

There weren't more than 1,000 people in the arena when 8 p.m. rolled around. Ticket sales had been slow but had reportedly picked up when prices were cut by as much as $27 per ticket. At 8:35, 35 minutes late, former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach took the stage with his band. They played for a little more than an hour, a mix of Skid Row hits and some new songs.

Bach tried hard; you had to give him that. He still has his screaming pipes, and he went through all the requisite hair metal moves. But the music just lay there flat like, well, old hair metal. Except when he played his bigger hits Monkey Business and Youth Gone Wild, he didn't get the crowd very excited.
After Bach, there was a good 55-minute delay before Papa Roach came on. There didn't seem to be much work going on. We just waited.

But when they did come on at 10:35, they got rocking right away with She Loves Me Not. The band was incredibly tight and energetic, all four fused into one solid beat. Vocalist Jacoby Shaddix even went out in the crowd on a couple of songs. More music, less posing and definitely a notch above Bach.

By the time Papa Roach finished up with Last Resort, it was pushing 11:30. And it was midnight before Guns N' Roses came on. Keep in mind that if you were 18 when Appetite for Destruction came out in 1987, you are now 37. And you may just have a job and a family. In fact, while most of the lower level was full by the time GNR took the stage, the crowd did thin during their two-hour set.

Axl and the guys (of which only keyboardist Dizzy Reed dates back to when they last produced an album) kicked it off right with Welcome to the Jungle. It was Axl Rose, all right. He's sporting a corn-row pony tail these days, and he's a little heavier. He is, after all, 44. But the old moves are still there: the hop, the spin and the snake dance.

The voice, well, sometimes it sounded fine, especially on the shriek that sounds like nothing but him. Other times, it seemed to break and disappear completely, and it was impossible to tell if it was him or the electronics that was failing. On the softer tunes like Patience and Knockin' on Heaven's Door, it's clearly a rougher, less agile voice than we remember.

At its best, the concert was very good. It was, after all, Axl Rose up there singing some of the better songs in rock. And in the full two-hour set, he did just about all that you could ask for. At its worst, there were too many long guitar solos by guitarists who are not as good as Slash and who threw in too many silly theatrics.

When the band ended at 1:50 a.m., more of the crowd left, not waiting for the encore they knew would be Paradise City. The band came back quickly for its encore and did a first-class version of a great rock 'n' roll song.

Fireworks went off behind the stage, confetti blew out over the crowd that remained.

That was worth waiting for.

Guns N' Roses Rocks, Infuriates In Jacksonville

Jeff Vrabel, Jacksonville, Fla.

Even on a sticky Halloween night in Florida, with much of the crowd in costume and spooky holiday decor swinging from the rafters, nothing could quite out-weird the main spectacle: watching 1/8th of Guns N' Roses perform a batch of 20-year-old smashes -- as well as a few from a record originally slated for release during the first Clinton administration -- in front of, among other things, a large and inflatable Homer Simpson balloon.

Welcome to the jungle, kids. We've got fun and games.

Or, more accurately, welcome to whatever this is. Well, what do you call this ragged Frankenstein's monster of a band these days: GNR of the 21st Century? Guns Minus Everyone But Axl? The GNR Experience Feat. Mr. Rose And His Band Of Merry Pranksters? Or, in a time when nostalgia rock is about the only safe bet, when Queen can tour without Freddie and half of the Who is one of the biggest games in town, is 2006 Guns N' Roses merely another case of Hardly Authentic But Good Enough?

Needless to say, one puts up with a lot in catching the remnants of GNR these days (to be fair, it's actually 1/4th of the classic lineup, if you count keyboardist Dizzy Reed). There's the wacky stage time (a classically Rose-ian midnight on a Tuesday), the wearying wait for an alleged new record and the small matter of all the Guns exiles who don't come around anymore.

But maybe the strangest thing is that for all its some-assembly-required vibe, Rose's band knows how to tear up an arena show. Sure, these are hired hands, and Slash would be pleased to know that Rose requires three guitarists to replace/recreate him: ex NIN-ster Robin Finck, now a dead ringer for Matisyahu; journeyman Richard Fortus; and, replacing Buckethead, Ron Thal, who goes by Bumblefoot. You can't make this stuff up. But these guys bring the noise.

Moreover, Rose, impossibly, frustratingly, remains as galvanizingly watchable a frontman as you're likely to find anywhere. The charisma? Enviably intact. The vocals? Strained, but often thrilling. The drive is back, too -- sometime between Guns' aborted 2002 run and today, Rose relocated his give-a-damn, and he prowls the stage with an intensity and ambition that sometimes outweighs his reach, but is crazy to witness. When he's on and his voice is doing age-defying triple salchows on "Welcome to the Jungle" and "It's So Easy," he's cornrowed lightning.

And for about half of the two-hour set, that's all you really need. Tracks like "Jungle," "Mr. Brownstone" and even "Live and Let Die" are meteor impacts -- so much so, in fact, that Rose adhered almost exclusively to songs from about 1987. This night, he was solely interested in the most glorious of the glory days, bringing out the big, boozy, misogynistic WMDs from "Appetite" ("Nightrain," "Out Ta Get Me," "My Michelle") -- and only invited songs from the "Use Your Illusion" discs that originated in the "Appetite" era, like "November Rain" and "You Could Be Mine." He's consciously blacking out a decent chunk of catalog here.

But all the grand setup leads into a weird payoff. Because after a massive opening salvo, reality begins to creep in with "Better," allegedly the first single from the new album (the expensive-looking Eastern backdrop indicated Rose remains apparently serious about this "Chinese Democracy" thing). Chunky riffs aside, "Better," charitably speaking, ain't no "Brownstone." And due to lots of things -- that inhospitable stage time (for which a smirking Rose denied credit), his penchant for vanishing from the stage for long stretches (though it added to his enigmatic legacy, one begins to wonder if he's really up to this) and pacing issues, the show begins to grow cold and distant, despite the valiant efforts of its frontman.

Oh, and this keeps coming up, too: Who the hell are these people?

Rose's minions are dressed like a ragtag pomo art outfit: keyboardist Chris Pittman's in an ivory-white suit, Tommy Stinson rocks plaid pants, and Bumblefoot has the name Bumblefoot. All have creative Tomorrowland haircuts (it was hard to tell what was a Halloween costume and what wasn't). But Rose has them faithfully recycle songs and solos as recorded by another guy 20 years ago. He takes great pains to project a vibe of forward-thinking, then consents to a jarring cameo by cornball Sebastian Bach, who in his opening set performs a song called "Love Is a Bitch Slap" to emphasize all you don't miss about buttless-chaps metal.

He adheres to a schedule of L.A. rock club ethics that doesn't so much apply in Jacksonville early in the week. And he grants all three guitarists interminable, momentum-killing solos; Fortus used his to jam on Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful," and you weren't sure what his intentions were, much like you're not sure what Rose's are.

Axl is capable of transcendent power: "Paradise City" seethed and roared, "You Could Be Mine" worked up a mighty head of steam and if there's a better way to open a rock show than with "Welcome to the Jungle," someone E-mail me about it. And Rose seemed to be alternately salivating at and resentful of the challenge of carrying this load on his shoulders.

But to what end? In the sense that anticipation is generally better than the experience (I'm looking at you, god-awful "Star Wars" prequels), the mystique of Rose's alleged "Democracy," if you're not bored of the entire episode in the first place, will spot-evaporate the day it's released. One wonders if Rose wouldn't be better served to leave it in the can until he's 60 and then bingo, it's "Smile."

In those glory days, Guns N' Roses was just about as good it got. But its hole card now is an album that might not exist, and once "Democracy" rises and falls, Guns N' Roses, which can now maintain a spooky sense of mystery, will be very likely trading the night train for the nostalgia train, whoever the hell's in it. But in the meantime, GNR still can rock your night, or early morning, with a primal power. Just bring a friend to help carry along the baggage.