2006.11.17 - Scotiabank Place, Ottawa, Canada

Why you should still care about Guns N’ Roses

20 years ago, the original band defined the sneering, dangerous heart of rock. That legacy still stands.

“I won’t be told anymore/That I’ve been brought down in this storm/And left so far out from the shore/That I can’t find my way back, my way anymore.”

from Madagascar, a song on Chinese Democracy

BY JOSHUA OSTROFF

Axl Rose may not want to hear it, but fans and haters alike have long wondered how lost one must be to need nine years and $13 million to record a comeback album.

Though a few tracks have leaked over the years — the sprawling epic Madagascar first surfaced in 2002 — the actual release of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy seemed about as likely as, well, Chinese democracy.

Nearly every year since 1999, when the radically revamped GN’R, with Axl as its lone original member, sold its industrial track Oh My God to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s End of Days soundtrack, there have been promises made, but no records delivered.

As Axl became a Howard Hughes-like recluse, running through hired guns and record producers while obsessively rewriting his alleged opus, it became rock ’n’ roll’s greatest running joke.

The Offspring once threatened to name their 2003 album Chinese Democracy, with lead singer Dexter Holland deadpanning: “You snooze, you lose. Axl ripped off my braids, so I ripped off his album title.”

This past spring, Spin magazine ran a lengthy review of Chinese Democracy. Was Axl’s long-awaited album at hand? After all, pirates had recently loosed three studio songs — IRS, Better and There Was A Time — into the wilds of the Internet. But after giggling over the review — “If you purchased a kitten on the day that Use Your Illusion I & II arrived in stores, it’s probably dead by now” — astute readers noticed the dateline: April 1st. Nuts.

But Gunner news kept coming. Radio stations played the leaked demos, Axl sued Slash over royalties, feuded with Scott Weiland (the singer now fronting Axl’s former bandmates in the exceedingly bland Velvet Revolver) and even performed concerts, starting in New York, before headlining Euro festivals and eventually embarking on the North American tour that comes to Scotiabank Place tomorrow.

But since the aging Axl is essentially fronting a GN’R cover band — admittedly staffed with top-notch talent from Nine Inch Nails, the Replacements and Psychedelic Furs —why does anyone still give a damn?

Of course, better questions might be: Why did readers of ElleGirl magazine vote Axl the “coolest old person”? Or why is YouTube flooded with homemade music videos of those Chinese Democracy demos? Or why do teens wear Guns N’ Roses T-shirts without irony when most weren’t even born when Appetite For Destruction first rocked the charts?

See, the original Guns N’ Roses represent the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll myth better than any band since, and their early recordings remain electrifyingly vital. Two decades later, Axl’s sneering threat to bring you to your “n-n-n-n-knees” still sounds bloody dangerous, especially compared to modern rockers like the Killers.

Sure, GN’R didn’t have the “cool” cachet of Nirvana — in fact, Kurt Cobain publicly mocked Axl — but Guns did just as much to end hair metal by so resoundingly out-rocking the likes of Poison and Whitesnake.

GN’R took metal and made it heavy again, but with a bluesy swagger and barrels of grit and sleaze and slam-danceable ugliness.

This was the white-trash version of gangsta rappers NWA, and they were equally angry at the world. There was no silly make-up, no sappy power ballads and definitely no more Mr. Nice Axl.

I was in Grade 7 or 8 when Appetite was climbing the charts, and the copy I dubbed off my sister rarely left my yellow Sports Walkman. At that age I didn’t realize Mr. Brownstone was about heroin, though it certainly made sense that Paradise City would be “where the girls are pretty.”

But I began learning about the band’s origins. How Axl was a self-made rock star who left small-town Indiana, where he was beaten by his step-dad and assorted local rednecks, to find fame, fortune and females on the Sunset Strip alongside his childhood friend/rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin. Or how the bands Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns amalgamated and eventually included bassist Duff McKagan, drummer Steven Adler and Slash, one of rock’s all-time guitar gods.

I may not have known why they sounded so good — that would be their addition of raw punk ferocity to the glam-metal of the day — but I could tell Guns was a band in the midst of creating its own legend.

As Appetite became the biggest-selling debut album ever and was joined on the charts by their quickie EP GN’R Lies, the band became inescapable. There was that unforgettable riff on Sweet Child O’ Mine, the whistling intro to Patience, the stories of trashed hotel rooms and trampled concertgoers and charges of drug abuse, racism, homophobia and misogyny.

Years of indulgence manifested in the bombast of their over-ambitious 1991 double-shot Use Your Illusion I and II, which debuted on Billboard's top two spots and included hard-rockers like You Could Be Mine alongside blissfully bloated epics like November Rain.

They launched an equally epic 28-month tour, and I waited in line all night to get tickets for the Vancouver show. Unfortunately, this proved my first opportunity to be disappointed by Axl’s antics when the infamous Montreal riot delayed the concert.

Instead of Metallica and Faith No More opening, we got saddied with ex-Queen guitarist Brian May.

Still, it was a pivotal moment of my teen years. Too young to drink or drive, we put on our finest ripped jeans and hired a limo from the suburbs to the Coliseum so we could down Budweisers en route. It could have been the beer buzz, but GN’R put on the most fiery stadium show I’ve ever seen.

Which is a lot more than could be said for their last stadium go-round in 2002, cut short after a riot in Vancouver, but not before I witnessed a puffy Axl straining his screech while appearing to read lyrics off a TelePrompTer in Toronto’s Skydome.

Chinese Democracy may actually come out this year, and even prove to be great, Axl appears slimmed-down and energized and this tour has been getting better reviews than their last outing, but it doesn’t really matter what Axl or even Velvet Revolver do nowadays.

Guns N’ Roses’ legacy is sound, because all these years later it remains absolutely physically impossible to hear Welcome to the Jungle without turning it up to 11.

Guns N' Roses play Scotiabank Place tomorrow. Tickets & times, www.capitaltickets.ca.

***

Axl Rose, by sheer charisma, helps us relive those intoxicating, bad old days of early hair metal. What a blast.

SHAWN JAM HILL
THE METALHEAD

Guns N’ Roses have been picked clean, and only W. Axl Rose remains, team captain of hard rock’s most storied, visceral and greasy band. Without Slash’s awesome six-string firepower, Duff McKagan’s steady bass rumble and Izzy’s barroom-ready rhythm tone, is Guns N’ Frikken Roses 2006 even the same band? And does it matter?

Appetite For Destruction, the band’s debut album on Geffen, and a veritable tour de force, remains the quintessential ’80s metal record, a swaggering, dirty paean to all that is deliciously debauched, a postcard from an era before terrorism was a worn-out buzzword.

It was pure escapism, and the fact that Axl brings the noise to Scotiabank Place tomorrow with himself as the only remaining original member in the lineup is a testament to the man’s shrewd business sense. Guns N’ Roses are a construct, a fantasy of shrieking guitars and rock-solid anthems that defines an entire generation of hard rock fans. Who among us has not held a partner close, slow dancing to November Rain, only to get confused by the bombastic piano-laden outro?

When I saw the clip for Sweet Child O’ Mine on Video Hits I was in Grade 7. I immediately wanted to get my ear pierced, play electric guitar and wow the masses with a new-found gender-bending sense of bravado. Those five rockers looked like the baddest dudes I had ever seen in my life.

People will question the relevance of the Guns N’ Roses of 2006. I embrace the paradox that is Axl Rose, a man who by sheer charisma can headline stadium tours on the coattails of records released some 15 years ago, while a dangerous corn-rowed undertone lurks beneath.

GNR is a throwback to hair boogie smash-ups like the one at metal’s genesis, and Axl knows full well there is a niche for solid, booze-addled jams, soaring heartfelt ballads a la Don't Cry and inescapably intoxicating boogie smash-ups like the one at the end of Paradise City to satisfy the true classic rock hesher in these downloadable times.

Axl’s new six-stringers, Robin Finck (ex-Nine Inch Nails) and Richard Fortus (ex-Psychedelic Furs), have Slash’s huge boots to fill, but the spotlight will be on Axl, and recreating those metal memories from dirty rock’s halcyon daze will be worth every penny.

So yes, it does matter that the boy is back in town. Bust out yer jean jacket with the leather fringes, hoist a stadium turbo beer on high and relive when rock’n’ roll could cause serious pandemonium.

Axl himself may be as relevant as hypercolour T-shirts, but this Spandex-soaked party rock hootenanny will be one heck of a blast — provided the mercurial metalhead bothers to show up for the gig.

SHAWN JAM HILL is an Ottawa writer, musician and chef.

These Guns hilly loaded

Axl Rose may be tardy, but his latest version of Guns N’ Roses can really rock

BY LYNN SAXBERG

Axl Rose, who used to be the unpredictable bad boy of the rock biz, has matured into a cunning showman. He hasn’t released any new material in years, but he can tour with 15-year-old hits and a new lineup and somehow convince people that Guns N’ Roses is a thriving entity with a dangerous edge.

Of course, no one plays Axl like Axl, and without Axl, there would be no Guns N’ Roses. With his compact, muscular frame and wildcat screech, he is a brilliant rock frontman, as 11,200 of us saw at Scotiabank Place on Friday. He’s had flashes of songwriting genius, too, but not this millennium. At one point this fall, the long-awaited new album, Chinese Democracy, was scheduled to be in stores this week. A couple of new songs have surfaced, but we’ll believe the new album when we see it.

With or without a new album, Axl has created a turbocharged live version of Guns N’ Roses. The band was terrific on Friday — bigger, tighter, more powerful and probably more talented than any previous version of Guns N’ Roses. When they dug into familiar territory such as Knocking on Heaven’s Door or Live and Let Die or Paradise City, it was mind-blowing how good they sounded, even during a few too-long moments of soloing. Much was forgiven when one guitar solo turned into a blood-curdling version of the national anthem.

It was great entertainment, but you couldn’t help but get the sense it had all been carefully planned, right down to the shockingly late start time. Rose has always been notorious for being late, or not showing up at all. He drinks, he has a temper, he’s an unreliable rock star — it’s part of the mystique that surrounds his eccentric character.

But word has leaked out along this tour that the promoters know he’s going to be late and have factored overtime into the offer. This kind of information dulls the dangerous edge, the will-he-or-won’t-he apprehension. Of course he will, kids, no need to riot.

At Air Canada Centre on Wednesday, the Gunners started their set at 11:40 p.m. Rose finally left Toronto at 10 p.m. Friday in a Lear jet, making it to the stage of Scotiabank Place at 11:56 p.m. and staying there until almost 2:15 a.m.

There was only one thing that threw him off his game. Gazing over the audience, Rose lost his cool for a second and disappeared from the stage. Cut to a disturbance at the back of the crowd, and a fan in a wig and hat was being escorted out. Apparently, it was not such a smart idea to dress up as Slash, Axl’s former guitarist. Some wounds never heal.

In the long hours leading up to GN’R’s triumphant appearance, their first in Ottawa since opening for Iron Maiden in the late ’80s, it was a sideshow of warmup activity, with two bands, a burlesque show and plenty of beer (but only until 10:30 p.m. when the bars shut down.) Between the naked girls on stage and the brewskies, the mullets and black-leather vests were having the time of their lives. Then when the Trailer Park Boys showed up to sing with Sebastian Bach, well, it was a classic hoser-rock moment.

Bach was remarkably well preserved, easily as convincing as his buddy, Axl, in the role of hard-rock frontman. Seeing Bach’s long hair and hearing his high-rev voice caused an instant flashback to the era of hair-metal. The foul-mouthed Peterborough native has changed very little in the last decade or so. He still has hair to fling, biceps to flex, and he still fits in the leather pants, visuals that made renditions of I Remember You and Skid Row’s Slave To The Grind especially convincing. There was also a jolt of recognition at his Geddy Lee impersonation on Rush’s Closer to the Heart.

The Friday-night rock marathon began with a valiant performance by Toronto’s Die Mannequin, whose singer-guitarist played hard, but looked like she was just trying to get through the night. No wonder.

Few woman would have been comfortable on that stage knowing that leggy young things in high heels, panties and pasties were on next. The Suicide Girls’ lengthy burlesque show was basically a series of stripper routines with an undertone of sex and violence.

Hey, didn’t the Suicide Girls start out as an underground website for real women with a punk style? These Suicide Girls showed more skank than style as they jiggled their enhanced, um, features and gyrated with each other. There may have been a tattoo or dreadlock or two, but nothing that lent credibility to the idea that Suicide Girls celebrates the beauty of misfit females.

Turned out they were just another gimmick in Axl Rose’s bag of rock ’n’ roll tricks. He hired them to pour syrup on themselves, not to make pancakes.

Down to Paradise City

Axl and GN'R give Ottawa a command performance

By Ann Marie McQueen
Ottawa Sun

One thing is for sure, no matter what you think of the man, the assembled band or the notion itself: Axl Rose brought it to Scotiabank Place when he played into the wee hours of yesterday morning.

It doesn't matter whether you see the equally reviled and revered 44-year-old as an obnoxious relic-brat who refuses to go quietly, a next-generation symbol of everything bad-ass, or a man capable of delivering steel-melting vocals that can transport a person back to 1990 in an note. There was no denying that over 10,000 fans who took in a two-hour, 20-minute show were in the presence of a true rock star.

So much has been written about Rose and the band of six assembled musicians that make up the modern-day Guns N' Roses, only without the Slash. Cancelled shows, Rose's tendency to be cranky and arrogant and strange, the mythical Chinese Democracy album more than 10 years in the making, the way this tour starts playing each show when they are good and ready.

No one in Kanata on Friday night seemed to care about all that. Though the last part turned out to be true: After opening acts including Skid Row's Sebastian Bach and the chocolate sauce-implementing burlesque show Suicide Girls were through, it was nearly midnight.

The motley assembled crowd was about to burst when ex-Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finch finally appeared, leaning down and teasing the front row with the first blistering licks of Welcome to the Jungle.

They went bananas when Rose came out: the short cornrows tied back in a ponytail, fierce face torqued up with a full-on goatee, wraparound shades, leather shirt open low to reveal a big silver cross, and ripped jeans.

"Do you know where the f--- you are?" he screamed to a sea of gleefully pointing fingers.

And then they were off, turning in one of the best rock shows in recent Ottawa memory. There were the favourite tunes: Heroin ode Mr. Brownstone,the wicked Patience, with Rose whistling the interludes.

The crowd was obviously acquainted with new tune Better, many singing along, and adored over-the-top covers of Live and Let Die and Knockin' on Heaven's Door.

The biggest surprise of the night was just how hard Rose sings for his supper. The voice was still astonishing, if unreliable at key times -- sadly, on the wicked stripper anthem Sweet Child 'O Mine -- and at others, overpowered by the trio of guitars. But whether he was pounding a grand piano's keys on November Rain, or spinning around in a hard-core backwards one-foot spin as fireworks rained down on the stage during the explosive final moments of show-closer Paradise City, Rose worked harder than expected.

Playing to the crowd, dancing, running, and that instantly recognizable back-and-forth rocking dance of his, it was no wonder Rose goes through what has been a heavily criticized half-dozen costume changes per show: The man works up a fearsome sweat.

It's not as if there was nothing to do while he was changing: each of the musical interludes provided serious entertainment. It's not often you see a grand piano wheeled out on stage for a stirring solo, courtesy of an Ottawa Senators sweater-wearing Dizzy Reed. There were duelling guitars on a hard-core instrumental version of Christina Aguilera's You're Beautiful, and a blistering O Canada. So many guitar solos, so little time. The progressively drunken stage appearances by the rum-and-coke wielding, F-bomb dropping Trailer Park Boys were an added bonus to a night that would have been a gong show were it not so fun.

Shenanigans aside, in the words of a guy sitting beside me, the crowd had one goal.

"I just want to see Axl, man."

They got him, and a more genuine, and generous, smile-cracking version than anyone expected.