2010.01.17 - Rexall Place, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Guns N' Roses. Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010. Rexall Place.

By Sandra Sperounes

Why was Axl Rose repeatedly leaving the stage during Sunday’s show at Rexall Place? The Guns N’ Roses frontman seemed to run backstage in the middle of every one of their songs – and it wasn’t always to change his shirts.

Was it to get a hit of oxygen? Water? Helium? Or look over his lyrics? (No, he reportedly uses teleprompters, and yes, it looked like there were a few screens scattered around the foot of the stage for the 47-year-old musician to peek at.) Whatever the reason, his vanishing act was the only major bummer of G N’ R’s 150-minute show, which started at 10:30 p.m. (Almost 90 minutes earlier than the band’s last Rexall show in 2006.) Whenever Rose wasn't on stage, the concert tended to lose momentum. His bandmates might be wizards with their instruments, but they didn't possess his charisma (or those of their G N' R predecessors).

OK, so the sound wasn’t always pristine, but we’ve come to expect sludgy mixes – especially when it comes to L.A.’s finest rock 'n' roll hellions, including Motley Crue, Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver (G N’ R minus Rose). His screeches were often buried under the squeals of his three guitarists, but when he was audible – as on such oldies as November Rain and Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door - he sounded better than ever. Or at least better than he did on his last visit.

His latest batch of tunes – from the much-delayed and maligned Chinese Democracy - were hampered with the worst mixes, as if G N’ R’s sound technician was still trying to figure them out.

Night belongs to Axl

By Mike Ross
Edmonton Sun

Guns ’N’ Roses is the perfect example of a rock band whose parts are greater than the sum.

There’s one particular part that stands out. Axl Rose — whose name is an anagram of “oral sex,” just thought you’d like to know — is one of the most unpredictable, temperamental, flamboyant and explosively volatile frontmen in rock ‘n’ roll history.

You never know if he’s going to touch off a riot, punch a paparazzi, diss one of his former fellow band members, storm off the stage in a snit or figuratively kick your ass in one of the finest (and latest) rock shows ever seen in Edmonton.

Some love him. Some hate him. There is no middle ground. At least he’s not boring.

Sure, we missed Slash during Sunday night’s show at Rexall Place, but there were three — count ’em — excellent guitarists to pick up the slack, Richard Fortus, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal and DJ Ashba (who sported a silly tophat and started the show with a cigarette sprouting from his maw, obviously a nod to Mr. Slash).

No one in a crowd of 9,800 seemed to mind the new incarnation of the famous band that bridged the gap between hair metal and grunge rock.

When our favourite bad boy of rock commenced to howl Welcome to the Jungle early on, no one complained that this was just some overblown G’NR tribute band with an older and hairier frontman.

No one would’ve been able to hear any grumbling anyway. The cheers were deafening. So was the band. So were the explosions.

The 47-year-old Axl sang like a champ. His musicians were amazing. So was the stage production. It’s early, but this might have been the best rock show of 2010.

The old joke of making fans wait eons for the new record Chinese Democracy should remind us that people in China have been waiting a lot longer for democracy, which might never come anyway.

At least G’NR fans got the album — finally — a hearty dose of which was administered Sunday night.

The show opened (fashionably late at 10:30 p.m.) with the title track, not the most memorable G’NR song ever made.

Better was a funky — funky from G’NR, imagine that — reading of If the World, an epic tune touched with Meatloafian bombast. The same goes for weird and fascinating new songs like Shackler’s Revenge, Scraped and the power ballad Street of Dreams.

But the natives did start to get restless with Axl’s self-indulgence, despite the obvious passion with which he threw himself into the new material.

This crowd clearly came to hear the Gunner’s classics, Slash or no Slash, which included everything from November Rain — perhaps the finest power ballad ever made — to Paradise City, the last encore expected well into the wee hours of the morning.

Especially stunning was a version of Sorry (relatively) early in the night. Axl knew he nailed it, even took a bow afterwards.

And after a long spell of relatively unfamiliar if dramatic music, the double hit of Sweet Child O’ Mine and the rollicking You Could Be Mine gave the crowd the powerful bong hit of nostalgia they’d been waiting for.

November Rain, with Axl on piano — in a red velvet topcoat doing his best Elton John impersonation — sent the fans over the top.

Yes, this night (and this early morning) belonged to Axl and his new and I daresay improved version of the Gunners, no offence to Slash, Izzy and the rest of the old guys. There’s no turning back now. There’s no point being meek with your opening acts when you’re Axl Rose.

Sebastian Bach, the leather-clad jester of hair metal, primed the pump admirably for the sonic ass-kicking to come — from the opening of Back in the Saddle, or should that be Bach in the Saddle, to the closing of Youth Gone Wild, which really should be Middle Aged Guys Gone Wild, which is altogether more unexpected and frightening.

Whatever. Bach and his boys delivered the goods, freighted with the full complement of swagger, snarl and Hollywood throwback rock ’n’ roll antics so over the top that they transcended their own absurdity.

It really is possible to laugh your ass off and have it kicked at the same time. Canadians ought to know. As the 41-year-old singer so aptly put it, “I know Canada kicks ass because I’m from Canada— and I kick ass!”

Seems to be a running theme here.

While Danko Jones played the opening set to a lot of empty chairs (plus what amounted to a bar-ful of diehards crowded to the front of the stage), that didn’t prevent Canada’s most ridiculous rock star from belting out his testosterone-fuelled tunes.

Danko’s subject matter deals with either sex, large things that blow up, such as volcanoes, or rock songs about rocking.

Typical lyrics include “if you wanna know how to play the blues, get yourself a woman” and “when I’m behind the wheel, I’m in the fast lane” — well, of course he is! — all delivered with something between a snarl and a sneer.

This guys hasn’t changed his schtick in 14 years — and I‘m still not sure if he‘s serious or not.