2016.06.29 - Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO, USA

Former Guns N’ Roses bassist Tommy Stinson attended the band’s concert in Kansas City tonight at Arrowhead Stadium.

Lead singer Axl Rose is in strong form in concert that lasts more than two and a half hours

Concert showcases band’s blockbuster 1987 debut album, “Appetite for Destruction”

Show includes several covers, including instrumental versions of “Layla” and “Wish You Were Here”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/back-to-rockville/article86820582.html#storylink=cpy

great to see me ol' pals last nite in KC! i am so grateful for the time i had playin with these gents.!!! thanx to all the fans that bought me drinks last nite!

Concert Review: Guns N’ Roses/Alice in Chains

By Jedd Beaudoin

Something that gets lost in all the talk about the Guns N’ Roses mythology is that the band puts on a hell of a good show. On the group’s June 29 visit to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, the Guns set started at 9:30 and didn’t let up until just before the stroke of midnight. The hits came early and often, mixed in with deeper cuts and the occasional cover, and although fans didn’t get “My Michelle” or “Patience,” there wasn’t a sense that anything’s missing.

Alice in Chains delivered a powerful opening live set that although short on time brimmed with hits and goodwill. Guitarist and vocalist William DuVall led the band through “No Excuses,” “Would?” and “Man in the Box” with unbridled energy and thorough commitment to the cause. Although guitarist Jerry Cantrell remains very much a focal point, DuVall has more than earned his place inside the group. The rhythm section of drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Inez (clad in a Raiders jersey) propelled the quartet with a ferocity that demanded that the still milling crowd take notice. After a crushing rendition of “Rooster,” the members took their final bow as Cantrell gave a clearly heartfelt thanks. A decade after reforming, Alice in Chains may be poised to becoming an even greater draw than before. The Arrowhead set suggested that missing an Alice show is something one can only regret.

Then Guns N’ Roses took the stage, albeit without two parts of the original lineup: guitarist Izzy Stradlin opted not to participate in this reunion of sorts, and no one knows where drummer Steven Adler is. That these players would be absent only adds to the GN’R mystique, and with that mystique comes power. Both were in ample supply on the stage at Arrowhead when the band launched into “It’s So Easy” to kick things off. More than 30 years after its birth, the song still brims with rebellious darkness and anti-authoritarian glee. When Axl Rose raised his middle finger while announcing that some unseen non-believer can just “fuck off,” he glowed defiantly, embodying the spirit of rock music.

Having fully recovered from a broken foot suffered earlier this year, Rose danced and pranced around the stage with an energy and conviction not too far removed from the band’s initial run. What he didn’t lose sight of during the entire set is that people came to hear him sing. He lost nothing of “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” songs that a few vocalists might punish their young selves for not having written.

McKagan, who looks like a randy first-year college professor in a tank top and neck scarf, offered Rose some vocal relief during a cover of the Iggy & The Stooges chestnut “Raw Power.” His playing on “Rocket Queen,” “You Could Be Mine” and “Nighttrain” remind us of the integral part he had in shaping the Guns ‘N Roses sound. He and drummer Frank Ferrer formed a rhythm section that is perhaps only rivaled by the one Ferrer formed with McKagan’s replacement/successor Tommy Stinson.

As beloved and brilliant as Axl and Duff can be, the current road trek, dubbed the Not in This Lifetime Tour, owes that moniker to the reappearance of guitarist Slash. Wearing his trademark top hat and a work shirt bearing his birth name, Saul, the guitarist reminded us that his nickname remains an appropriate. Slash emerged just as shredding and over-the-top guitar became the fashion of the age, but he was also at the peak of his visibility at the dawn of grunge and found a way to appease both camps. He had a blues-based touch, facility, and the right attitude at the right time.

He’s lost none of the soul he held during his tenure with Guns and seems only to have gotten better with time. He and Richard Fortus create a formidable duo as demonstrated by an instrumental performance of “Wish You Were Here” that led to a ripping take on the piano coda from “Layla,” which ultimately led to a feels-like-the-first time take on “November Rain.” (Keyboard duties on this tour are otherwise handled by GNR veteran Dizzy Reed and newcomer Melissa Reese.)

If there was a weak spot in the set, it came not so much from the performances but from some of the material. “Coma,” from Use Your Illusion I, became a wash of noise, reminding us of the original lineup’s descent into excess. Of course, in its absence or without “Estranged,” we’d be missing a critical part of the GNR story as we would without “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” The rendition in Kansas City was fairly loose and only got looser as the band tried to pull the track into the realm of reggae.

There may have been giant video screens, pyrotechnics and lights galore, but all of those were easy to forget over the course of more than two hours. The real pyrotechnics and the real spectacle came from the music, including a blistering take on The Who’s “The Seeker” and a set-closing “Paradise City.” In that tune’s final moments, Rose didn’t drop the mic but instead tossed it into the crowd. It was perhaps the ultimate statement of a man and a band that doesn’t compromise and stands, more than 30 years after its formation, to rise to new heights.

Long-awaited Guns N’ Roses reunion satisfies fans’ appetites at Arrowhead

By Timothy Finn

The guy who has been notoriously tardy and at times dismissive of fans was punctual and even diplomatic Wednesday evening — a great sign for the 25,000 or so Guns N’ Roses fans who came to Arrowhead Stadium.

At roughly 9:30 p.m., following a dramatic instrumental overture (that included the Looney Tunes theme), Axl Rose took the stage with two fellow founding members — lead guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan — and the rest of his band and launched into a show that would last until nearly midnight.

It was Rose’s third appearance in Kansas City since November 2011, but his first with Slash and McKagan since another Arrowhead show in September 1992, a span of nearly 24 years.

The drought left fans ravenously hungry for a reunion, one that, due to the bitter departures of so many band members, seemed so unlikely that they named this go-around the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.

Not since the Eagles’ Hell Freezes Over Tour in the early 1990s, which ended a 14-year absence, has a band’s reunion been so highly anticipated.

Consequently, GNR was greeted with the kind of uproarious ovation you would expect from a crowd whose die-hard fandom was gift-wrapped an unexpected, once-in-a-lifetime second chance. That fervor lasted throughout the set, which focused heavily on “Appetite for Destruction,” GNR’s debut album, released in 1987, which has sold more than 18 million copies in the United States and more than 30 million worldwide.

Rose, 54, looked completely recovered from a broken foot, an injury suffered in April that forced him to perform for several weeks using a motorized chair he borrowed from Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, who broke his ankle while on tour in 2015.

Now healed and ambulatory, Rose showed off all the stock rock-star moves, dancing with his mic stand, waving his hands as if he were a wizard performing tricks, writhing from side to side and bouncing from one side of the enormous stage to the other.

His voice was, at the least, adequate, at its best powerful enough to rise above the heavy noise that surrounded it. He still can issue a skyscraping panther yowl, but mostly Rose services the songs, honoring the melodies without overreaching.

He was nearly upstaged by the shaggy, raven-haired Slash, dressed in his signature black top hat and reflector sunglasses. He spent most of the show issuing fusillades of leads and riffs and other guitar materiel.

The band opened with “It’s So Easy,” an “Appetite” track that set the mood for the rest of the night. The crowd was familiar with nearly every song, reacting instantly to the first several notes, including Slash’s chug-a-chug intro to “Mr. Brownstone,” which followed “It’s So Easy.”

McKagan and Slash had plenty of help backing up Rose. Richard Fortus was a machine on rhythm and lead guitar. Drummer Frank Ferrer delivered plenty of thunder and brimstone. And Dizzy Reed and the neon-pony-tailed Melissa Reese added plenty of color and embroidery on keyboard and background vocals.

The highlights were the hits. Slash teased the crowd with some guitar foreplay before barnstorming into “Welcome to the Jungle.” The crowd reacted to “Live and Let Die,” one of several covers, as if GNR had written it. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Double Talkin’ Jive” also ignited riotous responses.

One of the more visceral moments of the night involved McKagan, who sang lead vocals on a smoldering cover of the Stooges’ “Raw Power.” Slash and Fortus laid down a couple of worthwhile instrumental covers: of the theme to “The Godfather” and of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” Before “November Rain,” a premier power ballad, Rose and the band played the famous piano/guitar instrumental from Derek and the Dominoes’ “Layla.”

The enormous stage was flanked by two gigantic video screens that broadcast close-up images of action. Flash pots, lights and other visuals exploded throughout the show. Behind the band, video screens flashed and blasted other graphic elements. There was no dearth of visual stimulants.

After the one-two punch of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and a rollicking version of “Nighttrain,” they brought the party home with a three-song encore that included a stout cover of the Who’s “The Seeker” and then one of their own show-stopping rock anthems, “Paradise City.”

It was a fitting close because this reunion was a destination most everyone at Arrowhead on Wednesday night dreamed of but hardly expected to happen.

Alice in Chains: The grunge band from Seattle opened the evening with a dynamic 45-minute pre-sundown set that included such favorites as “Man in the Box,” “Down in a Hole” and “Rooster.”