2016.07.01 - Soldier Field, Chicago, IL, USA

Guns N’ Roses satisfies an appetite for reconstruction at Soldier Field

The question was inevitable.

You know where you are, Chicago?!

Everyone knew the answer. We knew exactly where we were.

You're in the jungle, baby! You're going to diiiiiiiiiieee!!!

For the purposes of Guns N' Roses on Friday evening, "the jungle" was a football stadium filled to capacity with middle-aged suburbanites in conspicuously crisp Appetite for Destruction T-shirts whose appetite for GNR hits was eclipsed only by their thirst for domestic beer. This was just the fourth date of the much-anticipated "Not In This Lifetime" tour, which represents a sort of hard rock hell-freezes-over moment: the classic GNR lineup reunited. Well, sort of. Axl, Slash, and Duff at least. The mercurial front man and the guitar idol putting years of bad blood behind them to perform together reportedly for the first stint in nearly two dozen years.

In place of Izzy was a dark-haired ringer who, with his inky, flat-ironed hair, looks enough like Stradlin and plays just as well: Richard Fortus, the other axman from the Chinese Democracy era, the one who doesn’t perform while wearing a KFC bucket on his head. Instead of Steven Adler or Matt Sorum behind the drums, we got Frank Ferrer, another soldier in the Chinese Democracy corps who's a younger and probably more gifted musician than his predecessors but didn't really contribute much to maintaining the mid-1980s optics.

Before the partially reconstituted group had sounded a note, the discomfiting ring of gunshots echoed through Soldier Field. The source was an unfortunate introductory animation on the Jumbotron that featured the band's insignia stylized with a rotating selection of firearms, from the classic GNR logo’s six-shooter to an assault rifle. The video seemed particularly ill-timed given recent incidents such as the Orlando shooting, yet that didn’t stop the crowd from roaring with each deafening pop. The gunfire was followed by "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" (known better as the Looney Tunes theme), which instantly lightened the mood and underscored the remarkable absurdity of what we were about to witness: a Guns N' Roses concert in the year 2016. It seemed improbable, even impossible.

But in the half-light of the arena, a silhouette appeared that could belong to no one but Slash. As the stage brightened, there he stood like some sentient wax figure from Madame Tussauds: the mop of corkscrew black hair cascading from under the top hat, the Gibson Les Paul, mirrored aviator shades. The image had barely registered as the band tore into "It's So Easy," Appetite for Destruction's most furious three minutes and 21 seconds. It was the sonic equivalent of a madman waving a razor blade in a crowded room.

Suddenly there too was Axl, with a sinister pearly-white sneer, snarling about your sister in her Sunday dress. No cornrows to report, thank god. And no cast either. The 54-year-old fractured his foot during an April 1 warm-up show at the Troubadour and was resigned post-surgery to signing while seated in an onstage throne. But you'd never know it the way he was loping across the Soldier Field's lengthy stage on Friday.

Like the first Slash sighting, it takes a moment for Rose's image to really settle in your brain. He cuts a figure of a guy wearing a store-bought Axl Rose costume, like something that would come from a bag off the rack at Spencer's: tidy jeans, meticulously shredded, with a flannel shirt tied around his waist, a pair of shiny necklaces with diamond crucifix pendants. Several wardrobe changes consisted of a parade of graphic T-shirts and leather jackets with varying levels of fringe, and the occasional stetson.

While Rose appears appropriately aged, a slightly swollen version of his younger self, he's by no means out of shape. Rather the extra weight gave off the impression of solidity and strength, like that of a workhorse that can reliably bear the burden of a two-hour arena show. Were Philip Seymour Hoffman alive, he'd make for dream casting as Axl in a hypothetical GNR biopic. Four songs in, during "Welcome to the Jungle," as Rose moaned “Feel my, my, my, my serpentine,” his paunch made his slithering sidestep look less snakelike and more like the desperately seductive squirm of a mature stripper.

Rose's physical differences were more apparent than the changes in his vocals. His coarse but surprisingly versatile tone still emanates not so much from his chest and throat as somewhere deep within his sinuses. The flaws were easier to detect on more balladic material such as "Estranged" and "Don't Cry" that forced Rose to sing on pitch. On the Wings cover "Live and Let Die," he reared back, opened his mouth, and let out a prolonged banshee-from-hell howl that would've shredded the vocal cords of a less formidable front man. I jotted a note in my phone: "Axl can still fucking wail."

And the other two can still play. The one in the hat took solos roughly every 90 seconds. The sight of Slash resting the Les Paul on his leg to bend a note during the triumphant close of "November Rain" didn't seem quite real. Seeing it on the big screen, it's almost easier to think of the experience as a scene from Guitar Hero. His playing is always nimble and expressive, and the guy definitely knows his angles when the camera pans to him—but at some point the runs up and down the neck became easy to tune out. That's when I started to notice peripheral things about Slash, like why does he wear a watch? When has Slash ever needed to be on time to something (other than a concert)? And are those leather pants or denim pants with a camouflage wash?

Duff, meanwhile, looks like the chiseled, sun-browned lovechild of David Bowie and Keith Urban. During an extended "Rocket Queen" instrumental, he laid down a low, loose groove, his bass adorned with a purple Prince symbol. Duff even took lead vocals on covers of "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" by Johnny Thunders and the Damned's "New Rose," proving that an Axl-less GNR is merely a subpar Velvet Revolver.

Over the course of two and a half hours, there was just enough ignorable Chinese Democracy material (the title track, "This I Love," "Better") and nonessential classic-rock covers (the last section of "Layla," an instrumental "Wish You Were Here," "The Seeker" by the Who) to allow for convenient bathroom breaks and beer runs. At times, the lengthy set and the breakneck pace seemed to be testing the endurance of the middle-aged men trying to burn through songs they wrote and recorded when they were half as old. Three-quarters of the way through the night, Axl sat doubled over on the steps in front of the drums while singing "Coma" out of the side of his mouth. Dead-eyed behind the piano on "November Rain," he awkwardly caressed the keys with a right hand weighed down by a large, glistening ring that brought his look into Beyond the Candelabra territory.

If the band was running out of gas, so too was the audience. But then Slash broke into the riff that is the bane of every Guitar Center employee, the opening of "Sweet Child O' Mine," which functioned as smelling salts. Axl answered with a quick change into a white leather jacket and stetson to match. By the high-octane set closer "Night Train," Axl appeared to be on his second wind. "I’m on the night train," he shrieked, "and I can never get enough!" And neither, it seemed, could the thousands packed into the field and stands. If you used your illusion and ignored certain elements—the non-original members, the double chins—it was easy to pretend it was 1986.

For one of Axl's final costume changes, he slipped into a black shirt that had emblazoned on it in large white type: THE BITCH IS BACK. And for at least a night, so was the band. But no one needed a T-shirt to tell them that.

Live Review: Guns N’ Roses light up Chicago’s Soldier Field (7/1)

By Michael Roffman

Guns N’ Roses couldn’t have picked a better Chicago venue for their reunion show. The nearly 100-year-old Soldier Field has been the home of the Chicago Bears for 45 years, and at least half of that football tenure has featured the rock ‘n’ roll anthems of one Axl Rose. Think about it: How many times have die-hard, Ditka-abiding Chicagoans rooted for their boys in blue as “Welcome to the Jungle”, “Paradise City”, or “Sweet Child O’ Mine” thundered from the PA above?

So, on Friday night, over 60,000 fans returned to their highly coveted coliseum to see their proverbial cheerleaders in the flesh. As a cool summer breeze rolled in from Lake Michigan, a curious reprieve from the week’s balmy weather, a surprising, if not pleasant, scene unfolded at Soldier Field. Vibrant, intoxicated metal heads, ranging from 55 to 32 to 17, actually managed to co-exist in harmony as they strut around in #GnFnR gear, totally oblivious to the ever-sacred Band Shirt Rule.

Or maybe they just didn’t care. Why should they? This was their rock ‘n’ roll dream: the “Not In This Lifetime” reunion of Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan. Veteran fans have wanted some form of this lineup for decades, especially those who waded through the years of rotating guitarists, everyone from Buckethead to Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal to DJ Ashba. The youngsters, those who’ve only ever owned torrents of Appetite for Destruction, probably thought it’d never happen.

Sidebar: They’re not alone. Look, I’m just gonna come right out and say that this review will no doubt read like a total gushfest. I’m talking “Massive Head Wound Harry”-gushfest. I’m saying 10-Gushers-wrapped-into-one-giant-blob-at-the-lunch-room-table-type of gushfest. A real rock ‘n’ roll Yellowstone Caldera-gushfest! Reason being, I’ve invested far too much time, energy, pain, and love into the legacy, music, and mythos of Guns N’ Roses.

Until Friday, that obsession was relegated solely to CDs, vinyls, bootlegs, DVDs, and bookmarked YouTube clips, most of which have gone untouched for the better half of a decade. (Though, if I’m being honest, there isn’t a morning jog that goes by without something off of Use Your Illusion I and II.) Bottom line: I was much too young to ever catch them during their golden years and far too apathetic to ever attend one of their pre- and post-Chinese Democracy jaunts.

Now, before you hit up the comments and rip me apart, know that I happen to thoroughly enjoy Chinese Democracy. It’s an excessive album, sure, but tracks like “Better”, “There Was A Time”, “The Catcher in the Rye”, and “Street of Dreams” are worthy additions to the Guns N’ Roses canon. Having said that, I’ve never been able to fully embrace any of the replacements, even if one of them actually was a Replacement, aka the greatest band of all time. Okay, end sidebar.

Well, as promised, the unthinkable did happen and 15 minutes earlier than scheduled, which is a far cry from the dizzying days when Rose would rather catch a flick than hit the stage. Less than 35 minutes after Alice in Chains finished their commendable opening set — the transition from moody ’90s alternative into ’80s heavy metal proving how ubiquitous the would-be varying rock genres have always been to fans — Guns N’ Roses stomped out to the sounds of “It’s So Easy”.

It was all lights, cameras, explosions as Rose, Slash, and McKagan lead the formidable crew of rhythm guitarist Richard Fortus, keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Melissa Reese, and drumming tank Frank Ferrer. Together, they sprinted off early as “Mr. Brownstone” turned into a communal boogie, “Welcome to the Jungle” brought the chaos, “Double Talkin’ Jive” and “Estranged” hinted at further deep cuts, and their Wings cover of “Live and Let Die” borrowed Macca’s fireworks.

There’s been plenty of chatter about Rose’s physicality — to be fair, the embarrassing plea to Google wasn’t exactly a favorable moment, nor was that broken leg of his — but damn if he isn’t still a showman. Although he was huffing and puffing, and those jammy interludes involving McKagan or Slash were transparent water breaks, the notoriously reclusive frontman was quite omnipresent. Now that he’s out of the leg brace, he can shimmy, he can dance, and he can prowl.

Sadly, he didn’t ask his bandmates to “gimme some reggae”, which would have been such an indelible, self-aware moment, but his catalogue of wardrobe changes were sufficient enough. For close to three hours, he went through at least five shirts, maybe even more, in addition to an assortment of cowboy hats, shades, and gregarious jackets, all seemingly stolen from the Village People circa 1979. Hell, he even had little GNR ear buds; it was kind of endearing.

Naturally, the other man of the hour(s) was Slash. The legendary guitarist has frequently been dubbed The Greatest by critics all over the world, and watching him return to his roots was extraordinary, to say the least. As expected, he kept mum throughout, letting his four- to seven-minute solos do all the talking, as he offered up all of his iconic Les Paul poses to the adoring Instagram accounts snapping below. The double neck guitars were a classic touch, too.

What was most intriguing to watch, however, was how Slash handled any material off of Chinese Democracy. Maybe he’s just a great stage actor, but the axeman really seemed to dig the stuff, especially the title track and “Better”. It’s unfortunate they chose to drag out a snoozer like “This I Love” over more enduring fare like “There Was a Time”, but, then again, they didn’t really need another sprawling number considering they dusted off both “Estranged” and “Coma”.

Of course, let’s not forget about McKagan. The band’s veteran bassist, whose certainly aged the best out of the bunch, rallied across the stage with a youthful swagger, remarkably similar to the chummy Tommy Stinson before him. His smiles were contagious, but his harmonies were essential, marrying Reese’s own to provide a sturdy wall for Rose to lean upon. McKagan snagged the spotlight early in the night with “Rocket Queen”, “You Could Be Mine”, and a couple of ’70s covers.

Together, the three appeared less united and more in sync, if that makes any sense. In other words, Rose, Slash, and McKagan came to work and work they did. Outside of a few band introductions, and a closing bow, there was zero indication that they’re a bunch of brothers in arms. Those days are long behind them, if they ever existed to begin with, and that’s not exactly a bad thing. That they were able to make this spectacle happen at all is a miracle in itself.

And make no mistake, it is a spectacle. That’s always been Guns N’ Roses’ forte — seriously, all you have to do is revisit their music videos for proof of that — and decades later, that’s a game they still know how to win. This summer tour is a big-budgeted blockbuster that chews on every penny, from the dazzling, state-of-the-art video accompaniments to the glut of pyro to the grand piano that pops up on stage at the end for “November Rain” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”.

But, you know what? Good for them and good for us. Rock fans have been starving for a rollercoaster like this and while it’s hardly the drunken nightmares of yesteryear, it’s a feel-good stomper, the type of sleazy, fuck-all escape that comes from listening to Guns N’ Roses in the first place. So, when the band closed the night out with “Paradise City” and all the confetti went everywhere and people were jumping up and down and the stadium just went nuts, there was nothing left to say.