2017.07.30 - U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Chris Riemenschneider wrote:Guns N' Roses fill a tall order despite U.S. Bank Stadium's shortcomings

Review: Ending years of animosity, Axl Rose and his old band took Minneapolis' new football stadium for its third test run as a concert venue.

Not in this lifetime, they said. But they went ahead and did it anyway.

That was the storyline for both the Guns N’ Roses tour that came to Minneapolis on Sunday and the venue where it landed, U.S. Bank Stadium.

Polls showed the new Vikings megastructure faced as much opposition from taxpayers as the idea of a classic GNR reunion had from frontman Axl Rose. Money talked in both instances, though, and almost 50,000 fans filed into USBS on Sunday to hear “Welcome to the Jungle” played by its originators.

Only the third concert at the new football stadium, it was also the first time Rose performed in Minnesota with his “Jungle”-era guitar hero Slash and bassist Duff McKagan in 25 years, going back to when they played USBS’ ill-remembered predecessor, the Metrodome, with Metallica in 1992. Thus, the sold-out show was as much a test of the old bandmates’ revived chemistry as it was another trial run for the new stadium, which will also host U2 and Coldplay in coming weeks.

Fans at least got their money’s worth on one of those fronts: GNR delivered an intense, tight and lengthy performance that might have surpassed anything the band could’ve offered in their late-’80s (drug-addled) prime.

As for the stadium, USBS did not live up to its billion-dollar price tag Sunday. The acoustics were decent on the floor and lower sides but echoey and muddied toward the back and in the upper levels. Congestion was a big problem again, too.

Many fans missed GNR’s opening songs “It’s So Easy” and “Mr. Brownstone” due to long beer and restroom lines and the stadium’s weirdly unnavigable hallways. What is this world coming to if a GNR lover can’t get a beer without a big hassle (never mind the hefty $11 price tag)?

Of course, many of those fans may have been caught off guard by the fact that GNR actually took the stage on time, just after 8:30 p.m. In the old days, that was about the time Rose got out of bed.

The hot-headed redhead, 55, showed up on all fronts Sunday. His voice stood up relatively strong, whether it was screeching like a follically challenged banshee in “Welcome to the Jungle” — rushed in as the fourth song of the set — or building to dramatic climaxes in moodier epics like “Civil War” and “November Rain.” He worked the stage like a tireless showman, too, his trademark shaky-shake dance moves just one of many ways he expended energy.

“Nice place you have here,” Rose said for his hello almost an hour into the concert. That was right before his crew let off an arsenal of fireworks during “Live and Let Die” (that much pyro would have been a death wish in the Metrodome).

While Rose kept up his GNR chops over the past decade and a half on tour with replacement band members, it was really up to Slash to put the show over the top of those prior outings. He put it into the stratosphere. It’s hard to remember a recent concert where fans seemed so enthralled every time a guitarist took a solo.

The muppet-haired, top-hatted, leather-clad axe-man delivered his first extended, wow-inducing solo in “Double Talkin’ Jive” and kept them coming in rapid succession. He added a mean talk-box effect to help make “Rocket Queen” soar. He and second guitarist Richard Fortus fiercely played off each other in “You Could Be Mine” and coolly traded licks in an instrumental cover of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” As if out to prove something, Slash sounded especially mean in the few GNR songs from after his tenure, including “Chinese Democracy” and “Better.”

Sporting a Prince glyph on his bass, McKagan got a turn in the spotlight to sing a hard-charging cover of “New Rose” by British punks the Damned. The rest of the band, including longtime GNR keyboardist Dizzy Reed, mostly blended into the background in a good way.

As a unit, the old and new bandmates really hit their stride two hours into the show during “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” and kept up that moment for almost another hour through a fun grab-bag of songs including “Used to Love Her,” the outro jam of “Layla,” a stormy cover of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” and, during the encore, “Patience” and AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie." In the end, they not only sounded great, they also sounded like they were having a great time.

Also newly reunited as of last year, Northern California alt-metal heroes the Deftones helped set a more metallic tone for the show compared to other cities’ opening acts. Songs like “Digital Bath” and “Passenger,” with their moody ups and downs, boomed through the mega-venue with awesome force — but also with a slightly stymieing echo. Frontman Chino Moreno was nonetheless impressed with the new digs.

“First time we played here in town [in 1995] it was in a McDonald’s parking lot,” he told the crowd as the sunset glowed through the giant glass facade behind the stage. “And now we’re here.”

Chris Riemenschneider wrote:Guns N' Roses still a big draw

What I remember most about seeing Guns N' Roses in 1988 is Axl Rose's butt cheeks.

The GNR frontman wore a G-string under bare-back leather cowboy chaps the day I saw them at the Texas Jam, his attire perhaps a nod to the fact that the concert was held at the home of the Dallas Cowboys. Every time he turned to run on stage – which he did a lot in those days – we were reminded of his unique assets as a frontman. Which was better than all the reminders in the years that followed of how big of an ass he can be, too.

Seeing the heyday GNR lineup when they were rock's biggest new thing was a thrill, but it actually pales in comparison with the odd thrill of finally seeing the band again this year (no pun on "pale" in relation to Rose's derriere).

Granted, the band performing on its current tour is not exactly the heyday GNR lineup. Just three of the five members from that era are aboard: the hurricane-voiced Rose, guitar god Slash and anchoring bassist Duff McKagan. But that hasn't lessened the excitement around the tour, which as of June was rock's highest-grossing tour of 2017, with over a million tickets sold to the tune of $151 million so far.

Here are five reason rock fans are psyched for this reunion:

1. It really seemed like it wouldn't happen.

And when it did kick off last year, it seemed even less likely this reunion would last.

In the same vein (and vanity) of Don Henley's when-hell-freezes-over comment, which named the Eagles' first post-breakup tour, the GNR outing has been dubbed the Not in This Lifetime Tour after a quote Axl Rose gave just a few years ago about the prospects of putting the old band back together. He probably meant it at the time.

I would've put money on a Led Zeppelin reunion happening before GNR. Slash and Rose genuinely seemed to hate each other. Not only that, but between their struggles with addictions and Rose's years of Michael Jackson-like seclusion, it seemed possible one of the principal band members would wind up dead before they wound up on stage together. Also, Rose wasn't really hurting for money. He had rights to the GNR name all to himself and was still earning good pay playing arenas and festivals with replacement members since even before 2008, the year he finally released the band's long-delayed "Chinese Democracy" album.

Thus, in a backhanded way, it's fair to say this tour isn't all about the money for Rose.

2. They're all sober and healthy now.

News flash: Rock stars are better performers when they're not on drugs. The classic GNR lineup added to its notoriety and wrote a couple of its best songs ("Mr. Brownstone," "Nightrain") off its members' many vices, but it also put on some shoddy live shows and ultimately fell apart because of their struggles with addictions.

Slash, in particular, went through some tough spots but came out the other end. The bushy-headed guitarist sounded strong in the mid-'00s playing with McKagan and late Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland in their all-star group Velvet Revolver; and he actually sounded better than ever in recent years with his own band, Slash's Snakepit. Original GNR drummer Steven Adler, on the other hand, still looked very bad off in the 2011 season of VH1's "Celebrity Rehab." While he's reportedly clean now, it seems it was too little too late to get him back in the band.

3. They had one of rock's last seminal albums.

Except for Nirvana's "Nevermind," no other rock album of the past 30 years crossed as many barriers and rippled through the music industry with as much force as GNR's 1987 debut "Appetite for Destruction." Songs like the rousing opener "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "Paradise City" are ubiquitous in American culture these days, but back then – when many other metal bands were busy primping up their hair for MTV and piling on the power ballads for radio play – those songs set the hard-rock world ablaze with their return to grimy, thundering guitar riffs and an overall sense of danger.

Big albums like that (and Pink Floyd's "The Wall," AC/DC's "Back in Black," Prince's "Purple Rain," Metallica's "Black Album," etc.) never seem to lose their magnetism, and the acts behind them never lose their drawing power.

4. The fill-in members aren't entirely nobodies.

More so than Adler, it's disappointing that the band's other classic-era guitarist, Izzy Stradlin, wasn't called back for the reunion. He says it was for the obvious reason: an unwillingness to split profits with him as a co-founding member instead of as a hired GNR gun. Still, Stradlin's replacement, Richard Fortus, not only showed off his talent in the "Chinese Democracy"-era GNR but also helped fuel the Psychedelic Furs in recent decades – not exactly GNR-level guitar cranking, but still great stuff.

Drummer Frank Ferrer is a Furs and GNR v. 2.0 alum who also played for a spell in another '80s alt-rock band, The The. Keyboardist/programmer Melissa Reese is the one true newcomer in the band, but she has done loads of working for video-game soundtracks, which might be as familiar to today's kids as the songs on "Appetite."

While it's of course vital to have McKagan back, it's too bad Minneapolis' own Tommy Stinson of the Replacements couldn't be involved in the reunion after serving 18 years off and on as the bassist in Rose's remade GNR. (Then again, we'd also rather have Stinson singing his own songs, as he does masterfully on the electrifying new album by his band Bash & Pop.)

5. Just like in the late-'80s, GNR's timing is impeccable.

Mainstream metal is in a bit of funk these days, and I don't mean that in a bass-slapping, Red Hot Chili Peppers sort of way. A lot of the bands played on hard-rock radio stations are groups whose singers are dead, including Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, Sublime, and – sadly, as of recent months – Linkin Park and Soundgarden. Meanwhile, many newer bands seem to have the same mopey, gruff-voiced singer of the Staind variety, so they come up with gimmicks to distinguish themselves, such as covering a Simon & Garfunkel song (see: Disturbed) or starting country bands (see: Staind's actual singer, Aaron Lewis).

Just like in the late-'80s, we really do need you now, GNR. Just please leave the thong and chaps at home this time around.

Amy Donahue wrote:REVIEW: Guns ‘N Roses Still Shooting (U.S. Bank Stadium)

About 50,000 fans can testify that Guns ‘N Roses are liars. After the band began a slow breakup in 2014, various members swore that they would not reunite onstage again. More than a year into their Not in This Lifetime… tour, the band is going strong – more than three hours’ strong. The lengthy concert at U.S. Bank Stadium finished with five encores.

The song list was peppered with Guns ‘N Roses classics, plus covers of “Live and Let Die”, “New Rose”, “Whole Lotta Rosie”, “The Seeker”, and “Black Hole Sun”. Guitar solos and instrumental-only covers visited The Godfather, “Rock and Roll”, “Layla”, and “Wish You Were Here”. It may be 30 years since “Welcome to the Jungle” dropped, but you wouldn’t know it from how good they sounded. The band has had some great replacements over the years, but having vocalist Axl Rose, guitarist Slash, and bassist Duff McKagan onstage together for the first time in decades is like fireworks going off in your brain. When you could actually hear it, the band rocked.

While the band was in full form, the venue was not: beer lines were long, the drinks painfully expensive, and the bathrooms lines not any better. In much of the stadium, the sound was muddy – as a concert venue, its primary virtue is only the obvious one: size. At least the music needed no drinking.

The opening band, The Deftones, gave a good start with songs like “Digital Bath”. Given the lines, a little more preshow would have hit the spot.

Guns N' Roses was fabulous; U.S. Bank Stadium, not so much

Reader Matt Van Engen responds to Guns N' Roses prove you don't need to like each other to rock out at U.S. Bank Stadium

Fantastic coverage. I sat mid-floor, and in the seats the sound wasn't bad. But on the drink run an hour in I felt bad for everyone in the glass echo chamber everywhere else.

The magic of the band did come together and superseded the total frustration with the venue. Felt bad for the Deftones. But didn't get to see them, because I waited in line their entire set for the evening's first adult beverage.

While Axl eventually hit his stride, it seemed the sound techs were more at fault than him. Extended guitar solos from the aging Slash were great and I wasn't even bothered that it seemed to happen on every song. They absolutely delivered a Rock Legends-caliber performance.

They get a solid 9 1/2. U.S. Bank Stadium, however, gets a 2.

Jen Boyles wrote:Guns N' Roses prove you don't need to like each other to rock out at U.S. Bank Stadium

“Nice place you’ve got here.”

That’s the one full sentence Axl Rose spoke to the near sold-out stands at the new-ish U.S. Bank Stadium last night on Guns N' Roses' “Not In This Lifetime” reunion tour. The billion-dollar stadium provided ample space for a band of this magnitude to stretch their arms and settle in to a set that clocked in at more than three hours.

If the venue felt like an opportunity for GNR, for openers Deftones it was a hurdle. It never fails: Attend one of these arena shows and there's at least one act you wish you could see in a more appropriate venue like First Avenue or even Myth. While that’s literally not going to happen in this lifetime for GNR, it would have been so much more appropriate for their worthy openers, one of the most consistently solid bands in metal.

Deftones started off with “Diamond Eyes” around 7:30 p.m. to a half empty stadium, lead singer Chino Moreno's yearning, hollow vocals swallowed (through no fault of the band) by reverb. This was their last performance on the tour, and the connection to this crowd felt close to non-existent. “Make some noise” was a suggestion and not a demand. Sunlight streamed into the stadium and it seemed like the wrong place, wrong time.

Closing out by interspersing bits of Cypress Hill's “How I Could Just Kill A Man” into "Engine No. 9," Moreno addressed the crowd: “Thanks for being nice to us. Have a good show.”

The older suburbanites, Gen Xers, and peppering of younger fans had Axl and/or Slash on their minds and GNR t-shirts on their backs. (For the record, I too committed this cardinal sin of concert-going last night and wore the band's t-shirt to the show.) Soon that infamous skull and roses logo appeared on both sides of the stage, with cartoon monster truck wheels revving and gunshots ringing out. Blonde moms on girls' nights bopped in excitement, and “Purple Rain” awkwardly faded from the overhead speakers.

“And now, a band that needs no introduction but fucking gets one anywayyyyy: Guns N' Roses!”

They didn't launch with a hit. As the first tones of “It’s So Easy” came through, Axl, Slash, Duff McKagan, and Richard Fortus overcame many years of infighting and insults (especially between Axl and Slash) and took the stage together. Axl appeared in meticulously ripped jeans, boots, and a flannel flung around the waist (though he'd change costumes six times, he wore some variation of this ensemble all night, give or take a hat or leather jacket), and top-hatted Slash came out looking exactly like he always has. He and Duff exuded the most effortless cool I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing at an arena show, a stoic confidence that was fun to watch.

Axl started iffy. His signature screech wavered a lot in these first five songs. At points his voice hit such a low register it almost fell off entirely, and he didn’t have enough power behind it to deliver some of the high points–especially during the big breakdown in “Welcome to the Jungle.” I started wondering if this was a “come for Axl, stay for Slash” kind of show.

But something happened, appropriately, on the song “Better”: Mr. Rose dug in and found a sweet spot. And he remained there for “Live and Let Die” and “This I Love,” which deserves to be more appreciated and made me wonder how Axl was ever able to perform this without his GNR dream team. The answer there is that he didn’t, not really. What the crowd was witnessing now was a special Voltron assembly of rock superpowers, somehow (or $$$omehow) all aligned for one last formation.

Though the band dedicated no special Minneapolis-specific cover songs last night, Duff sported Prince's glyph on his guitar and Fortus bashed out the beat to “Erotic City” during a solo. And speaking of solos, Slash was alotted an extended guitar showcase that should have had most people convinced he’s an alien, leading directly into the band’s best hit, “Sweet Child o' Mine.”

These guys have a strange onstage chemistry, if you can even call it that. There's no back-to-back shredding, no antics meant to show how well they get along. Axl and Slash constantly crossed each other’s paths with little more than a glance. A few times our fleshy frontman would look up and fire off what equates to his Zoolander face at no one in particular, and you could see flashes of the young rock star that once was. But is chemistry even an issue when musically a band sounds this good together?

Another cover rounded out the second hour: Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here,” accompanied by images of U.S. troops. It was touching, as was the Chris Cornell tribute that followed with “Black Hole Sun.” Fan favorite “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” presented the band at their best -- crisp, clear, powerful, and at least musically aligned. And the awesomely indulgent '90s ballad “November Rain” certainly necessitated a grand piano, which Axl played wonderfully, the tense buildup and release genuinely chill-inducing.

The band ended with “Night Train” (more crazy pyrotechnics) just as it felt like they'd hit their stride. They were a well-oiled machine by the 11 p.m. encore of “Don’t Cry,” the AC/DC cover “Whole Lotta Rosie,” and “Patience.” The show could have ended there and been great, but the crowd wants what the crowd wants: “Paradise City” was unfortunately rushed (who can blame them -- it was nearing midnight) and the fireworks signaled the end. It was a long but awesome trip down memory lane for most. I just wonder if the band can say the same.

Guns N’ Roses provide 3 hours of thrills at U.S. Bank Stadium

By Ross Raihala

t only took 30 years, but Axl Rose finally grew up. Last year, the famously erratic, unpredictable frontman buried the hatchet with original Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash and hit the road for a semi-reunion world tour of stadiums.

Some 85 shows later and the “Not in This Lifetime” road show finally hit Minnesota on Sunday, when Rose and company nearly filled Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium. It was well worth the wait. Not only did the concert run smoothly, it actually began at a decent hour. Never afraid to start a show at 11:45 p.m. on a school night or just cancel it altogether, Rose took the stage at 8:40 p.m., shocking the fans still milling around the concourse.

For more than three hours, Guns N’ Roses delivered a drama-free performance few ever thought would be possible. Utterly satisfying and at times thrilling, overall it felt quite professional, a word rarely used to describe GNR.

The original Guns N’ Roses lineup – Rose, Slash, bassist Duff McKagan, guitarist Izzy Stradlin and drummer Steven Adler – earned worldwide fame, and notoriety, after their 1987 debut “Appetite for Destruction” blew up a metal scene that seemed more concerned with hairspray and eyeliner than the actual music.

But rampant drug abuse, clashing egos and Rose’s increasing megalomania started a chain of defections that left Rose the sole remaining member. He hired a new set of musicians, including Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson, and spent much of the ’00s on the road playing to the faithful while living the life of a recluse.

Once news leaked that Rose and Slash were speaking again, most assumed a full reunion was in the works. Instead, only McKagan rejoined, and the three are on the road with keyboardist Dizzy Reed (who has been with the band since 1990), guitarist Richard Fortus (2002), drummer Frank Ferrer (2006) and new hire Melissa Reese, also on keys.

Sunday, though, both the cameras and staging kept the bulk of the attention on the three old-timers. Ever the eccentric, Rose wore artfully torn jeans, a flannel around his waist and an ever-changing series of T-shirts accompanied by the occasional hat, jacket, bandanna and/or pair of sunglasses. Rose, who made a surprise appearance at Billy Joel’s Friday night concert at Target Field, struggled with his vocals here and there, but managed to hit the notes that really counted.

Dressed all in black with his signature top hat perched above his curly locks, Slash positively oozed cool. The audience clearly adored him and gave him plenty of love, maybe even more than Rose. He played the guitar like Prince used to, without a hint of effort, as if it was an extension of his body. Speaking of Prince, McKagan’s bass was emblazoned with the Purple One’s famous love symbol. (McKagan visited Paisley Park earlier in the day Sunday and was spotted in the crowd Saturday when Ryan Adams played St. Paul’s Palace Theatre.)