2021.08.08 - Comerica Park, Detroit, MI, USA

Gary Graff wrote:Review: GNR, WVH rock live music back into Comerica Park

By GARY GRAFF | ryraffdetroit@gmail.com |
August 9, 2021 at 8:38 a.m.

Rock ‘n’ roll past, present and future combined in bringing live music back to local stadiums on Sunday, Aug. 8.

Guns N’ Roses and Wolfgang Van Halen’s Mammoth WVH teamed up for the first concert at Comerica Park in more than three years, and the first stadium-sized show in the Detroit metro area since Garth Brooks’ February 2020 show at Ford Field. (The Hella Mega Tour with Green Day, Weezer and others visits Comerica on Tuesday, Aug. 10.) Sunday’s show was originally slated for 2020, but neither act mentioned the pandemic pause.

Instead they just delivered brawny hard-rock shows on a steamy night for a crowd of about 20,000 — including some Axl Rose and Slash lookalikes among the Guns N’ Roses fans.

It was the first chance for Detroit to see Mammoth WVH in person, and Van Halen and his tight quintet certainly made a favorable impression. In blazing daytime — “Detroit, you sure know how to bring the (expletive) heat!” the black-clad Van Halen declared early on — the group deftly cherry picked nine songs from its self-titled debut album, including the melodic “Talk & Walk,” a bonus track on the Japanese edition of the record, and “Distance,” Van Halen’s soaring tribute to his late father Eddie Van Halen.

He also noted that “Think It Over” “was my dad’s favorite” from the album and tapped guitar solos, a la his father, during “Mr. Ed” and “You’re to Blame.” But the 45-minute set mostly established Van Halen, and Mammoth WVH, as a formidable entry in a rock world needing an injection of fresh, and when Van Halen said, “I look forward to being back,” he surely wasn’t the only one at Comerica Park feeling that way.

If Mammoth WVH was a welcome introduction, Guns N’ Roses’ performance was a reminder of why the group ruled rock during the late ’80s and early ’90s. The band’s drama — as famous as its music — has largely dissipated. During the past six years, co-founders Rose, Slash and bassist Duff McKagan have solidified their musical partnership, and the group’s notorious delays in hitting the stage were also a thing of the past as it kicked into the opening “It’s So Easy” just after 8 p.m. Sunday.

The show completed a kind of grand slam of downtown Detroit venues — starting with a 2012 stop at the Fillmore Detroit, then opening the 2016 Not in this Lifetime reunion tour at Ford Field, with a follow-up three-and-a-half-hour marathon in 2017 at Little Caesars Arena. At 21 songs and nearly two hours and 45 minutes, Sunday’s concert was comparatively concise, though there was still room for some glorious (and expected) rock ‘n’ roll excess.

GNR eschewed pyrotechnics this time, but there was still plenty of flash from guitarist Slash, who soloed on every song throughout the night —but especially on epics such as “Estranged” and “November Rain,” as well as a bluesy feature spot that led into “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” He and fellow guitarist Richard Fortus, meanwhile, traded licks on extended versions of “Rocket Queen” and Bob Dylan’s” “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” the latter of which Slash began with a bit of Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed.”

Rose, meanwhile, was in good voice — including lung-busting wails on GNR’s rendition of Wings’ “Live and Let Die” — and high spirits, sprinting around the stage and offering the odd quip as he introduced the band’s “endless treasure trove of easy listening hits.”

He also included a Motown T-shirt among the six he sported throughout the nights.

GNR did have a bit of present of its own on Sunday — the just-released “Absurd,” its first new music in 13 years and a thrasher that actually dates back to 2001, when it was known as “Silkworms.” Mostly, however, the septet trolled the “treasure trove” Rose referred to, tearing through favorites such as “Mr. Brownstone,” “Welcome to the Jungle,” “You Could Be Mine,” “Civil War” and “Nightrain.” McKagan took lead vocals for a cover of the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” — particularly appropriate for a Michigan show — while Rose explored his upper register on the poppy groover “Better” and “You’re Crazy.”

A gentle “Patience” gave everyone a moment to catch their breath, while the show-closing “Paradise City” took fans home in pounding, pompy glory from one of the last frontiers of live entertainment re-opening.

Brian McCollum wrote:Guns N' Roses brings bone-rattling concert to Comerica Park, 1st stadium show in 18 months
BRIAN MCCOLLUM | Detroit Free Press

Comerica Park got back in the concert game Sunday night with a high-volume, bone-rattling visit from Guns N’ Roses.

Playing the fourth show on a tour that recently rebooted after last summer’s postponement, the band brought a blast of hard-rock emancipation for an amped-up crowd that seemed more than comfortable to gather again, 13 months after the show’s originally scheduled date.

An official attendance number wasn’t released, but Sunday’s crowd appeared to number about 25,000. Typical concert capacity at the ballpark is about 40,000. It was the first stadium show in Detroit since Garth Brooks played Ford Field in February 2020, just ahead of the pandemic.

There was a vigor to GNR's set that belied just how long the band has been around. From the vantage point of 2021, GNR’s breakthrough with “Appetite for Destruction” marks the midway point in the rock ‘n’ roll story: 1988 was 33 years after the genre started, and it has been 33 years since.

The band arrived in Detroit ready to showcase its own contribution to the legacy, delivering a greatest-hits show that made just a handful of tweaks to the standard set list that Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan and company have deployed since regrouping five years ago.

But the band looked more relaxed and upbeat Sunday than it had in its two prior Detroit appearances since the 2016 reunion — most notably a chatty, grinning, fit-looking Rose, whose revolving attire at one point included a Motown T-shirt.

While the crowd was mostly made up of old-school rock heads, it was clear Sunday that Guns N’ Roses is still drawing new, younger fans: At Comerica, they included more than a few '80s-infatuated twentysomethings sporting leopard print, headbands and other throwback fashion.

On a warm summer night, the sun hadn’t yet set when GNR took the stage at 8 p.m. — a prompt 15 minutes after its scheduled start — to light into a pair of “Appetite” classics (“It’s So Easy,” “Mr. Brownstone”).

From there it was hot rockers (“Welcome to the Jungle,” “Nightrain”), hits (“Sweet Child o’ Mine”) and the cinematic stuff (“Civil War,” “November Rain”), along with extended workouts on numbers such as “Rocket Queen” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” The night also featured the band’s new single, “Absurd” — a reworked version of a 20-year-old song once known as “Silkworms” — and a propulsive cover of “Slither,” the biggest hit for Slash’s Velvet Revolver.

Rose has increasingly found workarounds for the natural depreciation in his 59-year-old voice, and he mostly made it work Sunday, even if much of the raspy power is gone and the high notes get slathered in a helpful wash of reverb.

Slash, in his signature top hat, was the musical star of the night, with numbers such as “Double Talkin’ Jive,” “Rocket Queen” and a late-show blues solo serving as fiery guitar showcases.

McKagan got his spotlight with a Detroit-ready cover of the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” a recent addition to the tour set.

Wolfgang Van Halen, son of the late Eddie Van Halen, opened the evening with a first-ever Detroit performance by his band Mammoth WVH, featuring songs from the group’s self-titled debut album.

Comerica Park will welcome music fans back on Tuesday, as Green Day, Weezer and Fall Out Boy hit the ballpark on their Hella Mega Tour.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

Images in the review, all by Kat Benzova: