Axl Rose declined to be interviewed for VH1’s Behind the Music on Guns and Roses. Maybe he believed that kind of thing is done only by bands that have run their course.As I sped up 220 toward Greensboro Thursday night, I had to wonder if the reclusive frontman had surfaced only to find that his relevance had sailed off into the sunset.
I also wondered what version of G n’ R I’d see.I knew I would not see a hairy, face-obscured Slash ripping on his Gibson and slouched back in a way that you hoped he had a spotter to catch him. Nor would I see rhythm guitarist and songwriter Izzy Stradlin in his biba cap and dark shades unsure even of what day it is. And I was pretty sure I would not see a razor-thin Axl screeching out Night Train, running about in a kilt, and hoping someone gives him the finger so he can leap into the crowd to deliver an ass-beating.
Dangerous they were.
But that band has run its course.Last time I saw Guns was on the 2002 MTV Music awards. There was a chubby white guy with a weave surrounded by a bunch of weirdoes I don’t know—one of whom wore a Mike Myers-like mask and a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head. Bill Bailey’s vocals came in labored, off-key gasps as he stalked the stage and high-fived his minions.
Vegas act they were.
Perhaps I’m hypocritical. I’ve grown older, and yet I want my rock stars to stay perfectly preserved like action figures I can pop out of the plastic and back into service.After all, my metal-length hair is gone. And there’s nothing dangerous about being a schoolteacher unless you consider the occasional rogue gunman who was beaten up one too many times in gym class. So maybe I should cut Axl a break. A mature, punctual Axl Rose wouldn’t be so bad.But as the house lights darkened and the opening chords of Welcome to the Jungle clamored through the coliseum, I said, "Forget that. You better bring it old man."And for the most part…he did.
Punctual Axl was not. He kept me waiting an hour and a half after crowd-pleaser Papa Roach signed off. Roach’s frontman may look like your average pizza delivery guy, but he is, in fact, a charismatic and highly mobile performer. He circled the floor crowd perimeter, reaching out to everyone security would let him touch. He sang cleanly with soaring vocals reminiscent of fellow opening act Sebastian Bach.Bach was delightfully fun with his bombastic, operatic voice. His mike cut out a few times, but he conducted both his band and his sound engineer to where they needed to be musically. His version of I Remember You could have been recorded right then and there for a live album.
Time passed.
Then, darkness and a lone guitar riff.
Suddenly, at the extended front end of the stage, a spotlight illuminated a slim, almost buff-looking, goat-teed man in a fitted leather shirt and fly-eye shades. Axl looked like an absolute rock star."Do you know where you are?"Like the bow of a ship bouncing into a choppy sea of 20, 30, and 40-something-year-old fans, Rose ratcheted his torso forward and back, pausing to break into that familiar side-to-side sway that he has butched up a bit to more of a side-to-side stomp.The guitar solo allowed for Axl to sprint off to one of the side platforms to strike a commanding, stiff-limbed pose and howl out the high notes on key and without hesitation. The crowd that had previously begun to boo the lengthy delay was now on its feet. This was not a video. This was not a documentary. He was live and everyone was craning to get a better look at what sounded like 1987.
Gone was the bucket-headed weirdo whom many die-hards blame for the delay in G n’ R’s re-debut in the states. Rose has hired industry veterans.There is a trifecta of guitarists that divvy up Slash’s epic solos: Nine-Inch Nails’ Robin Fink, Psychedelic Furs guitarist Rick Fortus, and Ron Thai. Though they played like a well-oiled machine, their power presented problems.After a few favorites, including It’s So Easy and You Could Be Mine, Fink stood alone to deliver a roller-coaster instrumental that eventually became Sweet Child O’ Mine. Rose walked slightly above the stage near the raised drum kit sporting one of his many costume changes (mainly a series of sleeveless shirts and leather jackets) and sang the classic rock standard like most remember it. He punctuated the performance with his signature snake dance and lengthy vocalizations on the last recitation of the chorus.
Soon after, though, the volume became so atrociously and reverberatingly loud that hearing Axl at all became like trying to hear a lone choir boy over a battery of anti-aircraft guns. Unless the tune required a more melodious--rather than crunching---guitar sound, and unless Rose was singing in either his smarmy, more easily-projected lower register, or his top-volume screech, he couldn’t be heard. Anything in between was lost or unintelligible. Thus, some of the kick-ass material simply became a noisy racket. Such was the case with parts of November Rain, where a blazer-clad Axl sat at a baby grand piano below a controlled shower of sparks from the rafters. Even his dual keyboardists were too loud, one of whom is original Guns member Dizzy Reed.
I had not heard any new material from Rose since fooling around with the Grand Theft Auto demo in Best Buy--he gives voice to an ex-rock-star-turned radio dj--but on this night I got a peek at the new album.The songs are intricate with multiple changes and an ensemble rhythm guitar sound that would fit easily into the rotation of any hard rock station. I found it refreshing to hear Axl’s unique, sandpaper vocals over such an arrangement. Two of the songs are balanced with piano parts and evoke either a sense of loss or an inability to return home—think of the "Use Your Illusion" sound updated and on steroids.
Bach returned to duet with Axl on My Michelle. A priceless, ear-splitting rendition, it was amazing that Sebatian’s Daltrey-esque swinging of the microphone cord did not result in a concussion for his fellow metal icon. And then, finally, I got my adrenaline-charged version of Night Train. At least I think I did. By then my hearing was long gone and my skull was numb. Neither Metallica nor Motley Crue did that to me, but I heard everything James and Vince said.
It appears Rose has finally found the vehicle to quicken Guns onto a new course. What remains to be seen is if Axl’s Black Pearl--the mythical Chinese Democracy-- actually materializes in stores and lives up to the status of G n’R’s heavily-requested catalogue. For now, I have what any metal head-turned-economy-car driver would enjoy: a vague association with something still hip that might also prove still relevant.
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