By Lisa Burke
April 8th 2016, T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas NV: Guns N’ Roses has always been one of those timeless bands for me that has shaped my childhood, refined my youth, and pointed me in the direction of where I am today. My first experience with them live was with Axl Rose, DJ Ashba, Richard Fortus and friends only a few years ago in Las Vegas at the Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino which I must say was a great show itself. This time on April 8th 2016 with the unlikely but completely real reunion of Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan on stage together again, I returned to Vegas to the brand new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas located just behind the New York, New York Hotel and Casino to see the first show in Las Vegas on the ‘Not In This Lifetime’ tour with a full two-and-a-half hour set list.
The first partial reunion show was exactly one week prior on April 1st 2016, and was a surprise to many and and an over-capacity amount of fans waited in line overnight and those who got in saw pretty much exactly what they hoped for in the small intimate venue at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, where GNR originally played one of their first ever shows back in the ’80s. Let me just say also that while a large percentage of fans wanted a complete reunion including Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler, I could not have seen a better line up in 2016 taking all aspects into consideration, including Adler’s health and Izzy’s attitude of basically if he’s not there it’s because he doesn’t want to be, and that’s fine by me. The other preface on the reunion subject is, are they in it for the money or are they actually getting along? Well that probably depends on who you are asking, but I do know one thing and that is Axl is a smart business man and while at times he has an attitude that can clear out a room and break up friendships, he cares deeply about Guns ‘N Roses and the people that wanted a great show got one and much more.
On my drive to Vegas to see one of my favorite bands, I of course started getting anxious and started thinking what if something happens and the show gets cancelled and it all ends before it begins, because naturally when something seems too good to be true it usually is. Sure enough, I start getting texts about Axl breaking his foot and needing surgery and my heart skipped a beat until I got the whole story that he broke it at the Troubadour show probably when he fell off of whatever he stood on that was unstable to begin with. I guess he didn’t realize until after the show how bad it was and then had surgery fairly shortly after, so then he just decided to keep it private and announce it on the day of the show which was smart although nerve wracking. Now if you are a true GNR fan and you gave up your tickets last minute because you didn’t want to see Axl perform with a broken foot then you are an idiot. I’ve seen him run around and perform before, and sure, the Axl dance is classic fun, but I’m actually in a way glad I got to see him in this broken state because it made him much more vulnerable and he pulled off the show with flying colors thanks to a little help from his friend Dave Grohl and his donation of the throne that he used for his own tour when he broke his leg on stage in the past. When I arrived at the T-Mobile arena right at 8 PM which was door time according to the ticket, it had been raining on and off all day and people were already filling up the space outside the arena. The building was only open for 2 days prior and The Killers happened to be the first band to play there. For some reason which most likely had nothing to do with Axl himself, we stood outside the arena with most of us getting wet and at least one of us had to pee and let everyone else know about it for almost an extra hour.
The anticipation heightened and finally at 8:50 the doors opened one by one and we all piled in to prepare for Alice In Chains, the openers on this night. Of course there is always that one authority figure who should not have been given authority with no knowledge of rock ‘n roll fashion, because as I and others were approaching the metal detectors we were told we couldn’t bring our ‘spikes’ in. The comedy here is, there were no spikes, but only studs that you couldn’t hurt a fly with and which were at various places all over our clothing which we were not about to remove pre-show to never see again. This authority woman got put in her place quickly and we pushed on in to the show to re-enlist our buzz from an hour ago with a purchase of the venue’s $16 alcoholic beverages.
Alice In Chains began around 9:45 PM and I was in my $250 seat where I couldn’t get good sound or a good photograph of the band despite only being mid-section and not too many sections to the back, but for that price I still wanted better, so I got it. I walked across the sections to the second from the front row a few feet above the floor crowd to the best spot in the house unless you wanted front row, which I did not. No one was in the seats until very much later and still stayed out of my way so I was able to come and go at that spot for the whole show which was great. This was my first time seeing Alice In Chains, unfortunately for me because two of the greatest members singer Layne Staley and drummer Mike Starr are no longer among the living due to separate drug overdoses, yet Jerry Cantrell alone makes this band worth seeing. The current singer William DuVall is also very good and a great fit for the band who doesn’t sound too different from Layne yet he is still putting in his own energy and not trying to copy. Again, anyone who refuses to see this band without the originals is not giving them a fair shot and has forgotten how great Jerry Cantrell’s vocals and harmonizing really is and he’s still there larger than life. My only complaints for the people in not so decent seats was that they didn’t have the large screens on in the beginning and the sound system was rough but got much better towards the end or maybe it just sounded better in the seat I moved to. They played a great setlist with fan favorites including ‘Rooster’, ‘Man In The Box’, ‘No Excuses’, and ended the set with ‘Would?’. I didn’t even know they were opening for GNR when I bought my ticket, nor did I even think about an opener because I was just so excited about GNR, but it proved without a doubt to be a really pleasant surprise and the entire show including GNR felt like I was living in a really wonderful dream.
One hour after Alice In Chains, ended Guns N’ Fuckin’ Roses took the stage at approximately midnight which was in no way late, and opened with a backing track of the Loony Toons theme song and on the second Vegas night he came on around 11:15 which was an early surprise to those in attendance. While some lucky fans got to attend both Vegas shows, I ended up at Generation Axe the second night which was not a disappointment either, but that’s another story. The second night was very similar to the first night in set list but the small significant differences such as a Who cover of ‘The Seeker’, ‘Attitude’ instead of ‘New Rose’, ‘Don’t Cry’ instead of ‘Patience’, and a guest appearance by Sebastian Bach himself during ‘My Michelle’ were among the highlights that first night concert attendees missed. Sebastian Bach was performing at Vamp’d on April 8th during the GNR show so that’s probably why he only showed up the second night. Anyway, we were all wondering how Axl was going to show up on stage with his broken foot and all, and much to my surprise and delight, he came out on a throne with guitar necks sticking out of the base and lights circled around the back piece. As I mentioned earlier, this was a modified version of Dave Grohl’s throne which he gave to Axl, as Axl commented on numerous occasions that he was sincerely grateful for. Now for those of you who wanted to see Slash, Duff, and Axl interact you still got as much of that as possible even with Axl being so stationary. He also introduced Slash as “I don’t know what it is but it’s pissed off and it calls itself Slash”. Also, the man managed to change his clothes four times, leave and return on a very large stage more times than that and play piano and sing more perfectly than ever. He used crutches that were handed to him and he was also pushed back out on a wheelchair by the sexy dancer girls in their subtle nurse attire. Axl himself has gotten slightly better at his own personal attire with his super high end leather studded jackets and black t-shirts with silly graphic imagery. He took off the hat and shades for most of the show and appeared in top health minus the broken foot. He’s also not fat and hasn’t been fat in at least four years, I repeat, NOT fat and his voice was stellar. Back to the tunes, of course GNR opened with ‘It’s so Easy’ and other favorites were ‘Rocket Queen’, ‘Mr. Brownstone’, ‘Night Train’, ‘New Rose (cover of the Damned off of GNR’s underrated album ‘The Spaghetti Incident’), ‘Estranged’, ‘Better’, and ‘Civil War’. If that isn’t enough awesome, Slash brought out the double neck guitar for ‘Civil War’ and played both parts with the best Slash guitar I’ve ever seen. I can’t even tell you how much of a difference I hear in Slash’s playing with versus without Axl. He needs Axl like peanut butter needs jelly and sort of like Miss Piggy needs Kermit. Rumor has it that Axl Rose pissed off Slash and Matt Sorum in the same day back in the day and that’s how that all started, regardless, Axl has at the very least made peace with Slash and the two of them at the very end with Axl on crutches walked off stage talking together and I’m sure it went something like: “See we pulled this off, broken foot and problems aside, we did it and it feels good. Now let’s go take a bath in that three million we just earned and laugh that only ten thousand went to Richard Fortus even though he did work his ass off and ran circles around us.” Seriously though, I definitely saw an interaction, specially with Duff and Slash who were adorable on stage together and what’s hilarious is that Duff came out in top health and appearance even though he was the one having the roughest time in the ’80s on stage sweating out the heroin and looking like he might not survive the show. He has a successful band called Loaded and a beautiful wife and is now the most sober of them all. There was a great successful well-rehearsed guitar duet with Richard Fortus and Slash during a cover of Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ that made up for any lack of attention Richard was getting because the Slash attack was back on stage. The other highlight with Slash was hearing him play the Chinese Democracy songs including ‘This I Love’ which is a beautiful song and even better when Slash plays guitar for it. Chinese Democracy came out a few years too late and most fans were just pissed off at the breakup of the band and the long wait for new songs so they didn’t bother to pay any attention and they missed out big time because it is a really conceptual album that is not typical to the GNR style but is highly successful in what it set out to achieve. The biggest surprise of the entire setlist, however, was the song ‘Coma’ which Axl announced as “I’m gonna try something kinda new, it’s a very happy song”. It has always been one of my most favorite underrated songs from the Illusion era and it was played live this night for the first time since 1993 and it was around eight minutes of brilliantly done awesomeness. Two people I have yet to mention who get credit for this in particular are Dizzy Reed who has stuck with Axl through everything and is a total man behind the curtain genius for GNR. His own band Hookers And Blow is a success as well consisting of mostly GNR covers sung by Dizzy himself. The man is a jack of all trades and now he has a new helper on the keys and with some back up vocals from the newest member of GNR, Melissa Reese. I don’t have too much to say about her except she’s extremely lucky and very bouncy and does a decent enough job as well as kind of makes you forget about Tracy and Roberta who used to sing back up at times.
The second person, however, that I needed to mention when discussing ‘Coma’ was the drummer Frank Ferrer who was great for all songs on this setlist and although Matt Sorum would have been a treat, I say if this is the man Axl can work with best then give him what he wants because I have confidence that he will pick the best team for the job as it is clear he did. Luckily for Frank, he had the help of pyrotechnics in the form of explosions and fireworks during moments in the song which also aided in keeping the beat alive. The backdrop screen was well done in its trippy graphic imagery ranging from Terminator-esque machine-like creatures during ‘You Could Be Mine’, to the skeletons fucking, to the dancing girls, to the guns, etc. A few rows up from me there was a girl barefoot who looked like she hadn’t eaten in weeks but didn’t care because most likely she was on ecstasy and dancing to GNR, and for the two-and-a-half hours they played for she never stopped dancing once. Whether you want to call that dedication or drug use it was still a sight, and of course don’t forget the way too drunk guy that got kicked off the floor after the third song because he’s unfortunately pretty memorable too when he ends up next to you looking like he might vomit on your shoes. Other memorable moments were seeing so many dudes walking around dressed like Slash or Axl, and the winner of that ridiculous fashion show was the guy who went all out as Axl with the tight white boxer briefs, red leather jacket, and red bandana. During the encore Axl decided to be a loony toon himself and put the Foo Fighters logo back up on the throne as a tribute to Dave which was pretty silly but I suppose a nice gesture. Then around 2:30 AM, as I was watching a five-year old boy on the floor level just below me in a GNR t-shirt stay up way past his bedtime dancing the night away, ‘Paradise City’ was played and confetti came down, and my wildest dream come true took its last real breath until the next time.
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Set List:
01. It’s So Easy
02. Mr. Brownstone
03. Chinese Democracy
04. Welcome to the Jungle
05. Double Talkin’ Jive
06. Estranged
07. Live and Let Die (Wings cover)
08. Rocket Queen
09. You Could Be Mine
10. New Rose (The Damned cover)
11. This I Love
12. Coma
13. Speak Softly Love (Andy Williams cover)
14. Sweet Child O’ Mine
15. Better
16. Civil War
17. Medley Jam
18. Layla (Derek and the Dominos cover)
19. November Rain
20. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan cover)
21. Nightrain
Encore:
22. Patience
23. Paradise City
Guns ‘N Roses ‘Not In This Lifetime’ remaining US tour dates:
04/23 – Indio CA @ Coachella Music Festival
06/23 – Detroit MI @ Ford Field
06/26 – Washington DC @ Fedex Field
06/29 – Kansas City MO @ Arrowhead Stadium
07/01 – Chicago IL @ Soldier Field
07/06 – Cincinnati OH @ Paul Brown Stadium
07/09 – Nashville TN @ Nissan Stadium
07/12 – Pittsburgh PA @ Heinz Field
07/14 – Philadelphia PA @ Lincoln Financial Field
07/16 – Toronto ON @ Rogers Centre
07/19 – Foxboro MA. @ Gilette Stadium
07/23 – East Rutherford NJ @ MetLife Stadium
07/27 – Atlanta GA @ Georgia Dome
07/29 – Orlando FL @ Orlando Citrus Bowl
07/31 – New Orleans LA @ Mercedes-Benz Superdome
08/03 – Arlington TX @ AT&T Stadium
08/05 – Houston TX @ NRG Stadium
08/09 – San Francisco CA @ AT&T Park
08/12 – Seattle WA @ CenturyLink Field
08/15 – Glendale AZ @ University of Phoenix Stadium
08/22 – San Diego CA @ Qualcomm Stadium