Who Best Represent the Guns N' Roses Brand?

Hello,

A commenter on my blog left this comment about Guns N' Roses.

"Given the opportunity, i would choose to see Slash with Myles Kennedy over the childish Axl et al.

If you haven't heard Slash with Myles, check out the double CD on Spotify. Myles doesn't sound like Axl but he has a great and distinct voice. "

I understand what he's saying. While on one hand I'm excited to see Guns N' Roses in concert one more time, I also do have some concerns. Looking at their more recent set lists the encore has 3 "instrumental jams" alone. I'm sure that is necessary as it seems Axl Rose is unable to maintain his voice quality for 2.5 hours. All those "instrumental jams" make for a boring concert. Solos get boring after a minute or two, especially if they are self-indulgent and take away from the songs. I do like the guitar solos that Slash plays with Kennedy. They are short, succinct and fit in perfectly with the other songs. Another concern is while I'm familiar with many of the songs from "Chinese Democracy" they aren't my favorite G N' R songs. People don't go to hear those songs, they go to hear "Welcome To The Jungle" (second song played on most dates) and Mr. Brownstone (fourth songs played on most dates).

I am also concerned about the late start of the concert, Black Label Society goes on about 9:00. Then it seems there's usually over a hour break until G N' R finally takes the stage about 11:00. I do appreciate the rock and roll stick it to the man ethos, but unfortunately on Wednesdays many of us have to go to work. Because I have a very flexible job, I fortunately don't have to. I have a great job, very few jobs could be better. Although I'd love to be a full-time blogger if anyone is interested. Just saying. However I know a lot of people will probably have to go to work Wednesday morning. Axl should give a little more respect to the working man who has provided his lifestyle.

One of McCall's (below) complaints is that the concert is too loud. Again I love my music loud, but when it's too loud it loses it actually starts to detract from the concert. I think the loudest concert I've ever been too was Nickelback, that was damn loud. That was just one of the many things that made seeing them live so bad. Too many times the vocals get lost in the mix. A concert shouldn't be too loud and there has to be a good balance between the vocals and the musicians.

So again I'm very pumped about seeing Guns N' Roses on December 13th, but I'm not getting overly amped. I'll be going in with some reservations and try not to let my expectations be too high. In fact I wouldn't be real surprised that they don't even take the stage. It sounds like Axl has been on his best behavior but this is still Axl Rose so who knows?

Also at the commenter's suggestion I'm listening to the Myles Kennedy and Slash CD "Made in Stoke 24/7/11". It's a collection of songs covering all of Slash's career. They play 7 Guns N' Roses classics, songs from Velvet Revolver and Slash's own solo CD. Obviously the highlights are the Guns N' Roses songs, Slash is never going to be able to top those songs. That's nothing to be ashamed as not too many people ever will. "Appetite for Destruction" is quite simply one of the 10 greatest CDs ever.

Here are a few selections from Slash with Myles Kennedy in Stoke. Some of these songs go over great, however "Patience" just isn't itself with Axl's voice singing. Also "Patience" just isn't the same without the whistling.

This is their version of "Mr. Brownstone". I'm not sure why they ruined it with "crowd participation time". While Myles has a decent voice, his voice reminds me very much of the singer from Buckcherry, these songs just don't sound the same without Axl. It's nice to hear Slash playing though on these classic songs that he's probably equally responsible for. This version starts out slow, but ends up kicking some major butt.

It is interesting this is the song that both Guns N' Roses and Slash and Myles closes their sets with. While this is an amazing song, for a long time it was overshadowed by many of the other songs on "Destruction".

This is the latest review of a Guns N' Roses concert, this is written by Tris McCall of the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

"The show time printed on the ticket read 8 p.m. By a quarter after 10, opening act Asking Alexandria had long since cleared its gear from the Izod Center stage, and there was still no sign of Guns N' Roses. At 11 p.m. the lights went down, and Axl Rose and his latest gang of accomplices finally began to play. By the time they relinquished the stage, it was two in the morning.

This is behavior befitting a young rebel eager to establish the up-yours punk credibility of his group. But Guns N' Roses gave up any punk rock pretenses long ago, steering away from the aggressive attack of its early material toward lengthy, souped-up, symphonic power ballads like "November Rain." And W. Axl Rose is no longer a young rebel or a young anything. Before reinflating the Guns N' Roses brand in 2008 with the long-delayed release of "Chinese Democracy," he'd been in the pop-cultural equivalent of carbon freeze for about fifteen years. Judging from Thursday night's marathon concert -- one that provided neither apology nor reason for starting as late or going as long as it did -- he has not entirely thawed.

Rose is the last man standing from the classic G N' R lineup that turnedhard rock upside down in 1987 with "Appetite For Destruction." Slash, Izzy, and Duff are long gone, replaced by musicians who can approximate the power of the old combo but who cannot approach its strung-out grandeur. Rose spent more than 15 years laboring over "Chinese Democracy;" when it finally hit retailers, its reception was underwhelming. The Izod Center was not even close to capacity on Thursday.

The sane response to all of this would have been to acknowledge the passage of time with a lean, menacing, modest set. Modesty, however, is not in the Axl Rose playbook. Instead he broke out the ladle for an endless pasta bowl of music: a three-hour extravaganza that was equal parts awe-inspiring, ham-handed, and downright bizarre. This was a show that featured, among other things, a lengthy overdriven version of the "Pink Panther" theme song by guitarist Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, deafening firework explosions on every single chorus downbeat of "Live and Let Die," an all-instrumental grand piano rendition of "Baba O' Riley" (the whole thing!) that felt like a School of Rock recital, and Rose at that same piano, growling through "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2" while a giant inflatable bust of Mao glowered in the background.

It also featured many impressive demonstrations of arena rock at its most imposing. Songs from "Appetite For Destruction" were played ferociously, if not always precisely: "It's So Easy" and "Mr. Brownstone" were discharged with the withering heat (and the heavy-industrial subtlety) of a blast furnace. Material from the two "Use Your Illusion" albums fared even better, particularly the piano-rock epics that appeal so strongly to Rose's taste for melted American cheese. The nine-minute "November Rain" -- in retrospect, the first indication that Rose desperately needed an editor -- was a showcase for the singer's still-elastic voice. "Estranged," the other grand "Illusion" ballad, was an entertaining tag-team wrestling match between Rose, pianist Dizzy Reed, and the band's three guitarists.

Unfortunately, Rose was rarely the victor of these matches. The biggest problem with the Guns N' Roses concert was not its length or lateness, or even its setlist larded down with strange material and unnecessary excursions. It was the volume. Guns N' Roses played loud enough to rattle the fillings out of your teeth.

Hard rock is supposed to blare, of course. That is part of its puerile charm. But Rose is the only star left in the band, and for far too much of the concert, his voice was drowned out by Frank Ferrer's earthquake-simulating kick drum and Tommy Stinson's subway-rumble bass. DJ Ashba proved himself a credible substitute for Slash (disturbingly, he even seemed to have raided Slash's wardrobe), but nobody came to see him. They were there to see the singer, and the singer was often reduced to a sideshow.

Axl's frequent unintelligibility on songs like "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Rocket Queen" wasn't a crippling problem, because everybody in the crowd already knew the words. The lesser-known "Chinese Democracy" songs, however, were torpedoed by the mix. In the '80s, Axl Rose distinguished himself as one of the few hard rock singers capable of communicating ideas more complicated than the pop-metal basics of copious sleaze and cherry pie. It was a shame that he did not get to use much of that expressive latitude at the Meadowlands, but chances are, the old volume junkie wouldn't have had it any other way.

Opening act Asking Alexandria -- allegedly hand-picked for this show by Guns N' Roses themselves -- was thrown to the wolves at 9 p.m. The group played a competent brand of sample-assisted screamo and metalcore akin to Bamboozle favorites Attack! Attack!; predictably, Guns N' Roses fans, weaned on an entirely different style of heavy music, loathed the band. Asking Alexandria wasn't booed off the stage, but they finished their songs to crashing indifference. The members of the U.K. combo will not remember their Guns N' Roses experience as a triumph. They're hardly alone."

Which group best represents the Guns N' Roses brand? I would say both do equally. It would be great to see Slash kicking some butt on classic Guns N' Roses songs again, but it will also be great hearing Axl singing those songs that so many associate with his voice. Obviously the best thing would be that Slash, Axl, Izzy et al. all learn to work together again. That would be the best. As the reviewer about Axl needs someone to be an editor to him, someone to cut out a lot of the self indulgence and excess. Axl would do well to have someone put him in his place every now and then.

That all being said the Axl led Guns N' Roses is coming to town I am going to go. I have the ability to rock with one of the greatest bands ever and I'm not going to pass that up. I'm not so sure I would go see Myles Kennedy and Slash in concert though.

themusicaddict