Still got the appetite
The theme from Looney Toons filled Western Springs. It felt apt.
With Guns n’ Roses needing to bury so much bad blood to play here the question was, were we about to see the real deal or a cartoon parody?
Opener It’s So Easy convinced. Axl sounded as dangerously nonplussed as he did on record all those decades ago.
But those decades soon caught up. After a grooving stomp through what has to be the world’s only danceable ode to heroin, Mr Brownstone, Axl was close to done.
Far from encapsulating LA’s menacing mean streets Welcome to
the Jungle was puffed out and tired. Those old serpentine moves were suffering not slippery. The screeched warning of “You’re gonna die”, made it feel like a heart attack was imminent, not a pissed-off pimp’s knife.
The vocals sometimes lagged at first, but when it was time to bring it, Axl brought the house down.
The power was obviously no longer effortlessly on tap, but was now utilised for maximum effect.
And as the night went on and he warmed up he got better and better.
When the dude cut loose, which he did often, it truly was something else. The extended screams during Live
and Let Die a brutal reminder of just how dangerous this cat once was.
Slash, of course, killed it, his guitar squealing and soloing like the bad mofo he is.
The band was undoubtedly slick, but far from the wild, untamed bad hombres that they once were.
A searing hot extended run through of the stone-cold classic
Rocket Queen featured duelling solos, a Prince funk tribute and a loose jam showed the band had swapped living on the edge for a safer brand of fun.
But a stadium show like this, and they get no bigger than the Springs, is about the event more than the act. Never mind the wrist band fiasco that kept fans waiting outside at the start (again) — and 90 minutes into their set the stadium ran out of beer.
Guns n Roses played the hits, they jammed some epic solos, they surprised (a cover of Pink Floyd’s
Wish You Were Here anyone?), they had costume changes. I stopped counting Axl’s cowboy hat changes at six. Early number Civil War boomed,
November Rain at almost 15 minutes was totally epic, Sweet Child O Mine was un-freaking-believably good as Slash confirmed his guitar-god status.
Despite the elder age of the band, the songs still retained that deadly hedonistic sense of sex, drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll that made these guys’ reputation back in the day. If you closed your eyes the power-riffing stomp through My Michelle almost made you believe you were back on LA’s notorious strip back in the 80s. But there was no escaping the fact we weren’t. Every missed vocal, slipped beat and rancid sip of Woodstock reminded you of that.
“Are you still with us?”Axl asked right before the band lurched into the mind-melting power riff of You Could Be Mine.
It may have been rhetorical but the stadium erupted. And even in those moments when it was abundantly clear that these guys weren’t 21 and completely, uncompromisingly rock ’n’ roll anymore, it was still awesome.