It’s been 14 years of silence…

By Daniel Kandell Zamudio

When I was young, and my heart was an open book, I used to listen to nothing but Golden Oldies on “Big D” 103 FM out of Bloomfield, Connecticut. I was obsessed with Rockabilly, Do-Wop, Motown, Classic Rock n’ Roll, the British Invasion and Psychedelic Rock from the 50’s, 60’s and early (pre-disco) 70’s, while almost completely oblivious to contemporary music—with a few noted exceptions, such as the Grease Soundtrack and The Gloved One, Mr. Michael Jackson. That was, until the summer of 1987, when my friend Edgar (who up until that time, like every other Mexican teenager, only listened to Mexican pop bands, such as Timberiche) introduced me to a new rock group from Los Angeles called Guns N’ Roses.

I remember sitting skeptically in Edgar’s bedroom when he first proudly unsheathed his Appetite for Destruction LP, which depicted vicious scenes of cartoon rape on its now infamous cover art. The first track he played off the b-side was spooky and creepy, and I immediately noticed that this version of “My Michelle” was NOT indeed a cover of the classic Fab Four hit, but a dark, twisted, dangerous, unseemly, perverse and threatening exploitation of the same title. Quite a change from the bubble-gum-pop-boy-and-girl-bands Edgar had been listening to just the previous summer. His Timberiche albums had now been stuffed inside the closet and soon his walls would become plastered with images of late eighties hair metal bands. Metal had arrived to the suburban heights of Mexico City.

Nourished on hits by the Rolling Stones, The Doors and Bob Dylan, and having been indoctrinated into bands such as Queen, AC/DC and Aerosmith by my older brother, fellow classmates and MTV, the bases for this new music were not completely foreign to me. I would often find direct or indirect musical references (a lifelong personal obsession of mine) within this new music, which were often completely lost upon Edgar. As far as Edgar was now concerned, Rock n’ Roll began and ended with GN’R.

While GN’R opened me up to the world of contemporary rock n’ roll and pop music, my chronological musical evolution through the 50s, 60s, and 70s continued (though it was until much later that I could appreciate with only a vague nostalgia much of the early-to-mid 80s, with the exception of a few groups such as Men At Work, Devo, Duran Duran, The Police, Supertramp, Styx and The Clash) and soon I would be raiding my brother’s record and tape cassette collections for his (later) Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin albums, which would round out the foundation and basis of comparison for my musical repertoire.

Only two years after the release of their record-breaking double-albums “Use Your Illusion I & II”, Guns was still “the most dangerous rock band in the world”, even though much of mainstream America was now getting into so-called ‘alternative’ and grunge bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice and Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who had been introduced to the majority of the American public through Perry Farrell’s wandering Lollapalooza music festivals.

So on March 9th 1993, when the “Skin N’ Bones” leg of the “Use Your Illusion” world tour rolled into the sold-out Hartford Civic Center (home of the most losing professional hockey team in NHL history, the Hartford Whalers, who would soon be chased out of town with pitchforks and torches) my high school buddies and I were there with no questions asked for what would be my very first rock show. After Queens’ legendary guitar virtuoso, Brian May, opened with his own band, the Gunner’s ripped through a setlist, which went something like:

“Welcome To The Jungle” “Mr. Brownstone” “The Garden” “Live And Let Die” “Attitude” “Nice Boys” “So Fine” “Double Talkin' Jive” “You Ain't The First” (for which they busted out an old, worn couch, which band members propped themselves on for the next five acoustic numbers) “You're Crazy” “Used To Love Her” “Patience” “Knockin' On Heaven's Door” “November Rain” “Mongoloid” “Dead Horse” “Guitar Solo” “Sweet Child O' Mine” “Don't Cry”

Growing up in suburban Connecticut rumors abounded in the East parking lot of my high school, where the ‘Easties’, or social misfits, hung out to smoke their cigarettes and contraband on the perimeter of the school’s property, just outside the jurisdiction of the school’s administration. I’m not making this up. I did not grow up in 1957 and I did not steal this from “The Breakfast Club”. That’s actually what the punks, rockers, motorheads, jokers, smokers and midnight tokers called themselves back then, and that’s how everybody knew them. There were two kids in particular, twin brothers actually, who were both skinny, pale, longhaired dead ringers for Axl Rose, and whom we cleverly dubbed ‘The Axls’. The Axls were transfers from Granby, the hick town next over from my white collar, yuppie, suburban hell. Rumor had it that William B. Bailey (AKA W. Axl Rose) himself used to romp around these parts when he was younger. But I never believed it. It sounded like typical school bus stop shit talking to me. But at one point during the show in Hartford, Axl paused between songs and confessed to the packed Civic Center, “I used to hang out around here. My family used to vacation in Granby.” I never doubted anyone with long hair ever again. I can only imagine what the Bailey family summer vacations consisted of in rural, forested, tobacco-field-blanketed Granby, Connecticut.

Edgar had the opportunity to see his beloved Guns on two occasions in Mexico City, both at the Palacio de los Deportes, or Rebotes, as he calls it, which is a pun that refers to the lousy acoustics and reverberating sounds generated inside that ancient concrete dome. So you can’t imagine how psyched we were upon learning in January that dates had been scheduled in Mexico for the ongoing, and never-ending, GN’R World Tour. They would be touring in support of their new album, Chinese Democracy, a costly thirteen-year work-in-progress which has seen nothing but endless delays, production setbacks and legal problems. The new album was supposed to be released this March. It is now June and no one seems to be in any rush to release the album to coincide with the tour, which originally began in 2001(!) and is now on its FIFTH leg. Our music reviewer, Rodney Huw Evans, who is as a big a guns fan as either Edgar or myself, claims there will likely be democracy in China before Chinese Democracy ever sees the light of day. Despite that bold self-fulfilling prophecy, at least half a dozen songs (all unauthorized and supposedly unfinished) have somehow been leaked onto the internet. Could this be a newly devised marketing ploy concocted by clever and desperate record label suits, hard-up for new promotional ideas, now that Rome is officially burning? Perhaps this is all part of a master plan in the post-internet marketing of big budget, wide-appeal rock acts that can no longer depend upon album sales to recover their investment? My conspiracy theories aside, the Gunners did manage to sell out three stadium shows in Mexico without any advertising campaign, no new material available in stores and limited radio airplay of only some illegally leaked songs. Go figure.

It’s been fourteen years since any of us last saw the Gunners live and a lot has changed since then, both inside and outside the group. In those fourteen years of absence, we’ve seen the rise and fall of grunge, the mainstreaming of rap, the commercialization of “indie” rock and the absolute pervasiveness of electronic music. Not to mention boy bands, girl bands and countless carbon copies of annoying Orange County pop punks. Kids just don’t worship rockstars like they used to and with the advent of file-sharing services such as Napster, Kazaa and Limewire, and websites such as Myspace, kids no longer have to listen to what’s force-fed to them by the Big Five record labels on corporate radio or MTV. In many ways, the playing field has been leveled, and now everyone has as much a shot as anyone at being heard and becoming famous. On the other hand, with just SO MANY musical options out there, and no seeming end to it all, it is possibly more difficult now, more than ever, for something to catch.

Within the group, the major difference is that Axl is the only original member left in the band. You could say he’s been somewhat estranged from his former band members Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum, all of whom had their differences with Axl, and decided to form their own successful band, Velvet Revolver, along with former Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland. According to repots from other so-called gonzo publications, Axl has spent the past 14 years crystal healing (sometimes bunkered in the Sedona, Arizona, desert) surrounded by well-paid gurus and spiritual advisors, while meticulously and obsessively tinkering on Chinese Democracy, as if it were his Kubrickian masterpiece, with a slew of sessions musicians and producers that have come in and out of the revolving door that is his recording studio. With over 80 shows beneath their belts, their most recent incarnation looks something like this:

Axl Rose, Vocals
Dizzy Reed, Keyboards
Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Lead guitar
Richard Fortus, Rhythm guitar
Robin Finck, Lead guitar
Tommy Stinson, Bass guitar
Chris Pitman, Keyboards and programming
Frank Ferrer, Drums and percussion

Due to an injury to bassist Tommy Stinson's left wrist, the Guns had to cancel some dates in Japan and decided to kick off this latest leg of their world tour in Mexico, which was a pleasant surprise for us! There would be three dates: Monterrey, Guadalajara and Mexico City and the Superfans would try to make at least two of them. So Edgar, Chon (another childhood Mexican friend who was responsible for corrupting Edgar into GN’R) and myself hit the road for the second show in Guadalajara, not really knowing what to expect, other than it would probably go late (we had heard reports that the Monterrey gig had begun at 2:00am).

After the two opening acts, who’s names I cannot recall and will not even bother researching for you here, slopped it up (if the intention was to find opening bands that totally SUCKED, in the hopes of making GN’R look that much better—mission accomplished!), there was at least a two-hour gap of bright house lights and absolutely nothing onstage, except for some Oompa-Loompas who quietly prepared the rather austere stage for the headliners. This was probably the most stripped-down stage I’d ever seen for a major rock show. Could this be another reflection of the current state of the music industry? A new cost-effective-sure-fire-can’t-miss-or-lose-money-on-the-tour-doctrine: The Low-Budget / High-Yield Tour! The audience didn’t really seem to notice, though, as they were too busy going absolutely ape-shit, especially our comrades in the cheap seats, who began ceremoniously burning t-shirts and throwing beers and debris towards the audience below and onto the sound console, which was promptly covered with a tarp.

As the hour approached midnight, our rambunctious friends in the nosebleeds began climbing down the outside walls of the balconies like spider monkeys to the next tier, and then the next, until they finally reached the floor. The security (merely ushers, really) at the Vicente Fernández Gómez Arena was lax at best, not at all prepared for a full on rock show. (If Axl were actually present in the stadium—or even the city, or maybe the country—at that point, he would not have been pleased.) People began bum-rushing the stairwell closest to the front of the building in an attempt to reach our choice seats. The ushers made a sad and vain attempt at preventing the mob from breaching the stairwell, but they busted on through like a cattle stampede, causing several people to fall on their asses as they slid down the stairs. Crowds of people began to gather in front of the stage, the idiots in the row behind us broke up the connected folding chairs in some misplaced Cro-Magnon rage of 21st century frustration and tensions were mounting as I began to have flashbacks of the now infamous St. Louis, Montreal and Vancouver riot shows. Finally, around 12:40am, the spotlight operators hastily hoisted themselves up onto their robotic harnesses and the house lights dimmed as the crowd roared in anticipation. They must have sensed the crowd’s restlessness, and had they waited just ten minutes more, there would have been trouble. In the darkness and on the video screens appeared a shadowy figure holding a familiar Gibson Les Paul. The video cameras zoomed in on the guitarist’s hands as they stroked a few well-known notes, which everyone immediately recognized as the opening licks to “Welcome to the Jungle”. The official set list continued:

“It's So Easy” (smoking!)
“Mr. Brownstone” (great! but lacking more Hendrix style funky-junk)
“Live And Let Die” (never was my favorite cover, but well done)
And then a horrible Spinal Tap-esque guitar solo performed by Robin Finck (I actually thought he was he was going to start playing with his feet) and a Jam with Keyboardist Dizzy Reed & Drummer Frank Ferrer.
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” (I was surprised they got this one out of the way so early, it was well performed, but it made us yearn for Slash even more)
“Better” (the first of their new songs and perhaps the best one I’ve heard)
“Knockin' On Heaven's Door” (not quite what it used to be. Again, Slash is missed and Axl just didn’t carry the audience with the vocals like before)
“You Could Be Mine” (Frank Ferrer is no Matt Sorum)
“Angie” piano solo performed by Dizzy Reed (I was hoping for some Stones and they delivered!)
“The Blues” (the new “Lick My Love Pump” for Chinese Democracy)
Then more guitar noodling by Richard Fortus & Robin Finck which meandered into something that resembled Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”
“Out To Get Me” (not my favorite song, but pretty good)
“November Rain” (probably Mexico’s #1 radio requested GN’R song, which they performed to an ovation)
“I.R.S.” (pretty damn good)
Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal then exploded with guitar solos of “La Cucaracha” and “Don't Cry” (both very good. Bumblefoot is probably the best new musician out there)
“My Michelle” (classic)
“Patience” (not as beautiful or acoustic as I recall in the Hartford Civic Center)
“Nightrain” (Loaded like a freight train, Flyin' like an aeroplane, Feelin' like a space brain, One more time tonight!)

Encore:
“Madagascar” (probably my least favorite new song that I heard live, I just wasn’t into the vague political message, Martin Luther King, Jr. samples or weak video projections. Gimmee “Civil War” any day.)
“Paradise City” (a barn burner)

Overall, it was a good ratio of classics to new stuff, which despite the internet leaks, it didn’t appear that much of the crowd yet knew or could sing along to the new material. There was only one minor fight during the show between an overzealous fan and an usher (and I think the fan won). But the truly remarkable thing was that after the encore, the entire band came back out to take a bow with arms interlocked! As if it were a night at the freakin’ opera! Something I had never witnessed in a rockshow and would much less expect at a GN’R show. Perhaps the times they are a-changin’. But I can’t ridicule, the musicians laid it all out as best they could and the crowd adored every minute of it and were eager to express their gratitude. While Axl’s voice doesn’t seem to have the same endurance, range and strength (and whose would after shrieking like that for twenty-plus years?), he chooses his best songs carefully, he knows his own limits and he is a master at working the crowd into a frenzy and giving them exactly what they want.

Arriving late is all part of his discreet charm and rockstar allure. But perhaps Axl forgets that the public has been waiting for his ass for fourteen years. Where the band truly suffers is on the instrumental side. Despite Bumblefoot’s best efforts, Mr. Finck’s and Mr. Fortus’ solos are truly lacking and uninspired. I promise not to mention the S-word again, but if the hysterical crowd hadn’t been starved for fourteen years of live GN’R, they may have been slightly more critical and a little less appreciative. Lucky for the Gunners, most of the time you couldn’t hear the lousy guitar noodling over the screams of adoring fans. And although this was show number eighty-something with this current formation, it goes to show you can’t easily replace the 10+ years of chemistry and personality that you had with an original band; you know, the ones that wrote, played and evolved the songs (and the fantastic special intros!) along with Axl and Izzy Stradlin (the oft-forgotten original fifth member and co-composer of many of their greatest hits) into well-honed perfection. As the Culinary Idiot himself so eloquently stated in Mexico City, “this is the best Guns N’ Roses cover band I’ve ever seen.”

I was so excited during the Guadalajara show that I didn’t bother writing down the set list for this article. Luckily, Axl and company were kind enough to REPEAT the entire setlist, song for song, solo for solo, wardrobe change for wardrobe change, in Mexico City two nights later. Ironic, considering Axl so proudly stated during the St. Louis Riot Show (1991) that “we’re not one of those bands that plays the same set each night in each city we visit.” This time Axl and associates must have received a verbal (or perhaps monetary) warning from the Mexico City promoters who of course had witnessed first hand or received quick wind of the Monterrey and Guadalajara shows. Rest assured, if Axl didn’t show up to play until 1:00am, the chilangos wouldn’t be quite as patient, polite and well behaved. There were actually signs outside the stadium entrances warning the audience that the headliners would not play before 11:30pm. After the opening acts finished up around 10:00pm or 10:30pm the Rebound Palace cleverly projected the Mexico vs. Paraguay soccer match onto the Jumbotron, instantly pacifying and rendering the crowd of over 21,000 completely docile, who even forgot (maybe for just a few minutes) they were there to see GN’R. Who ever thought of that BRILLIANT idea definitely deserves a raise! Once the match was over, the lights went out and the band promptly took the stage and once again we heard the opening hypnotic licks of “Welcome to the Jungle”. From there on forward, they were basically painting by numbers, on automatic pilot. And the audience was just as sick and pleased and grateful for the nearly identical performance.

When you’re young you look up to these larger than life characters because of the tremendous impact their music may have had on you during your adolescence. They’re all over the media, they are on the world’s biggest stages and you think they are gods. In high school Stephen Davis’ Hammer of the Gods was my rock bible. The legendary (and many say fabricated) exploits of Led Zeppelin during the 1970s were enough to inspire and convince any young man, who might have even a remote inkling towards a career in rock n’ roll, to sign their soul over to Aleister Crowley right there on back of that worn paperback. Not having any sort of musical talent (or sense of rhythm) I never considered myself to be a candidate. But you grow up your entire life imagining what it must be like to be a rockstar, and you thank god that GN’R—even this somewhat lame imitation of GN’R—still exist to carry on this important mantle through these difficult times. That is, until that disappointing moment  when you discover they don’t even have a single backstage groupie amongst the lot of them!

So we must asks ourselves, “How far has rock declined?”
Where are the wild hotel room parties?
Where are the massive orgies?
Where are the Mudsharks?

Where are the feasts we were promised?
Where is the wine?
The New Wine.
Dying on the vine.

The sad realization that the rock n’ roll mythos we had worshiped for generations may now only exists in storybooks such Hammer of the Gods is almost too much to bare. The lesson here is: don’t meet your idols, kids, you’ll only be disappointed. Or at least, don’t meet them when they’re 14 years past their prime and have been largely replaced by imposters. With all due respect to the current players, take me back to the paradise city that was the Hartford Civic Center.