Guns N Roses review: Slash burns bright as Gunners take Adelaide
It was loud and it was real. The biggest international act to hit Adelaide since Covid began transported fans back to their youth with a classic stadium rock show.
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You know where you are? You’re in the jungle baby. You’re gonna diiiiieeeeee ….
It wasn’t quite the jungle, more the serene surrounds of Adelaide Oval on what, during any other non-El Nino year, would be a typically beautiful November night, but it didn’t really matter.
When Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose unleashed his signature high-pitched war cry the crowd was, in an instant, transported back to LA’s Sunset Strip of the late ‘80s, before Covid, before #MeToo, before autotune, into a fantastical and hedonistic land of drugs, booze, sleaze … and more drugs and booze.
The Gunners changed the game when they released Appetite for Destruction in 1987, the blues-based, duelling guitars of Slash and Izzy Stradlin and punk-infused back line of Duff McKagan and Steven Adler laying the perfect foundation for Axl Rose to launch his vocal onslaught; the most original and versatile of its kind since Robert Plant.
READ:‘THE NIGHT I PARTIED IN ADELAIDE WITH AXL ROSE’
It put a full stop on the horrible, fabricated era of hair metal and laid the foundations for a far more authentic musical experience.
It wasn’t always perfect, but it was real.
But, they flew too close to the sun and, by 1996, were in pieces, heading off in solo directions or returning as shallow versions of their former selves having recorded a mere handful of studio albums (we won’t include the covers album Spaghetti Incident?, which was actually pretty damn good).
Few would have imagined that, three decades later, they’d be alive, let alone back together (minus, sadly, Stradlin and Adler, who have not joined the reboot), playing for three hours and 10 minutes straight and arriving on stage on the dot of 7pm. Yes. 7pm (history lesson: this has not always been the case).
Kicking off with It’s So Easy (definitely pre #MeToo) and then launching into Axl’s lament on his bandmates descending into heroin addiction, Mr Brownstone, the band soon branched out into the title track off Chinese Democracy and Slither, by GNR offshoot Velvet Revolver.
They’ve battled much during their careers – break ups, breakdowns and everything in between – and last night, at least during the early part, it was the sound system, which let off an annoying echo between the speakers at the front of the stage and those midway through, which made Better, off Chinese Democracy, almost indecipherable.
But it’s a minor quibble and was largely resolved, for this reviewer at least, by a quick shuffle a few rows back (one downside from last night was the empty seats throughout the stadium).
High points were aplenty but we’ll mention Civil War which with Slash playing Jimi Hendrix’s Machine Gun as the outro, the trading guitar solos of Slash and Richard Fortus (a genuine virtuoso) on Rocket Queen and, of course, the selection of pick-your-favourites – Sweet Child O’Mine, Don’t Cry, November Rain and Nightrain.
Not surprising, less successful were some of the newer songs, such as the aforementioned Better, Sorry and the aptly titled Absurd, although Hard Skool holds its own against the Stradlin era classics … but still saw an exodus of diehards to restock at the bar.
Memorable moments would lie in the eyes of the beholder, but the acoustic prelude of the Beatles’ Blackbird to Patience was majestic, the epic Coma remains one of their great unheralded classics, and there’s an argument to be had that you haven’t truly lived until your seen Paradise City in the flesh.
The Gunners worked hard and there was clearly no phoning it in. Axl, more at ease with the lower registers these days, was in high spirits, particularly when recalling his love for AC/DC and Rose Tattoo; Duff, who looks like he walked in off a cover shoot for Men’s Health was always the glue that held this band together and last night was no different as he locked in sync with drummer Frank Ferrer but it was clearly Slash’s night. If there was a Norm Smith Medal being handed out for best on ground, he would’ve won hands down.
Slash has always been the ace in the pack and his mastery of the instrument and effortless ability to fuse blues and hard rock with pretty much every genre of music is simply a sight to behold in a live setting. He seems to be able to just effortlessly play whatever comes into his head. Plus the bloke hasn’t aged in 30 years (admittedly it’s a little hard to tell under the top hat and Aviator sunnies)
After all this time and all the memories they’ve given us, it’s just great to see these blokes still together, playing the tunes that, for many of us, were the soundtracks to our childhoods.
As for last night, it wasn’t perfect but it was real, which made it pretty bloody great. And for me and the bunch of 50 somethings walking back to the train station, a nice taste of what it felt like to be 18 again.
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