December 19, 2011 by Chris | Comments Off

Live show review: Guns N’ Roses at Key Arena

Here’s what’s important: doors opened at Key Arena on Friday night at 7pm for Guns N’ Roses’ return to Seattle. We began filing out of Key Arena after the final notes of “Paradise City” at 1:35am. The biggest rock band of my childhood played for over three hours. It was mostly an endurance test, albeit a pretty awesome one.

Throughout the 185 minute set, one got the impression that Axl Rose had a lot to prove, even if his band’s legacy in unquestionable. Tens of millions of albums sold, three undeniable modern rock classics and, most recently, induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, will last for many generations, but the band’s tenure since the two Use Your Illusion albums came out in 1991 has been a bit rocky, to say the least. Aside from about 5 minutes on Friday night (more on that in a bit), no one in GNR, save for Rose, played on its 1987 masterpiece Appetite for Destruction. Keyboardist Dizzy Reed joined in time to play on Use Your Illusion and has been with Rose since.It was seventeen years between the simultaneous releases of the two Use Your Illusions and Chinese Democracy, and the latter was a bit underwhelming – even if it did have two pretty great rock songs: its title track and “Shackler’s Revenge.” With a turnover ratio that well exceeds 100%, nearly each member of the current version of GNR was given an extended solo, or the chance to lead the band in covering a known song. The strangest may have been following “November Rain” with Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal leading the “Theme from The Pink Panther.”

Nearly everyone I spoke with had reservations about whether the show would even occur or start really, really late or have some other assorted bullshit, but that was all forgotten and forgiven once GNR tore into the second song of their set, the ubiquitous “Welcome to the Jungle.” It looked as if nearly everyone in Key Arena was high-fiving each other when Rose asked, in his trademark howl, “Do you know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby.”

At times the show felt a bit bloated, with pyrotechnics going off during the ballads, the extended interludes and a set that was heavy on covers. Rose seemed to run off stage every few songs, and often coming back with a new hat, or sometimes a new t-shirt. That was one way of showing that, at 49, he’s still a pop diva. By contrast, Bumblefoot wore the same Fucked Up t-shirt throughout the show, which he apparently has on at least one other stop on this tour.

The highlight of the show came when former GNR bassist Duff McKagan, a Seattleite whose newest band, Loaded, opened the show, joined his old band on bass for “You Could Be Mine.” It gave the thousands of fans in the arena some glimmer of hope that a full-scale reunion could happen when the band is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, though Rose remains the biggest hurdle and at least one of his old bandmates have speculated that he won’t show up in Cleveland.

It looks as though Rose seemed to be comfortable with the GNR of 2011 and that he sees that as the band’s future. Certainly, no one plays shows that exceed three hours out of just professional obligation. The set was loaded with quite a few songs from Chinese Democracy. The trio of guitarists, Bumblefoot, DJ Ashba and Richard Fortus, did a faithful job of recreating recreating Slash’s memorable guitar solos.

I was eight years old when Appetite for Destruction came out in 1987, simultaneously finding those songs frightening and exciting. Though I later found Rose’s paranoia and the politics of AFD repellent (once I was old enough to understand them), I still was drawn to grim portrait of Los Angeles it painted, as far from Hollywood as one could imagine. Or so I thought.

The show was great, if a bit long (were all of the interludes and covers necessary for a band with such a great legacy?). Rose was hard to understand when he spoke (I think there was something early in the set about how he and McKagan congratulated each other for the RRHOF induction), but it was a lot of fun to hear those songs live. Long after it was too late to catch the last bus home, Rose and the other members of GNR took a bow and he wished us a safe trip home. They finished with “Paradise City,” reminding us that “where the grass is green and the girls are pretty” is a utopia when compared with slightly-above-freezing temperatures in the early hours of the morning.

Setlist:

1. Chinese Democracy
2. Welcome to the Jungle
3. It’s So Easy
4. Mr. Brownstone
5. Sorry
6. Shackler’s Revenge
7. Estranged
8. Rocket Queen
9. Richard Fortus solo (James Bond theme)
10. Live and Let Die (Wings cover)
11. This I Love
12. Riff Raff (AC/DC cover)
13. Motivation (sang by Tommy Stinson)
14. Dizzy Reed piano solo (Baba O’Reilly)
15. Street of Dreams
16. You Could Be Mine
17. DJ Ashba solo (Ballad of Death)
18. Sweet Child O’ Mine
19. Instrumental jam (Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2)
20. Axl Rose piano solo (Gran Torino/Goodbye Yellow Brick Road/Someone Save My Life Tonight medley)
21. November Rain
22. Bumblefoot solo (Theme from The Pink Panther)
23. Don’t Cry
24. Whole Lotta Rosie (AC/DC cover)
25. Civil War
26. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan cover)
27. Nightrain