Nostalgia will be traded for beer. Pub camaraderie will trump summer stench. The ticket gives you the freedom to summon your long-lost devil-may-care demeanour and unclench those stiff hands for some air guitar. A pre-game plunge into the yesteryears is followed by the final walk across the racecourse toward the Guns N’ Roses concert—flashes of iconic videos with energetic stage presence, unforgettable looks, and eternally epic rock songs ringing through your mind.
But I felt this day shouldn’t just come and go. This is not a typical band. These are not your typical artists on stage. Guns N’ Roses is a freak of nature—there was nobody before, and there probably won’t be one after. As detailed in my upcoming book, where I study music’s game-changing impact on culture historically, each decade has a blank space for a band or an artist in its genre, one who completely shocks the system. A byproduct of the time they come from, they emerge with a unique repertoire, leaving behind traces that go beyond their music.
Guns N’ Roses was the boiling point of hard rock, punk, and polished glam metal. Their sound had what you would expect from that recipe, but it was raw, unhinged, and in a space of its own. Supersized, with endless toppings of excess in every form available to humankind.
Let’s tear down the facade of their polished modern concert stage and look behind the jaded, aging, therapeutically rehabilitated free radicals attempting to conjure up a demonstration of how they took over the world. We aren’t just paying to hear them play the songs. We are experiencing a 40-year-old carnivore with deep battle scars and chapters of extreme character-driven stories.
Beyond the big moments and iconic hits is a cruel script that will jar a psychic. I mean, who wants to be a part of the “most dangerous band in the world”?
Guns N’ Roses didn’t invent a new sound. They didn’t break new lyrical ground either. They even looked up to Queen and Elton John as influences. But what they are is a fearless bunch of explosive talent. The kind that makes the best-selling debut album of all time, with an all-time great vocalist and lead guitarist.
They are a larger-than-life, entertaining movie. Full package. It even starts with a cool name — a love child of erstwhile bands, L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose. The original members that remain are William Bruce Rose Jr, aka Axl Rose (vocals), Saul Hudson, aka Slash (lead guitar), and Michael Andrew McKagan, aka Duff (bass).
I read Slash’s biography about fifteen summers ago. It reads like fiction most of the time. With every passing chapter, it gets harder to believe that he is still alive. Leaving his defibrillator aside (that was plugged into him after an on-stage heart attack), only divine interventions have kept these guys breathing. Overdoses are routine, concerts are riotous, life is primal, free, and combustible. Their indulgences make your stomach, mind, and body churn (Duff claims he didn’t drink water for a decade straight—that’s your family-friendly trivia for the day).
Axl—as quoted by his fellow band members, even when not on talking terms—is a supremely talented, smart front man who spends his time reading, working out, and always doing his homework. And then comes his alter-ego, who likes filing lawsuits, biting cops, (apparently) hitting David Bowie, firing band members, and creating trouble for organisers, over and over. He is the chief songwriter, founder, and CEO of the band—his sentimental side expressed via enduring songs, vs. his hysterical, manically unpredictable anti-social self, who disappears from public life for long stretches of time. One of the greatest frontmen of all time, but always battling his personal history—repeated stints in juvenile jail, a troubled upbringing, born to a 16-year-old mother, the son of a murdered father, and struggles with mental health.
This is the story of highs and lows, the bad and good, the extremes. A journey that’s disastrous on the inside but beautiful on the outside. Aptly so, here we are, geared to see them on the “Because what you want and what you get are two completely different things” tour.
The story is about the teenager in me, buying the early bird ticket vs. the current me looking around for like-minded excitement. It is the euphoric, uninhibited energy of a band’s debut track vs. the downtempo jazz playing as I write this. It is the call for war and revenge vs not joining the chorus. It is the 80s in-your-face fashion vs. the pastel co-ord sets that walk around in the cafe I am sitting in.
It is the appetite for self-destruction vs. trying to retain the sanctity of being the biggest band in the world. It is about fierce train wreck rock n roll vs. blues-inspired ethereal heart-melting solos. It is about friendships vs. suing each other for the band name. It is about homeopathic medicine and past life regressions for Axl vs. vodka and needles for the rest.
It is about what kids should look up to vs. the posters that look down on them. It is about what you think rock n roll means vs. what it actually means (go search).
The yin and yang. From Axl’s alleged racism and (allegedly misconstrued) misogyny in a couple of songs, to taking a political stance against Trump. From Duff teetering on the edge of life with his excessive drinking to his investing in Microsoft, Amazon, and Starbucks in 1994 (some said they were upcoming companies from his Seattle neighbourhood).
It is about life and how the world is. It is about Guns N’ Roses.
The band doesn’t pop up front and center in today’s scene, but longs to be. Anyway, who is the new free-spirited, loud, breakout stadium band, with trademark fashion, stage act, and an attitude to thrill?
If there is one band, one frontman, one guitarist, one song that pops up in our mind as a caricature of ultimate rock n’ roll, it’s the wild skulls from the City of Angels. They brought a fresh mix and stood apart from the others of their time— they weren’t as polished as Van Halen and Whitesnake, hit much harder than Aerosmith, and had more depth than their local friends Mötley Crüe. Their longer songs and variety of moods made them more diverse than AC/DC and grittier than date-night friendly Bon Jovi.
The synergy of talent-commerce-culture in the 1980s meant a surge of bands, artists, genres, and experimentation. Amidst all of this, Guns n Roses took podium positions in the time of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Nirvana, George Michael, U2, Metallica, but, wait for it, never won a Grammy (second family-friendly trivia).
They took over the world for a brief time (with only Michael Jackson as a possible stadium turnout comparison). They brought glory to MTV with unforgettable videos.
Their top five songs now average more than a billion views each on YouTube, with November Rain being the first 20th-century song to hit that figure. Axl Rose sang “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Elton John to a packed Wembley. They were the biggest band coming into the 1990s. They were also the most intoxicated.
It was a race car built for only a few high-speed seasons. From a smashing debut album (there are only 20 other albums ever who have sold more) in 1987 with Appetite for Destruction, their last memorable songs are only from 1991’s Use Your Illusion I and II.
The Mumbai show is hard rock’s centerfold playmates in flesh and blood. The creators and destroyers. Legends, not by a product of planning, but by being partners in crime, and waking up on the wrong side of the bed every day.
The Gods of rock looked like this, will say the scriptures, being read 500 years from now.
Source:https://rollingstoneindia.com/guns-n-roses-legacy-rock-roll-fan-experience/