Guns N Roses
London Arena
26 August 2002
Last night saw London witness one of the few dates Guns N Roses have done in the past few years. It is, in fact, 10 years since they were last here. On the strenght of last night's gig, let's hope they are back very soon.
Weezer opened the show and bored the trousers off the crowd. The seated crowd did not even bother to stand for their incredibly dull set. When they finally played their hit "Buddy Holly", there were two people dancing in my section. I was one of them and my date was the other. Whomever choose this bunch of losers for "special guests" should be smacked round the head. Their performance was one of the worst I have ever seen out of an opening band.
Then Gun n Fuckn Roses hit the stage with "Welcome to the Jungle." The place went nuts and stayed nuts for most of the rest of the length of the gig. We were given time to rest our necks and voices while we sat through the requisite solos and a few new songs. The new tracks were halfway decent but not memorable enough. Axel was on fine form, slimmed down from the New Year's gigs that go NME (who he slammed twice), to his touring fitness. Axel stalked the stage like an angry tiger. He even seemed to be pretty damn happy with himself and his band. The only remaining member of GnR (or close enough), besides Rose, was Dizzy Reed on keyboards. The rest of the hired guns played with panache and enthusiasm; Buckethead almost managing to make us forget there was no Slash, Izzy, or Gilby. His guitar rendition of the Star Wars theme won over the crowd. The rest of the band (another guitarist, bassist, drummer and second keyboardist) delivered the goods to a sceptical crowd.
Article comments
1 - Ed Driscoll
Andrew,
This "Buckethead" thing is intriguing.
Let me see if I'm following things correctly here: Axl replaces Slash, a half-black guitarist, whose riffs and stage presence were a huge reason why people remember GnR so fondly, with a fellow wearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken Bucket and a white mask?
What a way to give your former band member the middle finger.
Ed
2 - Hannah
i saw gnr in london arena and tehy where fab i want to go and see them again next year and i hope they are in London Arena again but unfortunay this year they are only doing the chinese democracy tour in America
3 - nany
Hi I'm nany, I have 14 years old, I'm a big fan of guns and roses.
I love your cd's and your dvd.My favorites songs are: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, PATIENCE AND NOVEMBER RAIN.
GOD BLESS ALWAYS GUNS N' ROSES.
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE YOU AXEL.
ATT. NANY
4 - Some dude
Hey, too bad Guns'n'Roses does not exist anymore. Axel's project is no more than a cover band, because they DO NOT HAVE SLASH'S AWESOME GUITAR SHREDDING!! (They don't really have any of the other elements that used to be G'n'R, either). Guns'n'Roses is dead, RIP.
5 - GnR.su
Thanks. It's the best Gun N' Roses show review I've ever read.