well, day got off to a bad start, robbie williams was in town as well, so with about 100 000 people all trying to get to two concerts in dublin, it took us 4 1/2 hours to get there. would normally take about an hour and a half. missed all the support bands and the first twenty minutes of g'n'r.
which was probably about two songs! we were in 15 minutes before they'd played two. after almost every song the whole band walked off stage except for one who would mess about on his instrument for five minutes before they all came back and played another song. these weren't "solo spots" in the traditional sense, they were literally just f**king about on guitars! when they didn't do this there were still interminable gaps between songs whle axl seemed to think about what to do next! without all this messing about they could have played maybe five more songs and retained as atmosphere. they'd play a song, get the crowd going, then walk off for a while.
as a show it was awful, on this evidence no band should employ "bumblefoot", whose idea of a guitar solo seems to be funny noises. the thing is, when they pulled their fingers out and got on with playing some songs, they sounded very good. Axl's voice is in better shape than i ever heard it live before, and the new songs sounded good. but the show seemed like a half assed rehearsal session rather than something thousands of people payed good money to see.
i still hope the new album, if it ever appears, will be great, but as a live band they really need to think about what they're doing. the use your illusion tour was often quite self indulgent, but this was ridiculous! i remember guns'n'roses arriving on stage being described as "like a nail-bomb at a christening"! this was more like a half full water balloon at an old people's home. i really wanted it to be great, but unfortunately, it just wasn't.
