G N' R... G N' R, baby.... awww man... if I were to have been able to see G n' R when they were out on their "Use your illusion" tour... that would have been a dream come true... Heck, "Use your illusion I" and "Use your illusion II" were two very first CDs I bought when I came to the states in '95. Well, by then the band had sorta disintegrated and it wasn't until last night I got a chance to see them live on their "Chinese Democracy" tour. Ok, so where was I going with this... oh yes.. the concert... So after searching online for the pre-sale password for the Pittsburgh concert I finally found it and bought my tickets during pre-sale period! Boy was I excited!! ^^ Here goes my recap of the night.

Cubbie and I got there around 7:15pm wanting to grab a bite to eat and check out the opening bands. I really wanted to take photos so I took my coolpix 2500 along, but they wouldn't let me in with it so I put it back in my car. Now when I returned they didn't even check telling me that they trust me this time. I was like... fuck... I play way too nice... :( Anyway, so we got in and soon afterwards CKY performed (Cubbie and I misread the band name to be Eky, and had pronounced it icky. pu heh heh.). I personally don't think they sounded very original. I hear they have a track in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater III game (although, it sounds like it wasn't included in the official soundtrack), but I don't really care for punk metal/rock... Anyway, so next up was Mix Master Mike of the Beastie Boys and the Invisible Skratch Piklz. Pretty cool stuff, but I'm not the biggest fan of Mix Master Mike's style. The light finally went off at around 10:40PM... Yup... insane, right? Not so atypical of G n' R, tho. ^^;;; Up until then people were getting kinda antsy and the camera guy started shooting random boob shots soliciting girls to take their shirts off... Guess what? It eventually happened. pu ha ha ha. I really wish I had my camera with me (I can feel cubbie's sharp stare behind my back. kee hee) So as a pre-main event we got to see around... let's say.. 5 sets of boobs? ^0^ Ok, 'nuf with the boobs and on with the show.

Now for those of you who have not been following the band, the band basically has an entirely new line up apart from Dizzy (since "Use Your Illusion") and Axl (he owns the "Guns N' Roses" name). If you know G N' R you know they've gone through several member changes in the past, but when people think of G n' R it's usually Axl and Slash. And the fact that the band now is void of Slash was a major let down for me. Slash was always known for his warm humbucking sound coming out of his Gibson Les Paul... Bet you didn't know that he's the very reason I started playing electric guitar back in highschool. In Slash's place we have *GASP* 2 guitarists... Now that's a lot of lead guitarists if you ask me... In the classic rock band set up you usually have 2 guitarists: one rhythm and one lead. Here we have 2 lead guitarists sharing solos. In the concert it was pretty obvious that Robin Finck (from NIN) takes on the warm humbucking sounds and most speed shredding riffs are taken on by Buckethead. I mean both of'em are GREAT guitarists... It's just that the band doens't sound the same... Slash was very unique in his style... Needless to say the combined prowess of Buckethead and Robin Finck cannot replace Slash. :( Without Slash, they should be renamed to Bucket of Roses or something..

As you might have noticed I was caught up in the whole "There's something missing in the sound of G n' R tonight" ordeal the entire night... You have to understand that I actually know how to play most of the solo routines of G n' R tracks cuz I had to play them at our band's concerts in highschool. I mean... I must have listened to Slash's solos a gazillion times... Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with taking somebody else's solo riff, adding your own flavor to it and spicing it up with some of your own adlib. It's just that as a fan of G n' R I really couldn't get satisfied listening to Robin and Bucket's combination... I should, however, say that I was very impressed by Bucket's solo where he took out his KFC stripped flying V and shredded the shit of it... It reminded me of Paul Gibert's solos style a lot (one of my all-time favorite guitarists)... But, I think the melody he plays are much darker.... His bass-playing-inspired slap and pop technique on his guitar was very interesting as well. But I just couldn't get the image of slash with his leather outfit, huge top hat, and his hair totally covering his face showing just his nose ring and cigarette out of my head. G n' R just seemed so half-full without him... *SIGH*

Now with all my rants about me missing Slash aside, I think the band sounded GREAT. ;) Having listend to some of the new tracks on their Chinese Democracy Album during the concert, they're still mostly true to their original G n' R style, only different. ^^;; There's no denying that the new tracks like Madagascar definitely have a moderinzed sound to them. Hey, they're playing catch up. I guess only time will tell if the new style of G n' R can keep them going strong..