Here Today... Gone To Hell!

from a newspaper called Sp!ts

Here's a rough translation: (please don't pay attention to the typo's ;) )

Axl rose proves slash right, although not intentionally

Guns N'Roses Are finally making
a serious comeback. Well Not really
Guns N'roses...Singer Axl Rose and his
collection of session musicians are
starting their Europe tour.

"How many of you motherfuckers tought we wouldn't show up?" asked Axl rose the Portugese Fans.
We are at Rock in Rio The european version of the Festival with the same name in Brazil.
Guns N'Roses are going to be the closing act for the saturday in the beatifull Parque da Bela Vista.
Axl did not only show up (wether he shows up or not is always a surprise)but he Rocked, well atleast for some parts of the show he did, and for some other parts he didn't. No matter how good the three new guitarists are they'll never be able to replace slash.

The charismatic duo Axl/slash were once the face of one of the biggest rockbands in the world but somewhere after the release of Use your illusion I & II it all went wrong.
Slash wanted to stay true to Blues based rock while Axl wanted a more industrial sound. the band fell apart.
While slash and the others were staying active with other bands Axl dissapeared from the public eye.

He's since been working on His forthcoming album "Chinese Democracy" with his ever changing line up of musicians.
Chinese Democracy is supossed to finally come out this fall but a release date has been pushed back so many times that this really isn't reliable anymore.

A previous attempt at a comeback(2002) failed miserably, shows were cancelled, riots broke out. his status as a rock icon was no more. Axl was slowly turning in to the laughing stock of the whole rock scene.
However the show in Lisboa was no laughing matter Axl gave a descent show nothing earthshattering but just a good show. During the show Axl looked a bit insecure and nervous, he's really lacking his old arrogant appearance.
Axl -44- may have aged a few years but he still runs around like never before and he also hasn't lost his scream however at some parts during Sweet child o'mine he seems to run out of breath.

Axl running out of breath took the momentum out of the show, the same goes for the great but unnecessary solos.
A few songs of the forthcoming album were played but the crowd weren't really affected by it. The crowd only started to go wild when the old songs were played like; Welcome to the jungle, you could be mine and ofcourse the inevitable ballad November Rain. although the songs were played by a group of no name hired musicians they all sounded great.
The thing proven by this show is that Guns N'roses their real power lies in blues based rock and not in Axl's new songs thus meaning slash was right.

A reunion of Axl/Slash isn't going to happen anytime soon not only because of Musical differences but also personal conflicts between the two and serveral lawsuits are making sure a reunion won't happen.

The real Guns N'roses will probably never reclaim their throne but to be fair, Axl is planning a serious comeback this time round and we'll all just have to settle for that.

decent review, except for this part. the new songs rock. the fact, that the crowd didn?t go wild to some songs they never even heard before proves nothig.....

Wow - coulda written that myself. Spot on! I think Guns fans better get used to this sort of thing. I find it interesting that Axl seems so aware of all the criticism about his tardiness, no shows, feud with Slash etc yet never takes any positive steps to rectify any of it.  :no:

And except the fact, that the mic caused the problems in SCOM.

Ive heard and seen the clips and Axl was at the top of his game. His voice was great.

It's a shame when kinda settling down and not being angry all the time gets you criticism by fans and the media for not being angry or 'arrogant' as they put it.

That's a bit of an overstatement. They might not be as well known as the old guys once were, but calling them no-names isn't really correct either.
The rest of the article seems fair enough, I think (although they're being too nice about Axl's voice, it really wasn't one of his best performances recently).

Axl didn't lose his breath in SCOM

The musicians in the band actually have names

The crowd's reaction to the new, unreleased and never heard before songs is perfectly normal and proves nothing

Axl wanted to make a Slash record after UYI, other ideas were brought to the table only after Slash left

That was a part of the article that wasn't easy to find the right words for so I used "No name..." I should've used something like anonymous, Because when I read it "No name" is quite harsh

What was the line in Dutch?

"al is het dan een stelletje anonieme huurlingen"

Hehehe, nice wording in the original. :)
Okay, I guess 'a bunch of anonymous hired hands' is indeed not as harsh as 'a bunch of no names', but nonetheless... I don't think you can call the drummer of Primus 'anonymous', I don't think you can call the guitarist of NiN 'anonymous' (and so on, and so on...), so I still don't like that part of the article ;).

I think 80% here agree on that article, though there were some minor inaccuraties.

I have to agree with that....a lack of blues has been the main problem in rock (and music in general) since the 80's.

when will bands stop trying to avoid blues-based rock? ?when will they learn that blues-based melodies will always outlast grunge, industrial, techno, etc.

after hearing "the blues" and it's old-school gnr sound, i thought axl would bring back "real" rock n roll...


but the rest of the new songs fall mostly into the industrial/techno category.

i have a feeling the new stuff will just dissappoint me....just like velvet revolver.


it seems that whenever a new band comes along and shows the potential to revive gnr's brand of hard, blues-based rock, they always fall short and end up sounding more like grunge or industrial than anything else.

The article was spot on.  Agree 100% with everything the guy wrote.

Oh no! The crowd didnt sing along to some unreleased music - time to abandon CD.

Yeah, that is sooooo right.

I mean, Tommy Stinson for 8 years, Robin Finck for like 7 years, Dizzy since 91 or something, Brain since 2000, Fortus only a whopping 4 years in the band...

I mean, that is soooo changing...

Hey grouse,

Thanks for translating and posting  : ok:

I agree with others saying that it is not fair to bash CD just because the audience isn't cheering for songs they may never have heard before. Remember: it was RIR, lots of people there who haven't followed the band and didn't download the songs. I am more enthusiastic if I can sing along to songs. It doesn't mean that Axl was wrong persuing a different type of sound. I think it would be wrong to try to duplicate AFD over and over again. I'm happy he's trying new things (okay, I could have done without My World and Silkworms  ;D).

In a previous post, I linked a couple of reviews back to the Illusions tour, before the albums came out.  The audience basically reacted the same way they do now, when they don't know the songs.

IT was a decent critic, I agree in almost everything.

  WEll that was a pretty terrible review.  Axl, all in all, is getting pretty bad press. 

this article sucks. just a fucking ignorant could write something like this.

Just wait for the US tour.

I hope it will kick ass of all haters : ok:

all pretty on the money there  :o

The article for some serious faults in it...

But nothing new really...and if you agree with some of the stuff they write there I gotta ask what people actually knows about GNR history...

Like saying Axl and Slash was the duo and core of GNR when it actually was Axl and Izzy..and how its an ever changing line up when most band members have been there for the last 6 years, some even more.

And how its shocking that people didnt react to the new songs...well dauh..they hadnt heard them before...

Yeah I love how all articles about concerts focus on how the crowd doesn't react to the new songs.  People go to concerts to hear the classics, the songs they know, they sing along, now the songs well.  The new songs, are, well, new.   What do they expect people to do.  Granted many people have heard the demos, but probably not as many as you'd think.  And another thing, why does everyone have to say that the band is trying to replace Slash with THREE guitarists.  I guess Izzy Stradlin and Gilby Clarke meant nothing to the band since we need ZERO guys to replace them and THREE to replace Slash.  How do these reporters get these jobs anyway.

For Dutch reviews this one is pretty mild. I would've thought the Dutch press would slaughter Axl since the Dutch music press is pretty Indie minded. They sorta accept the fact that the original GnR will never play again and settle for Axl's version of it.....

Media propoganda. Having 3 guitarists got nothing to do with replacing Slash.

Good point.

That was a pretty fair and accurate review for the most part. Axl has no hope in hell of passing this band off as Guns N' Roses, without Chinese Democracy on the shelves. ?

that's right.

That I do agree on. They need to have that album out. They need to drop more than just one album too. They will always be hired musicians in the press UNTIL they release a lot of albums and tour like hell and make a name for themselves..

But they always have to do some of the old shit...

Yeah and even then they're always gonna be compared to the old band.  Each album is gonna be compared to AFD.  It's not gonna be easy by any means.  I don't really expect the media or the masses to accept them as Guns N' Roses.  Not for quite some time at least.  I've already moved on though.  And I'm thrilled as hell they're making any sort of news at this time.

As you can see with some of the whining bunch here, its a loose-loose situation for Axl and the band and I have a lot of respect for him actually wanting to do this.

Yeah I'm sure he has enough money where he could comfortably sit on his ass and do nothing for the rest of his life, collecting royalties.  But he loves his music, loves the fame, the fortune.  I just hope he can handle it if the new band isn't quite as successful as the old band because that's gonna be tough to do.

If Greenday can make it big, I'm sure they can... Being as big as they used to, I don't know.

I just have to say this.......FUCK THE PRESS,AXL'S THE BEST

There is no doubt in my mind that Axl can be the biggest thing in rock once again. He doesn't really have much competition in the rock world. U2 and Metallica are still around, but their best albums appear to be far behind them. I think Chinese Democracy will be an awesome album but it will unlikely reach Appetite success. I just don't think a 44 year old Axl can connect to a new generation like a 25 year old Axl could. He can be the biggest thing in modern rock but he will never be as big as he was between 87-93.

No name players ???

That little statement has totally blown ANY creditability that piece of shit review has.

Would you rather "settle" for Velvet Revolver?

Not I.

Bring on Captain A!

You might want to read what I said about that on page 1  : ok: