Boston show

[gpfontaine]

Wow!  That show was great!

Last year when the new GNR crew came through Hartford I saw them and was very impressed considering how poor they looked on MTV a year earlier.  Until Saturday night I told people it was possibly the greatest concert I had ever seen but they weren?t even close to as good as what I saw Saturday night.

I managed to get up front and center in the second row of people.  The band was completely into the crowd and my only complaint was that the set was not long enough.

One other comparison was that at the GNR concert I had to wait 2+ hours after the opening act for Axl and his band to show up (I was actually surprised that they did show up at all).   VR took just over an hour after the opening band.

A few questions for anyone else who was there:

1) What did the shirt that someone threw to Slash in the middle of the concert say on it?
2) What was the orange drink that Scott threw into the audience?  It was not the Gatorade that was on stage.  Whatever it was, part of it ended up on me.

[Dizzy]

Slash wore a red top hat that night and I don't believe he has in the other shows.  It looked cool with his red converse sneakers.

A red top hat?  I've never even heard of different colored top hats than black.  I don't think he's worn that ever before, he definitely wasn't wearing it at the Philly show.  It was black, as usual.

[badgirl]

Velvet Revolver slashes and burns
By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff  |  May 31, 2004

There are some men who are made to wear pants with one-inch zippers. They straddle amplifiers with ease, shoot their flesh full of ink and drugs, and appear to have had poisonous snakes for parents. They schedule gigs around their relapses and delay albums to accommodate court dates. They're trouble, they're rock stars, and Scott Weiland -- former frontman for Stone Temple Pilots and now the serpentine mike-slinger in the Sunset Strip supergroup Velvet Revolver -- is one of the last left standing.

Weiland's new pack of cred-heavy enablers include three former members of the beloved hard- rock band Guns N' Roses. Some may wonder why guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Matt Sorum -- who spent the better part of a decade hoping that Axl Rose would show up -- decided to hitch their wagon to another whackjob. Here's a guess: It's because not a single fist-pumping dude, dutiful girlfriend, or jaded insider in the jam-packed audience Saturday night at Avalon could take their eyes off him.

The preening and strutting began with the first notes of "Sucker Train Blues" -- a track from Velvet Revolver's forthcoming debut, "Contraband," in stores June 8 -- and ended 75 minutes later with a cover of Nirvana's "Negative Creep." In between, the band played eight more tracks from "Contraband" and a few tunes each from the members' old bands: STP's grungy "Crackerman" and "Sex Type Thing," and GNR's "Its So Easy," "Mr. Brownstone," and the night's big crowdpleaser, "Used to Love Her."

The latter tune was positively shocking -- not so much for its misogynist lyrics but because the song's loping, country-fried boogie was such a dramatic break from the Velvet Revolver catalog, which combined into one extended rabble-rousing anthem to rock-star decadence. Even "Fall to Pieces," a topical power ballad which addresses addiction in a meaningful way, struck many as a good excuse to light up. It also inspired nostalgia for Izzy Stradlin's composing skills. Suffice it to say that Velvet Revolver is less about great songwriting than narrow torsos and gnarly riffs.

Slash, in particular, was masterful. McKagen and Sorum are still an incendiary rhythm section, and second guitarist Dave Kushner seemed quite happy to have been invited to strum on the side of the stage. Weiland, on the other hand, was convincingly joyless. He came out looking like the bad Terminator cop in an officer's cap and aviator glasses, but soon doffed everything except his tiny black trousers. He did appear surprisingly fit -- the better to flow through an endless series of poses, a beautifully damaged practitioner of a faded form.

Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/05/31/velvet_revolver_slashes_and_burns/



/jarmo

Ouch!! That's not a very favorable review of Scott...

About the drink he throws into the audience. I thought it was Gatorade, but if it's not, it could be Vitamin Water which comes in different colors and you can buy at health food stores.  

[Cornell]

Here are a few pics from the show on Saturday - sorry they are so big.  I don't have time to resize them now...

[Lineker10]

Thanks AXllurv2!

[Dot]

 

[Cornell]

Why are you sad,  Dot?

[Dot]

I wasn?t able to be there

[erose]

great shots lover!   i bet you had a fucking blast!!

 

[GNRisSLASH]

Axl will have the last laugh, so it really does not matter.

After a few months the hype will die down and VR will be lumped in with all the other bands again.  
They still don't have a song that can compete with madagascar.

Good to see that some posters don't change. Miss me DaveGnR2k12?  In response to your little ditty...
-I tried to say something funny about Axl having the last laugh. Then I just pictured Rose in hibernation in his Malibu estate with his psychic, yoga instructor, and body guards, re-writing buckethead's guitar parts, while braiding his hair extensions and shooting up with botox.  I realized there was no reason to respond to your sentence about Rose after laughing...

-Don't you mean the hype will die down and VR will be lumped in with other bands like "Axl's Gnr"?  Remember the hype about Chinese Democracy Starts Now!?!? And the hype about the North American tour?!?  Wouldn't you say it's died down?

-A song to compete with Madagascar--- No, they don't have a balad with horns that runs 10 minutes. You are correct. And I like Maddy and The Blues too. But they are now 2 year old songs. You may as well say that VR doesnt' have anything to compare with SCOM, while you're at it.  I think it would be more appropriate and timely to say that Axl doesn't have anythign to compare with Contraband... BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE AN ALBUM!!!!!!!!

[Cornell]

I wasn?t able to be there

I hope it wasn't because you didn't have a ticket cuz I had an extra that I sold at the door.

e - I did have a fuckin blast!  

[erose]

e - I did have a fuckin blast!  

well as you now might have figured out, i'm not a man of my words lol! fuck, but i'll see them in norway this summer so i'm still happy! too bad we couldn't rock that place together huh?! anyway, i'm glad you and Ire did tho!  

[tomass74]

I sold a ticket at the door for the 50 bucks I paid on ebay. We couldn't get ahold of one guy and he ended up calling my cell like 2 minutes before they went onstage. Oh well.............