As mentioned in the Rock am Ring thread, just got back this morning and fell into bed before I even got near a computer. So I'm sorry for the late review, but here it is:
I arrived at Milano Centrale at 08:10, took a taxi to Idroscalo & arrived at 08:40. There already was a huge line of ppl waiting for the gates to open at 9. When they opened, all went rather quick & I found out why: Security is a word yet to be introduced to Italy (esp. compared to Germany two nights before): One dude wanted to see my ticket, and had I had a backpack, some
Carabinieri would have had a look at it. No patting down, nothing. So I ran for the pit. They filled it up & when it was full you could get back out again and got your pit wristband. Even tough I had feared to be too late for the pit when i saw ppl queuing, it wasn't the slightest problem getting in. Spent the rest of the day (13 hrs) resting in the shade.
Even though it was a *metal* festival (Death, Italian and Power Metal the nights before, and some cool bands on the same day Gn'R played - Soulfly, Stonesour, KoRn, Alice in Chains, ...), I'd say about 1/5 ppl were wearing a Gn'R shirt, bandana, carrying flags or at least had a Gn'R patch. It was simply crazy. Size of the place was about 10.000 ppl (ie. 10 times smaller than Rock am Ring 2 nights before).
Gn'R started sometime around 11pm, which is late, but I think the festival was behind schedule anyway. So I'd say "reasonably soon after Korn left the stage" counts as on time. They played for approx. 2hrs, like until shortly after 1am. Set list: No surprises, no CD, no TWAT (could have been approx the same as in Germany, but don't remember exactly - sorry). As mentioned above, Sebastian Bach (introduced by Axl as "my partner in crime") on Michelle and Nightrain.
After the first few songs, Axl threw some of the blue shirts into the audience (at the end, he threw his mike, just like he did in Germany).
The voice thing: IMO (meaning from what I could hear) definitely no playback, voice was awesome (better than Rock am Ring). The man gave everything! And the thing with Sebastian making Axl give 200% more than with the other songs (which i approximate to 150%) is true.
Axl didn't come down to the crowd, but Robin did (he walked down the whole 1st row, and tried to crowd surf - meaning he climbed the rail and leaned onto the ppl, but somehow they didn't seem to get it), and I also got to touch His Robinness' arm and am now an even happier gunner and can die even more peacefully. Bumblefoot came down also (during PC I think) and let ppl touch his guitar, but he was too far away from me.
Axl saw a sign saying "Axl is God" and said "Thanks, but I'm not God. If I was God, 3/4 of you would be girls, and the rest would be pizza and beer."). He also saw a sign with a phone # on it that said "I could be yours" (he commented "give me a moment to memorize that number"). And a dude with a sign pointing down that said "I'm here". And someone threw a bracelet on the stage that said "Fuck Me" (Axl held it in front of the camera so that everyone could see it), and he dedicated OTGM to that person (simply cause it was the next song).
After NR you could smell sth burning, it obviously was Axl's mikestand on the piano, and he improvised some stuff about it, Tommy started playing "The Roof Is On Fire" (Bloodhound Gang, I think) & Axl sang a few lines. Also, between the two NR parts, he sang "I Feel Good" (just one line).
The litte band jam, according to Axl - "this is our 'move the fucking piano' jam".
Before the Beautiful solo, Axl mentioned Richard being a "new Californian since 2 weeks" and "proud father of a new baby girl", and during the band intro he said "Ragz to Richard or so they say", and he also grinned during PC and changed that line to "Ragz to Richard or so they say".
Axl joked around a lot sth along the lines of "that would look like we could get on stage whenever the fuck we feel like it, which is of course all but true", and "you know, as if we could do up here whatever we pleased, but in fact, we can't", but most of the ppl didn't get it. The band seemed to have a lot of fun, Axl also said something like "we'll continue having fun up here and let you not even be part of it". Tommy is a clown, he's just very funny (he "stalked" Robin once and pulled faces and stuff).They all seem to be having a great time together.
KOHD was "an old Pavarotti tune".
And he seemed to have practised on the Patience thing, no messing up any songs this time by Axl. The band had a small one, but nothing that made them stop.
After IRS, Axl said "this was also one of those Internet favorites". IRS (or Madagascar? can't remember) and PC as encores.
I enjoyed this gig much more than the Rock am Ring one, even though they both qualify as a perfect Gn'R gig if you look at the performance.
The crowd was somewhat shrewd, compared to what I'm used to anyway. Once in the pit, up to the 3rd line you could just walk up (and I think I alienated some dudettes cause I moshed my way to 1st row in a bit a rowdier manner than they seemed to be used to. I mean, what is it, a rock gig or a fuckin' tea party?). No crowd surfing allowed, and hardly anyone did. Was weird, also during Korn, compared to the gig I'd seen two nights before. At least the security dudes gave water to the ppl in front (not like the ones in Germany). I heard some ppl sing along to the new songs, but there seemed also some who hadn't even heard the words "bootleg" or "leak" (you could tell cause they would wince at the kaboom of "Live and Let Kaboom").
Oh yeah, and I caught a Holy Towel that one of the roadies threw down the stage after the show. And I have a piece of red confetti from every Gn'R show I ever attended. I'm a maniac?
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I also took some pics from this show (sorry, my memory stick was full cause the stuff from Rock am Ring still was on it), you can find them
here. you can do with them whatever you please as long as you don't use them for some sort of thing you're gonna sell or otherwise make money with (if you copy them, a note about the copyright belonging to me would be nice, still).
That's what I remember right now, maybe my overtired brain will figure out some more stuff once it's had some more sleep.
Now I got a picture of what it was like... I?m just kinda sad to see that Axl joked and spoke a lot more to the crowd than in RiR... but yeah maybe it is cos RiR was the 2nd show u know...
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