A question about the new songs

[snakepipero]

I was wonderin' a question this mornin'. Why do you think the first new songs played by this new band have been Madagascar, Chinese Democracy, The Blues, Rhiad , Silkworms ...? Do you think Axl thought they were the best the had at the time? any other reason?

And another important question to me
Do you think Better, IRS ... were written before 2001 (Rock in rio, las vegas)?
If that's true I couldn't understand why don't they played them instead of Silk worms or Rhiad (this one is better than silkworms but worst than better or IRS ...


Thanks for your atention, and Rock on!!!

[Kid A]

And another important question to me
Do you think Better, IRS ... were written before 2001 (Rock in rio, las vegas)?
If that's true I couldn't understand why don't they played them instead of Silk worms or Rhiad (this one is better than silkworms but worst than better or IRS ...

We all know that they were, did you not have the internet in 1999 or something?

I was wonderin' a question this mornin'. Why do you think the first new songs played by this new band have been Madagascar, Chinese Democracy, The Blues, Rhiad , Silkworms ...? Do you think Axl thought they were the best the had at the time? any other reason?

Probably because we've all heard them before, and Axl doesn't want us hearing anything new before the album hits record shelves.

[Bill 213]

I would say maybe these songs were the ones that the band was most comfortable with playing.  Perhaps the others didn't go so well in rehearsals to the point where they thought they were ready to break out.  It could have been the fact that only fragments of the other songs were done yet and weren't fully completed.  We've seen minor tweaks in the Blues, Maddy and Chinese Democracy as they've sort of evolved on their own since 2001. 

[The Legend]

I was wonderin' a question this mornin'. Why do you think the first new songs played by this new band have been Madagascar, Chinese Democracy, The Blues, Rhiad , Silkworms ...? Do you think Axl thought they were the best the had at the time? any other reason?

And another important question to me
Do you think Better, IRS ... were written before 2001 (Rock in rio, las vegas)?
If that's true I couldn't understand why don't they played them instead of Silk worms or Rhiad (this one is better than silkworms but worst than better or IRS ...


Thanks for your atention, and Rock on!!!

Because, depending on the set, at times they're already playing nearly half the album.

Let's save some to be a surprise.

[CheapJon]

We all know that they were, did you not have the internet in 1999 or something?

hey dude, theres absolutely no reason for you to answer him like an ass, it was a simple fair question..

[pasnow]

We all know that they were, did you not have the internet in 1999 or something?

hey dude, theres absolutely no reason for you to answer him like an ass, it was a simple fair question..

Plus I don't think we "know" that Better was written before 2001, so no reason to reply soo sarcastic (to Kid A, not you CheapJon). I don't recall that one being mentioned in the RS article.  I think the first we heard of it was in February.

[CheapJon]

We all know that they were, did you not have the internet in 1999 or something?

hey dude, theres absolutely no reason for you to answer him like an ass, it was a simple fair question..

Plus I don't think we "know" that Better was written before 2001, so no reason to reply soo sarcastic (to Kid A, not you CheapJon). I don't recall that one being mentioned in the RS article.? I think the first we heard of it was in February.

yeah february was the first time ever someone mentioned better

[AxlsMainMan]

We all know that they were, did you not have the internet in 1999 or something?

hey dude, theres absolutely no reason for you to answer him like an ass, it was a simple fair question..

Plus I don't think we "know" that Better was written before 2001, so no reason to reply soo sarcastic (to Kid A, not you CheapJon). I don't recall that one being mentioned in the RS article.? I think the first we heard of it was in February.

yeah february was the first time ever someone mentioned better

Correction, Friday the 13th of this past January, Axl mentioned it in an interview

[CheapJon]

We all know that they were, did you not have the internet in 1999 or something?

hey dude, theres absolutely no reason for you to answer him like an ass, it was a simple fair question..

Plus I don't think we "know" that Better was written before 2001, so no reason to reply soo sarcastic (to Kid A, not you CheapJon). I don't recall that one being mentioned in the RS article.? I think the first we heard of it was in February.

yeah february was the first time ever someone mentioned better

Correction, Friday the 13th of this past January, Axl mentioned it in an interview

okelidokely as flanders would say, my bad, but anyway not in 1999 as someone said

[gcluskey]

I'd say there's gonna be one or two surprises on the album, Axl's gotta be saving something special in there, I don't think we've heard the best song off the album yet

[Kid A]

We all know that they were, did you not have the internet in 1999 or something?

hey dude, theres absolutely no reason for you to answer him like an ass, it was a simple fair question..

Plus I don't think we "know" that Better was written before 2001, so no reason to reply soo sarcastic (to Kid A, not you CheapJon). I don't recall that one being mentioned in the RS article.  I think the first we heard of it was in February.

yeah february was the first time ever someone mentioned better

Correction, Friday the 13th of this past January, Axl mentioned it in an interview

okelidokely as flanders would say, my bad, but anyway not in 1999 as someone said

I heard about better years ago, not a few months ago. So IRS has no connection with 1999?

[ShotgunBlues1978]

Chinese Democracy, TWAT, IRS, The Blues and Catcher were mentioned in a 1999 or 2000 article in Rolling Stone where Axl allowed the reporter to listen to some demos.  The reporter at that point described the album from what he'd heard as something like Physical Graffiti remixed by Trent Reznor and Beck.  So it's logical that these songs were played because they were the songs that had been written and finished in the 1998 and 1999 era.  They might well have been the best songs that had been written up to that point. 

But there is a huge span of time where we know that material was written and recorded that we haven't heard much from.  And it's worth noting that even the songs written in the early stages of the new lineup have changed a lot.  The songs have evolved considerably.  Listen to the 1999 IRS versus the one we got this year, ditto TWAT.  Both songs improved a lot in my opinion, but the framework and structure pretty much the same.  They reworked the guitars quite noticeably on IRS and they added Buckethead solos to each which kicked the songs to another level.  So maybe the reason that they chose to play the songs they did was because they were finished, while IRS and TWAT weren't. 

The only songs we've heard that Buckethead might've had a hand in writing in their original form are Madagascar and Rhiad.  The only song we've heard that Richard may have contributed to in the beginning stages is Better.  So what I'm saying is that there's a hell of a lot of material written from 2000-present that Richard and Buckethead contributed to writing that we haven't even heard of yet

[Ax]

At some point during or after the 2002 tour, Axl said he was still saving the "big guns" for the record. So at that point he did not consider CD, Maddy, The Blues to be the best songs he had. The songs that have leaked may be some of those big guns, or they may not, we don't know. I would think though that we are probably in for a treat when the cd comes out because the odds are that there is at least one or two amazing songs that we have not heard yet. I'm pretty sure if Axl has a couple songs that are going to blow everyone away, he wants the studio versions of them to be heard and judged based on that rather than on some poor quality bootleg. One thing that leads me to believe this is that fact that at Rock in Rio II back in 1991 before the illusion albums were released, they held back on playing November Rain, a song that Axl believed to be something amazing and special. I know that is a completely different time in a totally different situation, but it does show that Axl is not afraid to hold back songs that he knows are great

[polluxlm]

I'm sitting here trying to figure out an answer to the topic, and I completely forget the comment about not playing the big guns

It's still strange that they stopped playing Rhiad and Silk Worms after just a couple of shows though. If the intent were to test the waters so to speak I can understand Rhiyad, but Silk Worms? He should have seen that backlash coming

[kaasupoltin]

What if Prostitute would have leaked instead of Better (just examples, don't mind).. would they play Prostitute live now? Maybe they just thought "this, this, and this are good songs, let's leak them for the fans so we can play them live".

[babydolls]

am sure I recall Axl saying at Docklands 2002 that people presume the new songs they were playing that night were the singles off the new album - and that was The Blues, Madagascar, Rhiad and Chinese D - but that wasnt the case.
Sounds like Better, TWAT and IRS werent ready to be unleashed live yet at that time.

[gandra]

i think these songs were finished and bands worked on them the most

[ShotgunBlues1978]

What if Prostitute would have leaked instead of Better (just examples, don't mind).. would they play Prostitute live now? Maybe they just thought "this, this, and this are good songs, let's leak them for the fans so we can play them live".

I wouldn't be shocked if Better, IRS and TWAT were leaked by someone inside the camp to hype the tour.  It seemed like an intentional move considering that Axl mentioned Better, TWAT and The Blues were some of his favorite songs from the album.  Then a week later we suddenly have some high quality demos of Better and TWAT, and IRS which we'd had a low quality rip of for a long time. 

Then came Catcher In The Rye which was clearly leaked from a different source entirely.  The sound quality isn't as good as the other songs, and it's obviously an older song because it has the Brian May recordings which were done in 1998 or 1999 whereas the other songs were clearly more recent.  I think the same source that leaked Catcher might have leaked the 1999 versions of TWAT and IRS.  That's just my two cents, I don't have any hard evidence but it's pretty obvious that the leaks were indeed leaked by two separate sources, and it seems the leaks of Better and the new versions of IRS and TWAT seemed intentional while Catcher and the old versions of IRS and TWAT were not

[Duffio]

Simply because the world isn't ready to hear the rest of the "new stuff" i was watching bootlegs and stuff.. back then the band didn't play all the new songs.. even though they wrote them in the AFD time... only little by little until UYI were made and then full blown new material was presented. I think same will happen with CD.

[agropolus]

I still ask myself if they would be playing Better and IRS today if they hadn't leaked, I'm pretty sure we'd still be getting only The Blues, Madagascar and CD (and maybe Rhiad) at the concerts if that had not happened.
On the other hand, maybe the leaks were indeed intentional, in that case they made good choices because the leaked tracks rule and surely raised our hopes that the album will kick serious ass (if any of us still had any doubts about it).