I've been trying to fall asleep for the last hour, but I can't because my ears are ringing like a god damn church on sunday, so I figured I'd try and write my review now.
It was definitely was AMAZING and INTENSE.
I've seen bands at Roseland before, and many other of the similar sized NYC venues, so I knew to expect it to be loud. But most bands don't play for over 2 and a half hours! It definitely was one of the loudest shows I've ever been too - even the ballads sounded heavier.
I'm not going to write like a formal review because I am not a good writer so I will just list some notes
- There was almost no wait between the opener and Guns. Everyone around me placed bets after the opener ended, and I was off by like 45 minutes. They hit the stage at almost exactly 11:30, the opener didn't finish till just after 11.
- They opened with the Dexter intro, but unlike the 2011 tour, the first song was Jungle. It was the usual Jungle/Easy/Brownstone pairing, and it sounded great and it was really high energy. Then they played Estranged, which was just epic. I *think* they did RQ almost right after this.
- Definitely worth noting: from my vantage point, it didn't really seem like they had a "definite" setlist like the previous runs. Axl and Tommy were going back and forth a lot deciding what to play next, and the order of the songs was much different than past shows I've seen. For instance, Tommy's solo was part of the encore. He played "Motivation" from his first solo album, Village Gorilla Head, and it FUCKING ROCKED
- They didn't play Street of Dreams
- The first new song they played was about 6 or 7 songs in, and it was This I Love. Axl sounded amazing in the smaller venue on it.
- The crowd was INSANELY PACKED. I've seen "sold out" shows at Roseland before, and none of them (not even the white stripes show that scalpers were outside selling tix for 200 bucks to) were this packed. The entire floor, all the way back to bar was packed. The upper mezz section was filled as well, just completely packed. and the crowd didn't thin out at all, everyone stayed. It was a great crowd imo.
- DJ still found a way to go out into the crowd for Nightrain, he went up on the side stage area which ran along the GA floor.
- Whole Lotta Rosie was fantastic, it seemed to have a little more intensity than usual.
- Beta came out at one point with a microphone, and got the entire crowd to sing Happy Birthday to Axl. He seemed to appreciate it all very much, he almost seemed shy about it. It was a very cool moment.
- definitely want to give a shout out to htgth user Cotis who I saw up against the rail, dead center, all night rocking out. I'm too old for that but it's awesome to see the real fans working to get up front and giving the band such a good reception. it really seems like the band feeds off the crowd, and it really seemed like that a lot tonight because of how close everything was
- All in all, I just definitely got the feeling, since there was no pyro, a smaller stage etc, it seemed to bring things together, made the focus on the music, and the band is just so tight that they pulled it off great.
If I think of anything else before I fall asleep I'll post again, I'll try to post the few pictures I got tomorrow.
Hope everyone else who went had a good time and got home safe.
Here is one pic
http://imgur.com/pqVVh