Sunday, July 23, 2006

My way, your way, anything goes tonight...

Honestly!

To think I trusted you all to behave yourselves. I leave for a couple of days and you sully the place with mentions of Westlife. Tsk.

Oh how wrong you are my dearies, how very, very wrong. Off the mark doesn't quite do it justice...


...Tchaikovsky had the news
He said, "Let there be sound,"
There was sound
"Let there be light,"
There was light
"Let there be drums,"
There was drums
"Let there be guitar,"
There was guitar
"Oh, let there be rock!"*

I spent my Friday night having an utterly brilliant, fantabulous, rock'n'rolling time seeing Guns'N'Roses live.

Oh my GOD!!! were they good!

I have been to a lot of huge concerts in my lifetime, including Motley Crue and Velvet Revolver, but my god GNR just blew them all out of the water!

Axl Rose was on fine form, actually better than fine. His voice was incredible. Oh and the songs, the songs. I swear to you I reached a level of musical nirvana I'd never before thought possible while listening to November Rain.

The atmosphere was electric, the crowd knew every word. Bra's were thrown on stage** and guitars were played at silly volumes. Friday night ticked every box on the perfect rock concert list.

Things were about to get better.

Izzy Stradlin took to the stage, guitar in hand. I screamed until my voice stopped working. To explain for those not in the know. Izzy left the band in the early 90's after yet another bust up with Axl. The rest of the original line up soon followed. Today's Guns'N'Roses has only Axl and Dizzy Reed (the Keyboardist from Use Your Illusion I & II) in it's line up. It has been somewhat disparagingly referred to as the Axl Rose show. Izzy hasn't played with Axl since. So as a fan to see the two of them on stage together again performing as friends, even hugging, was a wonderful and surreal experience.

The show wrapped after a storming set of two and a half hours with Paradise City and a shower of ticker tape falling on the crowd. I was somewhat delirious, both from awe at what I had just seen, and from a lack of oxygen.


At the end the 8 of us who had gone together all met up outside. Six of us stood looking somewhat akin to drooked rats, soaked with sweat, feet aching and hopped up on the euphoria of seeing our rock n roll heroes in the flesh. Two stood dry as a bone displaying no signs of physical strain. They'd had seated tickets, poor sods.

The evening was completed with the downing of several glasses of Jack Daniels and Coke.

That's Rock N' Roll baby.

NewGNR.COM

Click on the above link to see the wonderful unofficial fan site New GNR.com and to read my dear friend Mark's review of the evening.

*God bless AC/DC!


**Not mine I hasten to add, I will admit I was tempted but despite being near the front I wasn't close enough to guarantee it would reach the stage. I wasn't very well going to lose a very pretty bra if it was only going to end up trampled on.

5 comments:

Melissa said...

I took no part in the sullying, though it would make me feel better if you had been to see Westlife, then I could say "Ha! That's much worse than James Blunt!" and hold my head high.

It has lowered somewhat after reading your post.

PS - Have you recovered your voice yet? *puts caring look on face* :-D Just ignore me, badger's do get a little temperamental at times.

baggiebird said...

H i'm glad to hear you had a good time. I was a little worried when I found out you were going to see GnR as i'd heard some reviews of them which basically said they were crap! So i am much relieved to here that they were on top form, and that you had a fanstastic night

Billy said...

Whoa, excellent stuff. So it wasn't Westlife then? I thought not...

One nitpick you did use the word "rock" instead of the more acceptable spelling in this context of "RRAAAAAAWWWWWWKKK!!!!!!". Just thought I'd let you know.

Fraudulent Little Tart said...

Oh Heather, it sounds like you had a fantastic time. I'm so glad. I was a little concerned as, like Baggie, I'd heard some not too flattering reviews. It just goes to show that reviewers rarely have any idea anyway.
I agree with your call re the bra, although, you could always have flung it in the hope it landed at the feet of the mighty Axl, and if not sneaked it back later as the crowds dispersed . . . . maybe not . .

Heather said...

Hey Badgery one, have no fear my voice has returned to it's former glory. It did take a couple of days though. Ooo the cheering and singing did take it out of me.

Lynsey, Baggie; it was quite incredible. I too have heard some less than encouraging reviews of the concerts (including Friday night's) The media- what do they know?! meh!

Billy I would have gone with rawwwwkk! Yet I felt that I didn't want to fall too far into tired metal cliche territory. Although how many indie/hair metal fans are there really? I doubt there are enough of us out there for cliches to take hold.

Penny, if my bra had stood a cat in hells chance of ending up in the posession of either Mssrs Rose or Stadlin's hands I would have whipped it off in a flash. Oh dear... I feel I may be giving too much away about my hair metal madness.

I shall reaffirm my upstanding member of society status by stating that despite being zoomed in on at a Motley Crue concert I refused to flash for Mr Tommy Lee's titty cam. So there.