2017.10.26 - Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, OH, USA

Guns N' Roses electrifies Cleveland with epic three-hour show (Review)

By Troy L. Smith, Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The members of Guns N' Roses - specifically the recently reunited Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan - are old.

They're each eligible for their AARP cards and far past their peak as musicians who sat on top of the rock world. But damn if Guns N' Roses' three-plus hour show at The Q Thursday, didn't feel like 1991 all over again.

Quick history lesson: That's when GN'R released "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II" to lines of fans waiting outside record stores. Some of them were likely on hand for Thursday's show, which featured tunes from Guns N' Roses heyday, including several from the band's landmark debut "Appetite for Destruction."

Heck, even the stuff from "Chinese Democracy" had fire behind it. Songs like "Better" and "Prostitute," which sounded industrial on the 2008 album, took on new life with McKagan's pulsating bass and Slash's guitar behind them (Rhythm guitarist Richard Fortus deserves praise for holding his own with Slash throughout the night).

Thursday's show shockingly began on time (at 7:40 p.m.) with "It's So Easy," a smooth track from "Appetite" setting the tone. The awesome buildup of "Mr. Brownstone" followed. And if you weren't a fan of Rose singing the lengthy "Chinese Democracy" title track, the unmistakable guitar sounds of "Welcome to the Jungle" soon rang in.

Early on during the set, it became clear GN'R is still a powerhouse act. Was it reminiscent of the mid-to-late 1980s, when the band dominated the L.A. strip? I'm going to guess no (I was in kindergarten). Still, Thursday's concert was something to behold.

The current lineup of Guns N' Roses is a tight seven-piece. But it was hard, from a nostalgia standpoint, not to single out the original members.

McKagan rocked a "Christmas Story" T-shirt, as he slayed the intro of "You Could Be Mine." Slash delivered a stunning extended solo midway through the set, which featured elements of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."

Maybe the biggest surprise was that Rose's vocals held up well. The singer was careful in determining when to hold back and when to unleash his roar on standouts like "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "My Michelle."

GN'R also mixed in a variety of covers, including its popular version of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." One of the night's highlights saw Slash and Fortus deliver an epic guitar duet during a cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here."

The show had some dull moments. Perhaps there were one too many covers. But Thursday night offered everything you could want from a Guns N' Roses show in the year 2017.

The epic melancholy of "Civil War" turned into a huge sing-a-long. Explosions rang out during "Live and Let Die." Rose sat confidently at a grand piano during "November Rain," as Slash performed the song's solo while sparks rained down on the stage.

I've seen Axel Rose's 2000s version of Guns N' Roses, as well as Slash and McKagan's band Velvet Revolver's run during the same period. Neither could hold a candle to the reunited GN'R fans saw at The Q.

Slash and Rose may have spent much of the past two decades hating each other. But they're clearly better together than they ever were apart.

Guns N’ Roses Refuse to Coast in Cleveland: Concert Review

By Matthew Wilkening

It has now been more than 18 months since Guns N' Roses welcomed Slash and Duff McKagan back into the group. Since then, the Not in This Lifetime tour has circled the globe, garnering almost universally positive reviews and earning somewhere just shy of a gazillion dollars.

To the surprise of some critics, there's also been zero drama and only one delayed show -- and the blame for that went to the weather, not Axl Rose. Even the initial fuss over the absence of founding members Stephen Adler and Izzy Stradlin has completely dissipated.

The tour's most recent leg is set to end in just about a month. But judging from their sold-out show Oct. 26 in Cleveland, Guns N' Roses have no intention of coasting to the finish line. Their April 8, 2016, opening night set list featured an already impressive 23 songs. In Cleveland, we got 32 -- including the particularly noteworthy cover of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" the band started playing nightly following the death of Chris Cornell. (Speaking of tributes to departed musicians, it's cool to see McKagan hasn't removed Prince's symbol from his bass.)

While the set-list shape has remained largely the same for the whole tour, nothing feels canned or stale. There's room for some creative detours -- such as Slash's riff-tastic introduction to "Double Talkin' Jive," or the extended, and especially dramatic, mid-song interlude in "Coma."

The expanded set list has made room for more Chinese Democracy songs, many of which -- like the somewhat slow-building (but oh-so-worth-it) "Better" and the ornate "This I Love" -- deserved a little more love from the audience.

The large number of covers the band has woven in among their originals serve as a shorthand history of rock itself, with Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Webb, the Misfits, Eric Clapton, Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan and the Who all receiving musical acknowledgements at one point or another. (AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie" has been turning up at many of the shows as well.)

It's particularly ballsy of Rose to lead the band through one of the most famous codas of all time, the one that caps Derek and the Dominoes' "Layla," right before playing his own contribution to that list, "November Rain."

Although Rose, Slash and Duff understandably command the most attention from the crowd, longtime keyboardist Dizzy Reed and relative newcomers Melissa Reese, drummer Frank Ferrer and guitarist Richard Fortus are clearly important and fully integrated parts of the group by now. (And a big part of why the Stradlin and Adler talk has gone away.) Fortus, in particular, made the most of each and every one of his solo spotlight moments.

As the nearly three-and-a-half-hour show concluded with a powerful "Paradise City," the only questions left to ask in regards to Guns N' Roses were obvious, if a little greedy: What's next? And how fun would it be to hear what this version of the group could do in the studio?