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Review
Axl Blows Out Throat, Dons Chicken Bucket For Glitchy Guns
Tour Launch
11.09.2002 11:21 AM EST
TACOMA,
Washington- Crawling from the wreckage of their noisily
aborted tour kickoff in Vancouver the night before —
which ended in a fan riot and a bloody, club-wielding response
by local police (see "Fans Riot After Guns N' Roses
Tour Kickoff Canceled: Kurt Loder Reports") —
Guns N' Roses came charging into the Tacoma Dome, about
45 minutes outside of Seattle, with considerable pent-up
energy on Friday. Unfortunately, there wasn't quite enough
of it to entirely overcome some annoying technical obstacles
that laid in wait.
The
Dome is a boomy place at best; with only about half of its
22,500 seats occupied, as was the case with this show, the
resulting sonic wallow often obscured the band's remarkable
precision. On top of that, singer Axl Rose's microphone
line slowly deteriorated throughout the course of the two-hour-plus
set: By the end, his trademark wail was jabbing in and out
of the mix so erratically that he started overcompensating,
and finished the night (we were told) with blown vocal cords.
These
sound problems obscured some of the best efforts of an impressive
band. The new Guns N' Roses is a big group — three
guitars and two keyboards along with bass and drums —
and the level of its musicianship is unusually high. One-time
Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson and ex-Primus drummer
Brian Mantia propel the band with the requisite bottom-end
muscle, but with rare agility, too. Chris Pittman is extraordinarily
flamboyant for a guy who traffics in keyboards. And former
Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, who tempers his screaming
leads with soulful control, is also a maestro of pure, string-ripping
noise.
And
then there's Buckethead. You know that a guy wearing a deadpan
white mask and a fried-chicken bucket on his head is becoming
a serious cult star when a couple dozen fans turn up in
the audience sporting KFC headware of their own. And you
definitely know the news is out when Axl Rose himself, midway
through the old Guns hit "Patience," straps on
a little mini-bucket, too. But the really riveting thing
about Buckethead — who's a veteran of the avant-funk-fusion
scene — isn't his get-up; it's the jaw-dropping precision
with which he can tear through a finger-blurring solo. He's
super-fast and lyrical at the same time. He also does a
robot-dance interlude that has to be witnessed to be fully
appreciated.
All
of the band's instrumental fireworks (and the show's explosive,
old-school pyrotechnics) serve to illuminate the charismatic
presence of Axl Rose, of course. His inimitable shriek remains
... well, inimitable — and he can still hold those
keening notes beyond what might seem to be normal human
ability. He also probably racks up as much non-stop sprint
mileage onstage as most frontmen half his age.
Chinese
Democracy, the new Guns album Rose has been promising for
the past decade, won't be out 'til February. (Yes —
so they say!) Therefore, the new band's repertoire is heavily
studded with vintage tunes: "Welcome to the Jungle,"
of course, and "Paradise City." And everybody
gets to sing along to "Sweet Child O' Mine," too,
and "November Rain," "Live and Let Die,"
and "Mr. Brownstone." Even "Oh My God."
(Well, maybe not.)
But
the future of Guns N' Roses lies in the direction of the
handful of new songs the group is currently playing: the
gorgeous ballad "Madagascar," the gut-shaking
"Rhiad" and the monumentally riffed-out "Chinese
Democracy" itself. These songs, largely composed by
Rose and the whole band (there are "probably hundreds"
of others, according to keyboardist Dizzy Reed, probably
exaggerating a bit), could sustain the ongoing GN'R project
into a new creative era. It'd be nice to have them stick
around.
For
more sights and stories from concerts around the country,
check out MTV News Tour Reports.
—Kurt
Loder
Source:
mtv.com
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