It has been more than thirty-four years since Guns N' Roses first set foot on a French stage during the Use Your Illusion tour, at the very height of the band's popularity. The lineup may look a little different today, but the principal architects are once again in place, a remarkable state of affairs considering that Axl Rose and Slash spent the better part of a quarter of a century sniping at one another from opposite sides of the music press. This reunited incarnation has now lasted a decade, longer than many people expected, and it returns to Paris with reassuring regularity every few years. In many ways, Guns N' Roses has settled into the role of a classic rock institution. The arenas are filled with lifelong devotees, curious newcomers and those eager to relive a piece of their youth. The setlists evolve only marginally from tour to tour, the songs have become standards and the band itself has become part of the rock establishment it once seemed determined to destroy. It would be easy to take that for granted. It would also be a mistake.
Ever since Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan reunited, the same complaint has followed Guns N' Roses from tour to tour: the setlist never changes. That criticism doesn't really hold up. True, there is a substantial core that simply cannot be ignored. Nobody is buying a ticket to hear an evening without "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O' Mine," "November Rain" or "You Could Be Mine." Those songs are non-negotiable. But over the course of a three-hour marathon, there is still plenty of room to reshuffle the deck. One of the more interesting developments in recent years has been the inclusion of the so-called "new" songs, old Chinese Democracy leftovers dusted off and completed by the reunited lineup. They are unlikely to trouble many greatest-hits compilations anytime soon (some are, frankly, pretty dreadful), but their presence serves an important purpose. They undermine the easy accusation that Guns N' Roses is content to coast on nostalgia alone. Nostalgia is obviously part of the appeal, as it is for any legacy act, but in an era when many veteran bands struggle to persuade audiences to tolerate a single new song, Guns N' Roses regularly squeezes three, four or even five recent recordings into the set. For a band better known for not releasing albums than for releasing them, that's almost perversely ambitious. Besides, with ticket prices where they are these days, three-plus hours of music drawn from one of rock's most celebrated catalogues is difficult to argue with.
If there is one unavoidable caveat, it is Axl Rose's voice. Time has inevitably taken its toll on those famously punishing songs, and the upper register no longer comes as effortlessly as it once did. That is hardly surprising. Few singers in rock history have subjected their vocal cords to this sort of abuse for four decades. Interestingly, his lower register remains remarkably strong, and whenever the melodies sit in that range, or Duff McKagan steps in to reinforce the higher harmonies, the results are excellent. There may be ways to adapt some of the older material to where his voice naturally sits today. Even so, Rose's commitment never wavers. He throws himself into every song with complete conviction, and that counts for a great deal.
The split between Axl and Slash was never merely a personality clash. It reflected two competing visions of what Guns N' Roses could become. Slash always seemed happiest dragging the band through the filthy back alleys of Los Angeles, fueled by blues, sleaze and hard rock. Axl, meanwhile, was forever reaching for something grander, more theatrical and more ambitious. The reunited band embraces both instincts. The grime is still there in the riffs and the attitude, but it is delivered with the scale and confidence of an arena institution. As a live act, Guns N' Roses now belongs in the company of giants like The Rolling Stones or U2.
The danger may have faded with time, but the songs have not. Hearing them performed by the people who created them remains a privilege that seemed impossible not so long ago. Yes, the show is excessive. It's too long, too loud, too expensive, too ambitious and unapologetically overblown. But in rock n' roll, is there really such a thing as too much?
SETLIST:
Check out these related articles from the Electric Eye archives:
