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The 7 - Music - SLCR #292: Guns N' Roses (August 27, 2017) Register and log in to post!
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KJames199
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#1 Posted on 6.9.17 1913.54
Reposted on: 6.9.24 1914.01
Many years ago, I was in line to get into the Odeon in Saskatoon to see Hawksley Workman. This drunk dude stumbled down the street and asked us what the line was for. Someone told him it was Guns N' Roses, who were broken up or fighting with each other or something at the time.

"YEAH," said our new drunken friend, "GUNS IS FUCKIN' ROSES."

They sure is.

And I really thought that was as close as I'd ever come to seeing Guns N' Roses, but here we are. Remember how Mika initially really wanted to go to Bryan Adams despite having never shown any previous interest in Bryan Adams? That was kind of the situation here again. Guns N' Roses was announced for our new stadium well before Adams was, and Mika seemed real keen on going. Me? I dunno. I knew all the big hits but I also didn't care so much. But I'll go to pretty much anything for any reason, and Mika wanting to go is reason enough.

Plus, who figured this would ever happen? They were giant stars but also the textbook example of rock n' roll scandal and excess. Books have been written about their troubled history and it would take someone far more knowledgeable than me to put together the timeline of breakups, reunions, and personnel changes. The idea that they'd hit a point where something vaguely resembling the classic lineup was able to survive an entire tour together was inconceivable. But here we are.

I mentioned that I am not really a Guns N' Roses fan. Really, I shouldn't approach this like a normal review. It should be more of a fish-out-of-water piece, like when Vice sends a writer to a Trump rally or the Gathering of the Juggalos. That said, my only initial observation about G'n'R fans is that they obey no rule about not wearing the band's shirt to their own concert.

We got to the mall at about 5:30 to catch the stadium shuttle. They've finally got the get-to-the-stadium part relatively down. We were on a bus and in motion within 15 minutes. A line of similar length took an hour and 15 minutes for Bryan Adams, causing us to miss the first few songs from Our Lady Peace. This time, we got inside, walked up the ramp, and came out on our level just in time for the first few songs by Our Lady Peace.

Since tickets went on sale so long ago, I had to buy them before ever having visited our new stadium. Also, I didn't want to spend a ton of money. Folks, I have to tell you, mistakes were made. I knew we were close to the stage and up high, but we were much closer and much higher than I remembered. We were in the back row of the section, looking down on the stage from the side. The view was less than ideal. The sound, worse. And we were all the way on the opposite side of the stadium from the buses, ensuring that it would be a long wait to get home. James, this was not your finest work. In fact, I'd go so far as "catastrophic failure."

So, Our Lady Peace. I had hopes that since they'd just played here three months ago, we'd get a different set of tunes. Nope! It was almost the exact same setlist. The good news is we showed up in time to hear Naveed and Superman's Dead this time. The bad news is that the sound was worse - but again, that was a function of where we were sitting. I don't blame them for the sound. I do blame them for not mixing things up at all. Whatever. Much like last time, this was fine if not thrilling.

OLP finished at 7:00 and Guns N' Roses was scheduled to start at 7:30. Mika had been told that G'n'R was starting an hour late in each city along this tour. If anything, this seemed awfully optimistic judging by Axl Rose's long and storied past. I gave it some time for the first wave of people to disperse and at about 6:50, I left in search of food. Ridiculous lineups at every vendor, of course. For convenience's sake, I went to the one nearest our seats and got poutine since it appeared to be the only thing they sold with a lid - and I'd need that assistance when carrying the snacks back to my seat, since I also got us each a bottle of water and I wasn't allowed to keep the caps on them. It was an awkward walk back.

Anyway, my foreshadowing is never subtle and you've already figured out that Guns N' Roses started at 7:30 on the nose and I missed the first song or two. I'd tell you what they were, but I have no idea. I went into the show wondering just how many G'n'R songs I actually knew. Talking to Mika, I figured there were actually quite a few - but the sound was so muddy where we were that there were a lot of songs that sounded familiar but I couldn't quite place. She even said something similar and she's much better at Name That Tune than I am. All of the really big singles were apparent, of course - Welcome to the Jungle, November Rain, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, You Could Be Mine, stuff like that. There was an unexpected cover of Black Hole Sun, which I assume was a tribute to the late Chris Cornell. That was nice. And they played Live and Let Die with extra pyro. I've said this before but pyrotechnics are my least favourite of all the -technics, and while our seats may have sucked if we wanted to see or hear the band, they were GREAT if you wanted to be close to fireworks and other explosions. Which I assure you I did not.

I'm just gonna say this - I was not the intended audience for this show and I did not dig it at all. Everyone else I heard from loved it. Listen to them and not to me. I'm the problem here. Put me in better seats, and I'd likely have had a good time. I mean, there are all kinds of bands that I don't really care about that I'd go see just for the spectacle of it all, and this was quite a spectacle. And the songs I knew (and could make out) were enjoyable despite everything. Maybe we should have left our seats and watched the show standing on the concourse level. Lots of people sitting near us did that. Or maybe I should have just held off on buying tickets - the show didn't come close to selling out, and on the day of the show, one friend got decent seats for much cheaper than ours, and another saw $250-per-person floor seats going for around what we paid. There are multiple lessons here.

Having dealt with several bus debacles leaving the stadium, we skipped out on the encore in favour of a quicker departure (so no Paradise City for us). This turned out to be a surprisingly amusing decision since we wound up near some of the drunkest humans I've seen in quite some time. One man in particular told a loud story about how he met a lady at the show and she gave him her number and they kissed and it was his "first kiss in a looooooooong time." He then detailed his plans to continue drinking ("water's for pussies") and how he lost his hotel key but was going to talk the hotel clerk into letting him into the room even though it was under someone else's name. Then he expressed a great interest in getting some cocaine and declared that a woman he was sitting with was "the coke queen of Yorkton." He then backtracked, with a really loud and exaggerated "I'M JUST KIDDING ABOUT THAT. ONLY KIDDING." And then we got to the mall and he peed on the side of it. I avoided eye contact with Mika for the entire bus ride home because I'd have lost it otherwise. Good sir, you and your cocaine and pee salvaged my evening.

UPCOMING CONCERTS:
• The Sadies (September 14)
• BA Johnston (September 15)
• Steve Earle & The Dukes (September 27)
• The New Pornographers w/Born Ruffians (October 6)
• Whitehorse w/Terra Lightfoot (October 13)
• Sarah Slean (October 14)
• Martha Wainwright (October 22)
• David Myles w/Port Cities (October 24)
• Headstones w/SNAKEandtheCHAIN (November 17)
• Cold Specks (November 24)
• Tanya Tagaq & the Regina Symphony Orchestra (November 25)
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