After weeks of rumors, hints dropped on the band’s social media channels and even a mysterious trailer being shown before screenings of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” Guns N’ Roses is on the comeback trail.
Monday night, the LA rockers were confirmed to be headlining Saturday of this year’s Coachella festival, with further stadium dates near-certain to follow. Although personnel haven’t been confirmed, it’s highly likely that the vintage lineup of singer Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler will be present and accounted for. It’ll be just like the late ’80s all over again!
Only, it won’t. With Guns N’ Roses, merely playing their classic hits isn’t enough. What the band will never get back is the inherent sense of danger that exuded from everything it did during its glory years. “Appetite for Destruction” wasn’t just the name of Gun N’ Roses’ 1987 debut album — it was the band’s way of life. Drink and drug benders were an everyday occurrence, the gigs were so electric that they constantly teetered on the brink of violence, and the band cared not one jot for the wider business or establishment.
Whether it was Rose daring to punch out David Bowie on the set of the “It’s So Easy” video shoot in 1989, or Slash swearing on the AMAs telecast in 1990, the members of Guns N’ Roses did what they wanted. They took pleasure in being disreputable characters, openly living (and writing songs about) extreme lifestyles that revolved around hard drugs, illicit women, and enough Jack Daniels to flood the Sunset Strip.
Parents were terrified, the media was outraged — no wonder Guns N’ Roses became irresistible. But that sense of danger has long since been diluted by the ill-advised cornrow hairstyle Rose rocked during the ’00s, Adler’s appearances on “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew,” McKagan’s new side career in wealth management, Stradlin’s deservedly unloved solo albums, and Slash’s willingness to mangle “The Star-Spangled Banner” at college football games.
That’s to say nothing of the quarter-century of music that’s superseded their music and antics. The late ’80s lineup of Guns N’ Roses has as much relevance to contemporary music culture as the Sega Genesis does to modern technology.
Doubtless the band is doing it for the money, and it shouldn’t be criticized for taking it. Guns N’ Roses is apparently asking for around $3 million per show, and if all goes according to plan, the members’ cumulative earnings this year could easily reach nine figures. The years of bad blood between members have been well documented; in 2009, Rose called guitarist Slash “a cancer.” But when this kind of cash is on the table, personal feelings tend to fade into the background.
With the financial incentive so high, the band might actually sound decent. Rose should have learned his lesson after being panned for his bloated, out-of-breath performance at 2002’s MTV Awards and the tours following the release of “Chinese Democracy,” when he was the only original member in a pantomime version of the band.
But the vision of Guns N’ Roses as a group of young, sexy, headstrong rebels is gone. No matter how precisely Guns N’ Roses re-create “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Welcome to The Jungle,” that part of the band will be absent. And that’s the part that rock ‘n’ roll always needs the most.