Jeff Riger: G N' R Well Worth The Wait!

We have all been there. You get free concert tickets and you decide to go even though you figure the show won't be that good. Well that is exactly what happened to me on Thursday as I was able to land a couple of "Guns N' Roses" freebies for their show at the Palace.

Now, I saw G N' R five years ago at the same venue and after waiting two-and-a-half hours for the band to come on stage I vowed never to go again! Of course part of my reasoning was the fact that during that show, front man W. Axl Rose decided to throw his mic up in the air in the middle of "November Rain" and walk off the stage before the song was even over. Nobody knew what happened. One second he was singing wearing a Steve Yzerman jersey and the next, the lights were on and the show was over and everybody felt like they got robbed of their hard earned money.

So now he and his band were back and when I first heard about the tour, I vowed not to spend a dime. And it wasn't just the last show either that turned me sour on G N' R. I always have heard stories about Axl and his personality, but the thing that always got me was how he and some of the original members of G N' R could not work out their differences in order to continue making great music and a ton of money.

A buddy of mine started talking about how he wanted to go to the show and I thought maybe I would change my stance if I could find cheap seats. Well I was lucky enough to land the free tickets and ventured out to the Palace. As I sat drinking a couple of beers with my buddy, an usher that I have seen many times before came up to us and started talking about how the band was not expected to go on stage until after 11pm. Now I had heard rumors that this might happen, but I also always thought that concerts at the Palace had to be over by 11pm. Oh how wrong I was.

In addition to the start time, the usher also informed us that anyone caught wearing a "Slash" (the one time lead guitarist of G N' R) shirt will be asked to turn it inside out so Axl doesn't see it. Apparently, in past shows, Axl immediately stops the show once he sees such a shirt. So with the news about the time of the start and that of the "Slash" shirts, I thought to myself...same ole G N' R, and started wondering if I had made a mistake coming to the show.

Well, the usher was right; the band did not appear on stage until almost 11pm but.....

I was wrong!

G N' R came out whaling and immediately the crowd was into it. Of course I forgot to mention that before the show the place had the feel of a Shock game. The whole upper bowl was curtained off because the band had not been able to come close to selling out the Palace. Apparently Axl and company were only able to sell slightly over 8 thousand tickets, obviously because the 2011 G N' R version was nothing like the 1990's version of the band that took the music world by storm.

But when they started to play, it sounded the same! The second song on the set list was "Welcome To The Jungle" and they rocked for three solid hours after that. I didn't walk out of the Palace until after 2 in the morning. But it wasn't just the show that I was impressed with, it was Axl too. I got the feeling as the show went on that Axl has realized that he had some image work to do. I think he realized what he could have been and how he turned off fans for various reasons, and it was like he was trying to win people back. Maybe I am off base! Maybe it's just me! But the feel at the Palace on Thursday night and into Friday morning was that of Axl asking for forgiveness through his music. There weren't even 10 thousand people there; however he played for over three hours! How else can you explain it?

The show was well produced with fireworks blasting out on a regular basis and the band brought it. When I saw them 5 years ago, the performance lacked the passion that I saw on Thursday. At one point in the show, Axl even told a story about talking with older women at a truck stop during this tour. The women had no idea that she was talking to the G N' R front man as she continued to bash the band. She bashed Axl too, to his face, saying "Axl is rumored to be quite the snot." The now bigger (body wise) lead man just laughed and then broke into another song. After the show, the band came back to take a bow and Axl made it a point to thank everyone ample amounts of times and even made a reference to him kind of being a changed man.

The show was fantastic, and I felt like I was in high school again as hits like "Paradise City", "Patience" and "Sweet Child o' Mine" were belted out. The band even did some ACDC, Pink Floyd and The Who covers. It was a solid concert and not just because it was free.

I don't know if this is the reemergence of G N' R or if they will even ever tour again after this current tour. But I do know one thing, if they do; I have no problem spending money to watch them. Axl has definitely won this fan back whether he was trying to or not.