Guns N’ Roses N' Snoozes

You force the music section to wear Axl Rose’s fur-coat-and-biker-shorts outfit, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt and two tickets to a Live Nation club show of your choice taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here’s this week’s winning whinge.

Dear Payback Time: Regarding Kristi Alexandra’s review of the Guns N’ Roses show. The show must have started after your bedtime as it seems you were sleeping for much of the show. The night started with the lacklustre, tinny, and distorted performance of Duff McKagan’s Loaded. His band looked like zombies. That was forgivable due to the fact that this was the second show in two nights, after Duff’s homecoming in Seattle. Axl and friends started one minute past the actual scheduled time of 11 p.m. It ended at 2:09 a.m. so was actually three hours and eight minutes, not two-and-a-half hours. Their sound was excellent and the hired hands seemed to enjoy themselves and were into the show. The stage had decent lights and was not over-the-top, as that would go against what the band always stood for: hard-hitting, straight-up rock ’n’ roll. The place was 75-80 percent full and not half-empty. If you are going to quote Axl, then do so correctly. After kicking out the rowdy he said, “That guy looks like Kumar,” which does not make Axl a racist. That is an observation. Axl also did banter with the crowd. He said it was the first time in 100 shows he had to have someone ejected and it felt good. Axl even apologized for the riot and said he hopes to be back sooner rather than later. Some other highlights of the 34-song marathon that you missed were DJ Ashba mid-song jumping off-stage onto the hockey boards and running halfway across the arena and the fan who had a sign saying she was Mrs. Rose. As well, I found Axl’s multiple hat changes amusing. Who cares what he looked like? His voice was incredible and sounded no huge flaws. I was sitting close enough to see that he wasn’t lip-syncing and actually had emotions.

The only complaint I heard was that beer sales closed at the same time Guns took the stage. On the way out I heard many people saying “Wow, what a great show it was” and even a few saying “best show ever”. This tour should have been appropriately titled The Axl Rose Redemption Tour.

> James Lewchuk

 

Kristi Alexandra writes: Dear James—in the immortal words of John Lucas, “This is why I get paid to write concert reviews and you don’t.” But I’ll bite. I’m glad you brought up our friend, Kumar. From where I was sitting, your “That guy looks like Kumar” sounded a lot more like “Hey look, it’s fuckin’ Harold and Kumar over here,” as Axl pointed into the crowd at a South Asian fellow who started a fight. Then, Rose’s string of expletives at the guy—who, I’ll admit, very much deserved to get put out on his ass—was followed up by his saying “Goodbye Kumar!” That might have been fine if the guy perhaps actually did bear a likeness to Kal Penn, the actor who plays Kumar in the Harold and Kumar flicks. But let’s be honest: he really didn’t resemble our lovable stoner buddy, Kumar, at all. But to your point, please let me know when The Axl Rose Redemption Tour does hit Vancouver. I’ll be sure to catch up on some much-needed sleep that night.

You can voice your impotent rage by snail mail or by sending an email to payback@straight.com.

Comments

16 Comments

AG

Jan 4, 2012 at 2:48pm

I think you are missing the point. Axl likely confused the character names, which is why he called the Asian guy Kumar and not Harold. And, again, saying someone looks like an actor is not racist. No offense, but if you are going to write factually inaccurate, blatantly biased reviews, it may be time to consider a new career.

Jimmy

Jan 4, 2012 at 3:42pm

While I did find the Kumar racist by stereotyping, I take offense to the dismissal of everything else James tables. In the Web 2.0 world, we all create content, so to fall back on a lame "This is why I get paid to write concert reviews and you don’t” credo demonstrates a lack of professionalism and aptitude piled on top of an inability to take the commenting party to task for inaccurate inferences or assertions. Hiding behind a notion that the author or reviewer is god is antiquated and hubristic and should eventually land Kristi on the non-paid side of the reviewer fence.

Kristi Alexandra

Jan 4, 2012 at 4:47pm

AG, look up "South Asian" and you'll see he meant what he said. Let's just say our friend who got kicked out looked like Kumar as much as, say, Will Smith looks like Uncle Ben. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Jimmy, I write a lot of music reviews for other publications that I don't get paid for. Hopefully that satisfies you.

zz

Jan 4, 2012 at 7:24pm

why don't you rub your rabbit fur on your dink and jack off to your axl posters already and call it a day,eh? What is done has been done, so for everyones sake, drop it ya nerd.

You

Jan 4, 2012 at 8:15pm

"second show in two nights"

Oh, to be a rock star.

Who cares what James said? Why does it really matter if it was 50 or 75% full? GnR are still a big snoooooze. Nickelback of the 80's crowd.

Gums and Poses - Drums and Hoses how original

Jan 4, 2012 at 10:21pm

Kristi -calling axl a racist is so 1989, and you got that sh@t backwords,
He who can - does, b@tch who can't - C-U-N-T
you so called reportes are the biggest scumbags on earth taking cheap shots at GNR to get headlines is such a Cliche.
I bet you couldn't produce a fart at an elevator without your editor approval.

Jimmy

Jan 5, 2012 at 9:32am

Kristi, for someone showered in gold for their haute analysis, your retort is confounding and off target as I am unsure what my satisfaction has to do with your offhand dismissal of James' commentary on the basis of commerce.

Also when you write for free, do you apply your own bombastic logic and deem what you opine dismissible because there are no pieces of eight showering you in tandem with every syllable you type?

ENEMY THE OX

Jan 5, 2012 at 9:35am

Kristi....we should bang.

Pitifulwriters

Jan 5, 2012 at 10:36am

Ahh another ignorant broad who is piling on "I'm wasting bandwith in order to make snide comments about easy targets such as Rose" sadly if he hadn't thrown anyone out or if he still looked like he only weighed 90 pounds then the article would have no other reason but to concentrate on the show which was good btw.

VanOrden

Jan 5, 2012 at 2:56pm

Gun and roses