Sadly it seems so.

The first leg of Ac/Dc didn't seem to cause any issues as the GNR shows scheduled near them like Houston 2016 were similarly powerhouse. Suerhuman levels of rasp.

His voice in second half of the final leg of Ac/Dc shows seemed to be less hardcore although still mighty impressive.

From the end of that leg going back to GNR he seemed to be trying to reduce the strain and swapped to using other voices more, several times in 2017 he would do a screamy bit and you'd hear is voice kinda crack in a way it didn't normally. He seemed to kinda push through that year...but I think from about 2018 onwards he hasn't really had the same power he used to have, even though he'd force moments of it like a boss.

These days they've done a good job IMO of changing up the set to be less vocally demanding generally (hard feat considering basically all GNR songs are vocally demanding).

However it's obvious from the live shows that he tries but he's working with a damaged/older instrument. You can see he's trying his ass off to deliver a good show for people, and I think succeeding for the most part. I mean who can scream at 61 like they could at 28 in that range anyways, it's understandable. There's still quite a few bad ass moments too.

I don't think he's holding back exactly, but you can see too that he seems to be trying to sing things in less damaging ways, which is wise, and I think the difference in 2023 compared to say 2021 is he's done a better job of picking out of his voices to hide bits that have to be changed. For example is something used to be a raspy scream and he was going to skip it, traditionally he'd sing it high in 'mickey' voice, but more recently he'll do things like sing it in a gravelly speaking voice lower so it still sounds agressive - or he'll do the most important raspy line in the song well but skimp on the others a bit, just little quirks like that.

Interestingly though he still can occasionally pull the rabbit out of the hat - like how he nailed the twat scream with full rasp and on key a few weeks ago mind blowingly. This gives me hope that he'd still be able to do something awesome in a studio where he can take time to pick a day that suits, and they can cherry pick the best takes etc.

My guess is that he's probably blown out certain areas of his voice, and been advised not to destroy the others too, so he kinda balances giving the song it's proper feel with the long term implications of pushing past the limits, and in some cases things that can't be done as simply as they used to due to age/overuse.

Anyways i sure don't think it's him being 'lazy' like people say, I think it's more a matter of necessity at this stage - my guess is there's a limited number of shows left in him and so the 'tricks' he does these days are designed to get more milage out of it so there can be more shows.

The soundchecking would indicate perhaps....but then again...never know when uncle Axl will throw us a curve ball. The more songs the merrier I recon...i'm good with them releasing anything.

I read a few of the bad reviews online last night and settled in to cry-watch it before bed - but was very pleasantly surprised. The new set list freshened up the feel of things, and Axl was really giving it his all running around and even doing a few of the raspy lines like "it goes to show" in ISE with power. Not all the time of course  but it was a good compromise of styles considering how hard it must be at this point.

I feel like these shows have been better than some of the ones around 2018-2019 era.

It was a solid watch, like obviously they're older now and so its not like 92 prime GNR, but it's still a good show. I just really hope they follow up with some more of these reworked singles.

Someone from Creative Works London posted on here a very long time ago, no idea if they still lurk or anything though.

Has the studio of a Slash version of better leaked? I'd never heard of a Slash version I thought there was just a DJ remix and a Ron Acoustic version.

Yeah it leaked many years back. I think around 2013.

Always wonder when it was made - the vocal style seems more like he was doing in 2009 or so but who knows maybe it's just an alternative take from like 1999 that they dug out of the protools session or whatever.

I like the more screamy vocals suits the pain of the song, and some of the little high hums he does before lines like "she holds her pain inside"

Although the beat (brain and melissa?) is fun I would love to for these vocals to be done with a slash/duff instrumental.

It's a long shot - but in a world where they did alternative versions of don't cry, then there's room in life for Axl to revist this masterpiece.