Had a really great time at the Melbourne show last night.

I've been lucky enough to see GNR in various forms a few times since 1993 and while I wouldn't say this was the best due to the issues we all know about, it was a pretty solid night. Perhaps surprisingly I actually enjoyed the overall show more than the 2017 NITL show in Melbourne.

I think maybe in 2017 I was going through a depressed phase at the changes between 2016 and 2017 lol....it's possible I over think this stuff. hahah. Anyway, going in this time my expectations were low but I really enjoyed the night.

Some observations:

As we've noticed before there's a bit of "show magic" where Axl sounds better in person than on video. Maybe it's the atmosphere, maybe it's the venue mixing, who knows, but really although he wasn't prime Axl he was much better than I expected from previous bootlegs.

He seems to have 4 main voices he's using at the moment. His traditional sung low Axl tone that sounds a bit like Lies, a deep voice that's a bit closer to his speaking voice and almost slightly shouted giving it a vaguely aggressive vibe, his raspy voice - which has evolved since the acdc era to be a bit more wheesy and old sounding but it still kicks ass, and his falsetto mickey voice which is in the right key but lacks aggression. I think in 2017 here he was doing a lot of mickey whereas last night here he seemed to mix it up between the raspy tone and the lower speaking tone on key lines. There was still some mickey but it seemed to be managed better. In the scheme of things I was expecting his voice to the be weak link but it was more than serviceable given their age and everything else. Like he's not 1993 or 2006 Axl but he does the job.

In particular I also liked his attitude. He seemed to be having fun with the crowd and made a few little jokes and stuff. There was also a classic Axl 'mini-rant' when he stoped YCBM to complain about the lighting people blinding him (Fair enough...apparently he'd asked them to fix it backstage for several songs). Given their trip here has been incident filled (drones on stage, microphone lawsuits, lighting tower issues) it was good to see that he still seemed to be giving it his best.

Slash was curious. He's always been a 'sloppy' player rather than a technical guy (although he has more chops than people realise) and he's always been prone to playing by feel and improvisation. But this aspect of his style was really cranked last night. It seemed almost every solo was more like a vague approximation of the solo, or improvisation on the theme, and a few of them were almost comical - like slash was playing a game with himself to see what other little blues progressions and licks he could sneak into different songs. That sounds critical but I mean he's slash - he can do anything with the guitar and it will be better than what mortals can achieve on guitar. So it wasn't so much bad as it was noticeable - some of his more random licks were actually super impressive and cool to play. I assume maybe he's just having some fun and keeping it interesting.

I enjoyed some of the changes to the 2017 set - I've become quite a fan of Absurd/Hardschool so that was a blast, and I also enjoyed Reckless Life and Shadow just because they're sort of a bit different. There was a few places where Axl seemed to be really getting into it too.

I tried to review the rest of the band, but melissa in short shorts for the hot weather was very distracting for an old pervert whose wife had to stay home so I struggled. But yeah richard played some very bad ass guitar licks in his solos but he was quite low in the mix - at least from where I was (between Slash's side and the centre of stage). Duff was great as always, and I didn't notice Dizzy other than in Estranged so I  think he was doing his thing well.

I was in such a good mood I forgot about my usual "where's matt" whinge and convinced myself Frank does well when you think it's 3.5 hours of non stop drumming...watching him in the rocket queen jam made me think...it hurts me just to stand that long watching...these guys spending some real energy. That said there are timing issues...but we know there's going to be. I guess it's one of those things where its like I used to notice mistakes...but I just thought "who cares it's fun anyway the way it is".

No Coma last night which wouldn't matter except they also skipped it in 2017 in Melbourne...but I can deal with it...I had a great night....

I agree with you that it's been bad recently. However I think he did very good versions around 2010 era with myles.

Must say the new NR has grown on me too.

Super confusing how there's different stuff in every edition and even the super deluxe is missing stuff.

I'm getting old to have to concentrate like that lol.

Great that we got this stuff though. 91/92 band sounds amazing!