GNR:

1993 Melbourne Australia.
2007 Melbourne Australia x 2 Nights.
2010 Adelaide Australia.
2013 Melbourne Australia x 2 Nights.
2017 Melbourne Australia
2022 Melbourne Australia (Going in November)

Slash Solo:

2011 MTV Classic Launch Melbourne Australia.
2012 Sydney Australia.
2012 Melbourne Australia.
2015 Soundwave Festival Melbourne.
2015 Festival Hall Side Show Melbourne Australia.
2019 Living the Dream Tour Melbourne.

Velvet Revolver:

2005 Sydney Australia x 2 Nights
2005 Melbourne Australia.

Would have gone for the libertad tour too in 2008 but it was cancelled.

Overall I would give it to 2006 for total performances, but on specific songs/moments of songs then there's some impressive stuff in the asian leg of the 2009 tour particularly.

Eg There was a time in Tokyo 2009 nails the super high parts live.

From memory there's also some impressive If the world and TIL versions in that era.

But on the "every show" GNR songs like PC and Jungle etc then I would give it to 2006 over 2009. But they are both epic.

My guess from all the info we've all come across (and thus I could be full of shit) is that Axl is generally a fun, loving and good guy to be around however experiences a lot of stress and anger and sometimes finds himself in a terrible rage. When that happens it's bad for everyone, including Axl.

Somewhere along the line, people around him (first label people, subsequently beta) took an approach of managing him - filtering his exposure to information and events that might set him off.

This approach is probably quite successful in terms of reducing the outright number of negative events and improving home life, but has an unintended and unfortunate side effect of promoting misinformation and paranoia as isolation from the world and others is not really good for people.

This is compounded by the fact Axl was a controversial superstar who would legitimately have been hounded by the press back in the day, and that a lot of people in the music business legitimately are sharks and really were trying to fuck him over. So he's not wrong that everything was a bit fucked, at the same time, his own responses at times probably make those things inadvertently worse. Same with the band relationships - Axl's emotional state during the UYI tour caused a lot of harm, but then it didn't help that Slash and Duff had substance problems and so on.

Anyway, Beta and co have done well to an extent in the sense that Axl was on a life path that would probably have seen him either in jail or dead, most likely dead Kurt style, at one time. Now we have him mostly happy and still out there and alive into his old age.

On the other hand the side effect as we all know is that on a business level the band's affairs have not been well managed for several decades and many things have not been as good as they might be in a perfect world.

I am fascinated by this.

What would the changes be I wonder? Like new synth stuff with melissa or more modern axl synths? A new vocal take using 99 vocals or similar? Adding in some piano intro? It's extremely curious.

I mean it *could* be a mistake...but given it's that song I feel it's not...as there was always talk of it being important to Axl during recording (from memory it was said he threatened to retire if he couldn't nail it) and it's obviously one of his songs in terms of the composition...like if he was going to tinker with something....

I love the alien movies!

For me the original 2 are in a league of their own filmmaking wise. Just genius.

Alien 3 I struggle to get past what the way it undermines the previous film. That said I enjoy the way it looks and a few of the elements of it and the general mood - I just would have altered parts of the plot lol.

Alien 4 I think is great although it's starting behind the 8 ball after the previous movie but overall it's a good fun romp of a film. Only thing I don't like about it (other than plot choices forced on them from Alien 3) is the removal of the company - that's a bad idea. But great cast.

Prometheus, I agree this movie is deeply underrated. It's shockingly beautiful. Everything in the movie is just visually amazing. So much subtext and lore going on too, it's one of those movies you can take a massive deep dive into.

Covenant - I think this suffered from trying to do two things at once. The studio made him go back to the traditional monster - but if you want a straight up alien reboot there's way too much robot stuff. Alternatively for people who wanted a straight up Prometheus sequel going further into mythology it sort of suddenly shuts all that down to close off with an accelerated remake of alien. So it sort of tries to do two things and pleases neither crowd. That said....come on it looks fucking amazing....there's so many under rated moments in this movie too. It's a lot better than people give it credit for...I think when scott is gone people will start making more rubbish popcorn alien films and these will be rediscovered for the art they were.

That said...my only issue with Prometheus and Covenant is that some of the fun in Alien 1 is the straight up mystery of the space jockey sequence and never knowing...so in some respects the whole idea of a prequel is a bad idea. Like sometimes questions are better than an answer. But I love what they did anyways as it's own thing.