monkeychow wrote:

I would have used Robin as the Rhythm player and let him play an occasional lead - such his stuff on Better, SOD etc.

Sort of like Brad Whitford - he isn't joe perry but yet plays quite a few of the more memorable leads.

I think Robin's CD solos were pretty good, but he simply wasn't good at emulating slash's parts. I'm not sure if it was by design or simply that he didnt have the chops...but it was a major problem considering something like 90% of the set was Slash parts.

They could have left the Slash leads to someone more suited to the style, then let Robin do his lead licks on the 'new' songs.

I think this would have got the band over a lot better with the general public...a huge amount of the "Axl and the guys who aint slash" reviews were simply because the guitar parts often sounded worse than local cover bands.

He clearly doesn't have the chops, neither did anyone from the NEW GNR era, not even Buckethead. The styles are just different and don't match. The closest one to Slash was Ashba because he would try to play it note by note, but still wasn't close enough.

Robin would have been a decent rhythm guitar player for New GNR, but the thing with guitarists, much like frontmen, they also have an ego, and no one wanted to play Rhythm besides Fortus. Fortus was an unknown humble guitar player by then. He was given a great gig and he didn't mind. It was great enough for him, to make a name for himself.
Robin and Buckethead were established guitar players by then. Robin played in NIN songs and toured with them and Buckethead had an established solo career and played with Primus as well. So they all wanted to be Lead, cause they know that's where the spotlight and where the money is.