I remember Wishing Stairs. A terribly underwhelming film.

Been watching Kurosawa lately. Saw Seven Samurai and Ran only a few days apart. For the uninitiated, Seven Samurai is a textbook example on how to do a siege film. A village consisting of feeble peasants gain knowledge of a ensuing attack by travelling bandits and hire seven swordsmen for their protection. That's the story in a nutshell, but don't let the simplicity fool you - Seven Samurai pushes all the rights buttons at all the right times. While the deceptively easygoing first half of an over three-hour film consists of the formation of the group and establishing their individual personalities and interpersonal relationships, the latter half is in contrast as gripping and relentless, as Kurosawa stages his action scenes like a master craftsman. Kurosawa also realized how significant it is to lighten up the story with minor humorous occurences every now and then, mostly supplied by the slightly buffoonish Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune in his most memorable role), either by fault or his knack for comedy.

The party's personalities would later re-emerge in various genre films, as they round up a colorful group dymanic. There's the sage old leader Kambei (Takashi Shimura), his reliable right-hand man Shichiroji (Daisuke Kato), Kambei's first lieutenant Gorobei (Yoshio Inaba), the cheerful good old boy Heihachi (Minoru Chiaki), Katsushiro, the young man anxious to prove his worth in battle (Isao Kimura), the taciturn but unsurpassably deadly Kuyzo (Seiji Miyaguchi), and the aforementioned Kikuchiyo, who'll rise from a rejected laughing stock into a brave warrior worthy of his peers.

Originally released in 1954, it was picked up and remade stateside by John Sturges as The Magnificient Seven in 1960. The remake only further proves the mastery of Kurosawa's original, as the themes explored in detail in Seven Samurai (such as the forever remaining rift between those who apply force and those who yield underneath it) can be said to be universal in nature, not to mention the screenplay itself reflects some of the basic ideas of dramaturgy, as it can be switched around into American gunslingers in a pueblo with relative ease. The remake, however, fails to capture the operatic nature of Kurosawa's masterpiece. Others, including Kurosawa himself, have tried, with mixed results.

I personally consider Ran (1985), his King Lear-adaptation set in feudal Japan, ultimately superior to Seven Samurai in many ways. As Seven Samurai has steadily followed in the coat-tails of Citizen Kane on every other 'Greatest Film Ever Made' list for the past 40 years, this should come as no small compliment.

This is something I picked up from HTGTH:

It has been said that Clear Channel gave Axl 1 million dollars prior to the tour as a pre-tour bonus.  After the Vancouver riot and repeated late arrivals on stage, Clear Channel insisted that Axl return the million as insurance that he would "behave" for the remainder of the tour.

If Axl did not comply, CC threatened to pull the plug on the tour.  Axl refused and stayed in his NYC hotel room watching a basketball game as a helicopter sat atop the hotel waiting to wisk him away to Philly.  The other band members were in the building in Philly waiting for Axl to show.

Clear Channel banked on Axl giving in as they allowed the opening acts to take the stage in Philly.  Axl was only an hour away via a helicopter ride.  Clear Channel knew days in advance that they were gonna try and strong arm Axl.  They hired people to walk around the arena and sell non-refundable $10.00 tickets to the second show that was to occur the second night in Philly.  CC took advantage of fans knowing that the second concert would not go on as planned.

I remember hearing the story other way around; CC asking for a $1M insurance deposit from Axl for each show. Giving the money to him as an advance and then asking for it back is certainly more plausible. Axl was indeed in NY with a helicopter ready, while the band was in Philly, Center City Ritz-Carlton to be exact. If CC knew days in advance they'd take strong measures against Axl, the ticket sales hadn't lived up to their expectations so far. They hadn't; the average gross for the first 11 shows was around $340,000.

Again, it's like madagas said. CC didn't exactly start off by making fortunes with GNR, on the contrary, they'd been losing money for three weeks straight already and Axl's $1M would've now been money they considered he owed them. That's really the best explanation I've heard for the cancellation so far, with CC and Axl locking horns afterwards and the balance of terror preventing either party to go into detail about what happened publicly.

If true, Axl certainly stands falsely accused for the tour cancellation (if not Philly). While he may be stubborn, he might not be the monster some people (and media outlets) like to picture him as.

One needs to put the Pollstar and Billboard numbers into perspective. Pollstar recorded first ten shows, which is from Vancouver (or Tacoma) to Cleveland (or Columbus). That leaves shows like Toronto, Boston and New York down for a count. Billboard on the other hand, recorded nine shows (out of sixteen).

Pollstar's average for ten shows was at 7,344 attendants; this equals a total amount of 73,440 tickets. Billboard's nine shows reported 70,086 tickets sold. Vancouver was estimated to have had around 8000-9000 concert goers present before the cancellation. So it's a bit tricky to compare those numbers.

But anyone, who still thinks the '02 tour ticket sales stank all the way to high heaven, should read this first:

Tickets for the North American leg of the GUNS N' ROSES 'Chinese Democracy' World Tour went on sale this weekend in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston with an overwhelming response from ticket buyers. The New York date set for December 5 at Madison Square Garden sold out in fifteen minutes with the other cities doing close to capacity business. 'We are thrilled with the sales,' stated Arthur Fogel, president of Clear Channel Entertainment's Touring Division. 'We knew this was going to be a big tour but this even exceeded our expectations.' - 10/01/02

The final Pollstar numbers, which cover all 16 shows actually played, show an average of 8,660 tickets sold per show with a total amount of 138,564, with the average gross of $404,611.

Compare this to the first 10 shows (again, with Pollstar numbers):

First 10 shows sold 73,440 tickets, with an average of 7,344 tickets per show.

Last 6 shows sold 65,124 tickets, with an average of 10,854 tickets per show.

Ok, now you're going to say MSG distorted the numbers, as it was "the easy sell-out." If on full capacity, MSG holds 20,000 attendants. Scratch that from the amount and divide by five shows.

From Albany to Hartford, 45,124 tickets sold, with an average of 9,025 ticket per show.

So yeah, MSG does affect, but so does Columbus, the first of the last six shows. It had an attendance of roughly 6,000. Note that and the four shows leading up to MSG averaged with a near 10,000 concert-goers.

The tour was definetly picking during the final shows, once they started to hit the population centers.

Again, good points elmir.

Basically, the polar opposites of GNR members. To this day, Axl feels drugs ruined the band and he appears to be quite critical towards substance abusers.

When you put it that way, Axl seems to have more of an issue the UYI's than with Appetite.

Rose: [...] I have re-recorded "Appetite" and-- [...] why do that? Well, we had to rehearse them anyway to be able to perform them live again, and there were a lot of recording techniques and certain subtle styles and drum fills and things like that that are kind of '80s signatures that subtly could use a little sprucing up... a little less reverb and a little less double bass and things like that.

[...] I don't know what I'm going to do with it, exactly, when I would be putting that out. But you know, it has a lot of energy. Learning the old Guns songs and getting them up, you know, putting them on tape, really forced everybody to get them up to the quality that they needed to be at. Once the energy was figured out by the new guys, how much energy was needed to get the songs right, then it really helped in the writing and recording process of the new record.  - MTV, 1999

Axl seems to think AFD represents all the positive things about the old band, and in order to tap into that energy, the '99 lineup needed to sink their teeth into those recordings and get into the 'vibe' that's evident in the album. While it is an album depicting a reckless lifestyle, substance abuse and what-have-you, it's also the best point of reference towards what Axl thinks the old band got right in the first place.

When compared to UYI's, it's "the better of two evils".

Loder: When you listen to that stuff back now, do you think, "Wow, that was a great band, that was a great time," or are your feelings clouded?

Rose: For me, when I hear certain things on the "Use Your Illusion" tour, I... on that record, it's... since I'm in it, I can hear a band dying. I can hear when Izzy was unconsciously over it. I can hear where the band was leaning away from what Guns N' Roses [had] originally been about.

People may have their favorite songs, and it may be on "Use Your Illusion," but most people do tend to lean towards "Appetite" as being the defining Guns N' Roses record, and I can hear how, in the sound, it was moving away from that there. There's just so much I was able to do in keeping that aspect together. - MTV, 1999

The UYI era is what greatly contributed to what Axl came to be in the latter years, losing friends left and right and alienating the band, which is something he's wouldn't like to relive all over again.

Yoda passed on on 01/18/07, while Axl had made it to New York to finish up the recording. Whether or not she'd had health problems before the event or whether that information reached Axl's ear in late '06 is anyone's guess.

But Axl did lose both Merck and Mrs. Maynard when the finish line was finally in sight. Now he'll have to handle it by himself.

This is the natural course of things.

The album is done and now they have to sit down and talk about who'll pay what. Both the label and Axl knew this day would (probably) come the minute funding was shut down. Anyone who might've thought all it takes is Axl finishing up is sadly mistaken. That's the usual way of doing things, but the window of opportunity closed on 12/31/03. He finished the album four years late of his last chance to remain in the label's good graces. Had the label continued to fund this merry-go-around, getting the album in 2006 might've been possible. And then again Axl might've gladly continued to his carefree search of the perfect sound in stops and spurts... for a few years more.

And the money Axl's asking wouldn't likely go into the album itself, as it's said to be done now. It'd be a bit silly for him to ask his money back, as Geffen made it quite clear in their letter that Axl is now responsible of finishing the job, no matter the cost. If Axl's asking for more money, he's not happy with the offer Universal has made him, which at this point likely refers to promotional campaigns, video shoots et al. Axl doesn't want to spend anymore of his own money on the album.