Considering the millions of copies of Chinese Democracy that Best Buy can't freakin' give away, thereby taking up valuable real estate in the big-box retailer's mammoth warehouse, one would think Axl Rose would be afraid to show his face in public. After all, it was he who had proclaimed the album a modern-day masterpiece, then spent another ten years and $10 million dollars re-working the same ten songs until his label finally threatened legal action if he didn't turn in a completed master.
If not for that, you can bet your sweet ass Axl would still be trying to tweak those songs into something that might stand a chance of coming within a country mile of the real Guns 'n' Roses' magnificent debut album, Appetite For Destruction. The thing is, no fucking way is he ever gonna top that album. No. Fucking. Way.
Yet every producer and hired gun in the San Fernando Valley came, got paid, and went during the making of that album and not one of them had the solid gold clackers to tell Axl his shit was whack.
Must be nice, huh? Dude's so up his own ass that nobody can tell him what they really think of his songs, his singing, or, for that matter, his attitude since he started canning original members one-by-one more than twenty years ago.
And just like all those crazy Michael Jackson fans that defended the crazy bastard to his death, there is a legion of GNR fans who not only stick by their beloved Axl through thick and thin, they actually believe that the current version of GNR surpasses the original line-up. Never mind that only Axl is the only one who truly knows the band's current line-up, the fan boys are 100% convinced that whoever happens to be playing guitar on this tour is better than Slash, or Izzy. Can you believe that?
The question, though, is whether or not there are enough of those crazy GNR fanatics to fill the Allstate Arena to see a band whose last album was a monumental flop and whose singer has a nasty habit of not showing up until he damn well feels like it, if at all.
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twenty times, shame on you, Axl.
Truth be told, Axl Rose & His Rag-Tag Team Of Hired Guns are not going to come anywhere near filling the Allstate Arena. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they couldn't even fill Park West at this stage of the game.
Of course, I feel it my duty to inform those who might be interested that tickets for the band's November 15th show go on-sale this Friday, September 16th, at 5PM. I'm tempted to show up at the Allstate Arena box office just to see what sort of person actually shows up the minute tickets for a Guns 'n' Roses show go on-sale because something tells me these people should have their voting, driving, and reproductive privileges revoked. That's right, I said sterilize these ass-hats, pronto because anybody with more than two brain cells to rub together knows damn well that they'll be giving away tickets to this show during the days leading up to November 15th so that Axl Rose doesn't have to come face-to-face with the reality that he's an ill-tempered has-been who hasn't done anything but pillage the rotting corpse of a once-great band that he was merely 1/5 a part of; nothing more, nothing less.