Despite fears of forfeit, the singer has held up well (even with many breaks)
Will he make it? Can’t make it? There was a lot of anticipation (and also a lot of concern) regarding the return of Guns N’Roses to San Siro last night in Italy after four years, a megashow that effectively closed the international section of this summer full of music. The anxieties were all for Axl: after having had difficult times in London with that voice he always asked too much, a week ago, he had had to forfeit Glasgow. Obviously devouring anxieties given that the management, in concert with the organizers of Live Nation, had prevented access to the press. As if, in the age of social media, in the event of disasters, they would not have emerged at the speed of light.
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But none of this happened last night: as is now the case with the latest Guns outings, reconciled a few years after long-standing brawls between Axl and Slash, the now Swiss band in its punctuality. Forget the hours and hours of delay of the early 2000s, at 8.00, on the adage of the old and punk It’s So Easy, Axl, Slash, Duff McKagan and the others appeared in the heart of the stadium in front of the 53.ooo present (mostly all veterans of the glorious season of the Eighties-Nineties). Short hair, the sinuous movements of youth, but above all the croaking voice of all time, Axl was therefore in good condition, while about Slash there was nothing to say, eternally the same as himself, hat and glasses of order.
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If anything, it was immediately obvious, there were two problems. And of duration. And osmosis. Axl has now understood that he could not handle the more than two and a half hours of concert, so he carefully dosed his appearances, often leaving the stage to the other. Maybe too much: up Slither (of his Velvet Revolver) or on the solos of the dylaniana Knockin on A Heaven’s Door to say a Slash was leaving for a tangent, in order to let the other breathe, with an objective disproportion that risked bordering on boredom. And the immediate consequence that they looked like two concerts in one: Axl and Slash, except for the final ritual greetings, never cross each other on stage, never look at each other and rarely come close, as if they were part of different bands, a sort of Spa hard rock. Quite different, to take a recent example, from the always evident chemistry of old friends like Pearl Jam.
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That said, then there are the songs. And these are big, sums: because the Guns have given voice, dirty and angry, to the loser of Los Angeles fall of the 80s- Rocket Queen, You Could be mine, Night Train they have the same subversive punk power as ever, as well as Civil War (dedicated to Ukraine), November Rain (with Axl extraordinarily at the piano) or the beautiful Patience they still play with a wise and pleasant slowness. Here, especially in this final section (concluded, as expected, by Paradise City), the two friend-enemies seemed to find the feeling of when they were young, shaved and desperate in the slums of LA while the audience sang compactly. Or so we liked to believe, because it was nice to be young and grow up with Guns N ‘Roses.
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July 11, 2022 (change July 11, 2022 | 11:34)
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