Guns n Roses - Congestion Free

I should have added this earlier but you know how it is. Unless your a hardened blogger these things seem to escape you so easily. Further to my rant about the congestion charge, I returned to London a couple of weeks later. This time for pleasure, the Guns n Roses concert at the O2 arena.

I live about 60 miles form London. Although after the satnav took me round the outside of London and in the North East of it, it was more like 90 miles. Strangely though this was not a bad thing as it was congestion free, in fact the only time we stopped was for about 30 seconds at a set of traffic lights. So it was straight to the venue, straight in to a parking space and straight in to the gig. I have to say at this point that I was very impressed with the way the O2 arena is staffed. They were all very efficient. In my younger days I was a roadie and as such have worked at a lot of venues for various rock bands and the O2 arena was by far the most organised I have ever seen.

Axl, as you would expect was late going on. Now this was not a problem for me I drove there and therefore was not at the mercy of public transport, which has a nasty habit of stopping running when you need it the most. there was probably a lot of pissed off people that had to miss the end of the gig to get their bus or train. G n R came on at 21:55 and played ( to their credit ) until 00:45 - almost 3 hours. Once again not a problem to me as I didn't have to get up for work the next morning. That's the beauty of working 7 days (or nights) on and 7 days off. I may have to work 7 x 12 hour shifts in a row but I then get 7 days off.

The gig itself was pretty amazing. The sound to start with was a bit ropey. It was more suited to the quiet numbers than the loud ones. I know from my previous work in the industry that sound checks done in the afternoon to any empty venue are only the start of the process. Once the place fills up with bodies the sound quality changes. The set list was like a best of G n R compilation. They played most of if not all of "Appetite For Destruction", a lot from the new album "Chinese Democracy" and most of the ones you would expect to hear. There was "November Rain", "Live and Let Die" etc: They even did a few cover versions. Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall" AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie" and Bumblefoot even did Henri Mancini's "Pink Panther Theme" as part of his solo. See full set list here  Axl was in fine voice. Belting the numbers out. He probably didn't need as many hat changes as he had but if hats are his bag, why not ? D.J. Ashba was ever the gentleman. Even taking the time to visit the disabled area and giving everyone a hug (kisses for the girls).Duff even put in an appearance playing a couiple of numbers with the rest of the guys.

So the album is superb, and the gig was even better. It may have been 15 years in the making but it was worth the wait. I love the stuff that Slash has done since the split but it just goes to show that he was not all that made up Guns and Roses.