Are We Expecting Too Much From Guns N' Roses?
On Saturday night, a legion of terminally well-funded millennial stereotypes carousing Coachella experienced a not-quite-but-almost reunion of the Guns N' Roses lineup that conquered civilization itself in the late '80s. I'm no mind reader, but I expect the bulk of the gathering found themselves thinking something along the lines of, "Hm, so this is the music my parents hated when they were in high school."
The reviews have not been kind. The Daily Beast described the set as "reminiscent of...Christmas...if you had a drunk uncle [who] always refused to leave the couch while screaming incoherent profanity to the rest of the family." Noisey called the "pedestrian" overtones of the performance, rivaling Batman v Superman in its gratuitous runtime, "shocking." Likewise, this very website called the much-ballyhooed demonstration "awkward as hell" and every bit the disappointment avid readers and writers of snide music criticism hoped for.
None of this should bother the band or the diehards shelling out upwards of $100 a seat for the Not In This Lifetime… stadium tour. It is correct, if not reassuring, that the press loathes Guns N' Roses. The brief but definitive epoch of thinking person's rock music only began when acts like Nirvana and R.E.M., who rejected the swagger and grandiosity of Guns N' Roses and their hairspray-loving ilk, started selling millions upon millions of records. Writers are, in theory, thinking people, and thinking people, in theory, aren't supposed to like Guns N' Roses.
And when you need an aura of rebellion for yourself but don't want to actually rebel against anything of substance, puffing up a vendetta against an inconsequential and mostly intangible adversarial establishment does the trick nicely. Guns N' Roses have already done exactly that, and with the old version of the current media to boot, on 1991's cackling Use Your Illusion II track "Get In The Ring."
So while the mutual animosity benefits both parties, the attention reviews have heaped on Axl Rose's weight gain and apparent frailty, as well as most of the band's age, is wildly unfair.
Rose is 54. Slash is 50. Bassist Duff McKagan is 52. They never advertised otherwise. Anyone left amazed that none of these individuals have retained their circa 1989 levels of spry fuckability (with the arguable exception of McKagan, who looks to have taken terrific care of himself) doesn't know how years work.
And at the risk of sounding like some sort of "#Alllivesmatter" or "#Notallmen" bag of dicks, I can't help but read about Rose's "corporal neglect" and "lifetime of zero cardio" in The Daily Beast and likeness to a "mid-career Meatloaf" in Noisey and imagine the frenzy of righteously outraged think pieces that would ensue if Axl Rose was a woman (even if the Meatloaf comparison is pretty spot-on). But let's be honest: Whatever double standards may be evident here aren't necessarily related to gender. Rose's history of generalized douchebaggery made him a safe target for ridicule well before his midsection started swelling. But fat shaming certainly doesn't become cool whenever it's directed at an individual who we, as a society, have more-or-less agreed is okay to make fun of.
And as Axl Rose squirmed about in a dancing-ish manner while stuck in a throne of guitars lent to him by Rock's Nicest Guy Dave Grohl (even though Rose threatened to have his bodyguards beat up Grohl's buddy Kurt in the parking lot of the 1992 MTV Video Awards) after Rose broke his foot in Las Vegas, he did look kind of silly. Certainly nothing like the hellbeast of yore, who incidentally would've immediately cancelled whatever remained of this tour upon suffering a far lesser injury.
Did Guns N' Roses steal the show at Coachella? Not remotely. Numerous contemporary acts, including Savages, Death Grips, Chvrches, Grimes, and the only slightly younger guys in Rancid delivered oodles more oomph.
But did Guns N' Roses suck anywhere near hard enough to warrant this much schadenfreude, wistful gazing backwards, and outright bloodthirsty snark? Did Guns N' Roses actually suck at all? Or is it more accurate to say they failed to inhabit a larger-than-life Rock God caricature that doesn't really exist anymore and was just a phony marketing gimmick to begin with?
On Saturday, Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan-three middle aged, millionaire journeyman musicians who've barely been in the same room together for 23 years (and maybe don't genuinely like each other)-dutifully went through the motions of hit songs they've been playing alongside other musicians for the same span of time. All in all, they did a perfectly serviceable, if not better than serviceable, job. Also, Angus Young was there.
Guns N' Roses were not gods. They were a perfectly fine and good rock 'n roll band. Thus, they were vastly superior to the numerous Slash-less incarnations of Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver, or any other glorified side project that got away with tossing "Paradise City" into their encores.
Fine and good, of course, is not great. But it's an ocean better than what Guns N' Roses fans have grown accustomed to. I say we make the best of it for the time being, wait it out, and see where this whole thing is going.
