AXL ROSE PERFORMS “ESTRANGED” FOR THE FIRST TIME IN EIGHTEEN YEARS

Despite not being the kind of grim n’ gritty tune Guns N’ Roses were most famous for, and despite having a ridiculous video in which Axl Rose swims with dolphins for no apparent reason and reminds everyone that he has more money than they do, “Estranged” is my favorite GN’R song. And I always thought it would be cool to see Axl’s Nu-GN’R do the track with Buckethead, ’cause I bet that dude could totally rip it.

So, of course, now that Buckethead has already been out of the band for seven years, Axl did the song at last night’s Rock in Rio performance.

Not a shock that it’s a little anticlimactic, ’cause for every one thing the band got right, there’s something else they got wrong: Axl can still sing the low parts pretty well, but not the high parts, and at one point his voice cracks like he was me at my bar mitzvah; Bumblefoot sounds great, but for some reason looks like Robin Finck now; Dj Ashba sounds so-so, but continues to do a ridiculous Slash impersonation, and there’s a much better guitar player who isn’t just aping someone else, Richard Fortus, standing right there on stage, but for some reason Axl won’t let him play the leads; Matt Sorum wasn’t invited, so the drums actually sound right for a change. So I guess ya take the good ya take the bad ya take them both and you still don’t have Slash in the band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wEFKSwicIg&feature=youtu.be

GN’R apparently really are going to a U.S. tour starting at the end of this month; we’ll see if they break out any other oldies but goodies.

-AR

[via Bumblefoot’s Twitter]