It's not really that hard to believe. Someone sent her a photo of Fernando and asked her if that was the person who took her sign. She didn't ID him before that as she'd never seen him before, but recognised him in the picture as the person she interacted with on the night. As far as walking through crowds - she was up the front - enough so that Axl was able to see her and comment for the stage.

Lets face it - removing it "just in case" it bothers Axl without telling him is the classic Team Brazil method of Axl wrangling. They've done this before with Slash signs, asking fans to reverse their t-shirts, refusing to let Slash into a vegas show back in the nu-gnr days, and even refusing to let slash see Axl when he drunkenly turned up at his house. This is also the organisation who rewarded Jarmo for years of online censorship.

You're acting like it's far fetched but it's actually very very believable.

Yeah I tend to see John's point on that....

If it wasn't Axl personally who ordered it then  it was surely likely to be someone from team brazil who thinks they're doing the right thing. But not like the venue decides to suddenly care about an izzy sign.

No way the one on Rock In Rio was a stunt either IMO.

Hahah...in fairness to me what i've been into in GNR is always the Axl and Slash parts - Axl's rasp and Slash's guitar solos (or later interest in Bucket/Bumble's shred etc). I'm not really fussed about the rhythm playing unless they're causing problems.

Eg: I'm not sold on Stevie in Ac/Dc as he has bad timing when compared to Malcom and it's noticeable listening back to it.

Seriously though fortus does play things prettily! Look at all the little things he does to make simple guitar parts more interestng:

I'll grant Izzy is a better writer than forus. But i've seen nothing indicating the band wants to write fresh, and if they do release anything, it's going to be more Paul Huge riffs with Slash overdubbed from Axl's hints.

Because other than a vague "maybe we'll get to it one day" there doesn't seem to be any direct plans for songwriting.

Seems the current plan is to do these USA dates then a massive world tour of the same.

Songwriting excluded, if the game is just rendering the old songs then fortus is the better player. Izzy doesn't have a distinctive rhythm sound - so it's not like how odd sounded replacing slash with Robin/DJ, or Axl with Myles. Basically anyone can play the backing chords. But fortus does it prettier with all the additional voicings he uses - and he can also trade leads with Slash better than Izzy can chops wise.

Fortus as an employee is also 100% certain to not walk out. Izzy as a guy who helped create the band but now demoted to a non-partner may well bail if he gets pissed off. He does have a history of it even outside of GNR - there's stories of him vanishing on his own band during rehersal when he lost interest in the project.

If they're going to continue GNR as a creative force - sure bring in Izzy - but if the plan is touring the hits - the quality of the product may actually work out better with fortus.

Although how you feel about Richard is how I feel about Frank. It's not that he's bad - it's just they have multiple better drummers on the sidelines so they can maintain loyalty to the replacement of the replacement's replacement session guy. Really it's time he did a DJ and respectfully remove himself. It's kinda comical that the guy who wrote the drum part to jungle is out the back having a soda while the band's 32nd live drummer covers it during the reunion.

Thank God. I guess one thing isn't related to another but there's been so many music losses already this year. Obviously a win for his family and friends too.