My problem with the band - when comparing the evolution from the RIR3 lineup to the present day - is that players with distinct personalities and sound have gradually been replaced by more clean-cut people, many of whom are described as "better fits" to the old material. Frank plays the AFD stuff better than Brain, Ron's more approachable than Bucket, etc. To me, what's alarming in the situation is that key writers of the CD material have been escorted out one after another, and have been replaced by more serviceable members of an AFD cover band. Technically great players, capable of replicating the sound of yesteryear. But how many of them wrote the album they're supposed to be touring behind?

Aside Axl - Tommy, Pitman and Dizzy. I was ready to live with the revolving lineup back in the day simply because in between '97-'00, the band was actually building up to be greater than the sum of its parts. Particularly the hiring of Bucket and re-hiring of Robin came out excellent, as their combined sound, like it or not, was something you couldn't gotten in any other band. The 2001 band simply had an amazing depth into their soundscape; sure, they probably fell on their asses on more than one occassion, but they were an extremely ambitious combination of people and Axl was definitely giving out the signal that he was out to reinvent himself and people can either live or leave it.

It'd be interesting to know how Paul Huge took the heat generated by the press; Slash and others were quick to condemn him specifically, as they sometimes felt the need to cut Axl some slack. Unfortunately, blaming Paul turned out to be the roundabout way to blame Axl. Since Paul was apparently a private chappy, talking to the press and "setting the record straight" was probably the last thing on his mind. All he could've done then, was to keep a low profile and shoulder some of the blame in the same way as Axl himself dealt with a lot of it. It's telling that Axl's 2002 tour press release went into a verbose defense of Paul. Some of that shit must've really stung.

By 2002, they were already turning into an AFD cover band. Hell, their standard setlist was the re-recorded AFD (with Patience & YCBM) along with mandatory November Rain and the safe-choice covers LALD and KOHD. Three "new" songs - CD, Maddy and The Blues. Would it had killed them to throw in OMG, a few more inventive covers (like Sailing from '06?) or a few new things from the back catalogue? Whatever gung-ho aspirations Axl'd had the previous year, they'd painfully sizzled out by the time he donned those ridiculous jerseys and tried to convince people he was in on the jokes made about his weight.

Since 2006, they've sounded more cohesive and have taken various steps to make the overall stage production go by smoothly, I'll give them that. But Robin and Brain now gone takes another chunk away of the overall talent factor, as well as the musical quirkiness which contributed to the goose-stepping awkwardness of CD. The '09 band couldn't produce an album like that in a million years - Ashba, Fortus and Frank, they're better fits to AFD. You can't ask those guys to go into the lengths of Bucket, Brain and Robin in terms of crazy ideas - they just don't have it in them.

The main reason I'm pissed about all this is because I know for a fact the RIR3 would've blown audiences away had Axl played, say, ten songs out of the album back then. You want to reunite the most talented lineup of GNR ever, forget about Slash.

Particularly about the non-refundable ones for the second Philly show ClearChannel people sold on the aisles as Axl was busy not appearing for the first one.

I hear they gave a discount.

To me, Guns was always a bit between two stools; they hailed from the hair-metal era of the mid-80's, when Hanoi Rocks was still the talk of the town and vocalists still modeled themselves after Mike Monroe with a gallon of hairspray. They somehow managed to survive the shift of early nineties to co-exist amongst the grunge, industrial and rap bands that surfaced.

The song structures on AFD were generally pretty simplistic, although some of the 80's cheese is kept away with aggressive guitars and Axl's above-average lyrics. It's not an elaborate album in that sense - quite the opposite, it's deliberately going towards mass appeal. When you take an anomaly like that and blow it into the umpteenth level by making them the biggest band of their time, the whole thing's bound to come off from the seams.

Only on UYI's did Guns begin to write and record music that was actually more challenging to themselves as well as the audiences, and those albums were, to me, the only justification as to why a band like that should really deserve what came to them. Without that growth factor in between albums, they would've been remembered as nothing but Hanoi Rocks gold-diggers who got a little lucky, the Crue with better guitars.

While some AFD/Lies material still works well to a lot of people on an emotional level, I personally feel Guns were coming to age no sooner than when they started twiddling around with songs like Coma. It's not Soundgarden or vice versa, but at that time, they were gallantly pushing the boundaries of their preconceived public image.

Ultimately, that's the part of the Guns legacy that remains interesting to me to this day.

A 14-year-old Oklahoma boy was tied up for more than four years and locked in a bedroom closet...

The teen told police he moved to the Oklahoma City area from New Jersey about 4 1/2 years ago after his mother was released from jail.

Mum put someone else in lock-up, apparently. Shows how much good correctional facilities do to those already experiencing more than a few loose screws.

There's no official announcement regarding the singer to be made in the immediate future, because it would be a PR disaster. What'd Slash say anyway - 'Yeah, this dude'll sing for us next year, when we'll start working on the next album, will tour with him in two years...'?

Snakepit 3 (in lack of a better term) will run its course for about a year. Loaded will likely fold at one point during that time and Duff may take some time off to focus on family and other activities.

VR is still without a record deal, at the moment. All eyes are now on Slash to go out and deliver, so that the Libertad disappointment can be washed down and his band might be regarded as a financially viable option again. This requires visibility from Slash's part, strong demos and a convincing frontman.

It's a package VR are currently shying away from presenting and it certainly takes for everyone in the band to commit themselves into it more fully. In the present situation, none of that's obviously happening, which is why I'm not blaming them for keeping the band alive in articles, mainly.