I agree...but then I also think...when it became clear they wanted to rejoin...Tommy quietly went into the night....and DJ politely diplomatically left....and then they now seem to have squeezed out pitman....then they swapped the whole branding of the band to 80s/90s GNR.

I find it weird that everyone on here seems to hate sorum...his drum style is very apparent on UYI1, UY2 and TSI and he was a huge part of the feel of the songs on use your illusion - which is what people are always calling to be added back to the setlist.

Yeah but it's not common for drummers to get writing credits unless they have a partnership in the band.

Writing credits are about copyright in lyrics and melody. Often when a band is new they will divide things equally such as on AFD - so as to include the drummer and bass player, or somebands do it that way for band unity (eg U2). However there's no way the second drummer to a band as big as GNR was when Adler was thrown out was coming in as a partner.

So the legal BS aside...the reality is he wrote those drum parts, it's just that drum parts don't normally attract songwriting copyright - but at the end of the day - the drum parts he wrote are awesome and make the songs - YCBM, Locomotive etc.

Matt is by far the most important drummer GNR has had in my opinion - he drums on 1/2 the entire catalogue, his drumming is flawless and sets the tone of most of the songs.

It doesn't really feel like that though if they don't do more than play a hits setlist for a few shows.

Slash is returning to conspirators at the end of the year and dropping an album of new material with them then.

If GNR doesn't release any new music with this line up, then it's basically just a handful of reunion shows.

Perhaps but the band has basically been on hiatus for a very long time.

It's obvious DJ and Tommy took a polite exit when it became obvious Axl was considering a reunion.

Frank, Dizzy and Richard were all doing dead daisies which I guess is why frank must stay as part of the package.

I just think this band needs to decide what it is.

If this isn't a reunion. Where's the interviews, when's the next album and why have we gone back to retro branding? If this is a reunion - maybe we should actually reunite some more of the people who made the band good back in the day.

It's not though. I know Slash sounds good with nearly any rhythm guitarist. In fact I know the rhythm guitar parts are largely irrelevant to the sound of GNR. It's very hard to even hear izzy's parts as distinct from the rhythms also played by slash on UYI. Izzy might be useful for songwriting and so on - but in the live setting it really doesn't make a lot of difference. The 1992 and 1993 tours displayed that.

Meanwhile Matt and Duff have proven fantastic chemistry in a live setting. VR doesn't even have that many awesome songs but I know a bunch of people who will say the contraband live shows are amongst the best gigs they saw, let alone the UYI tour.

To me the absence of matt will make a more impressionable difference to the sound than the absence of Izzy.

Also in the scheme of guitarists I'd say Richard is higher ranked than Frank is in the scheme of drummers.

I agree about Brain - but Slash and DJ side by side would be kind of absurd. Both wearing their respective top hats - both arching into the same guitar lord poses and both lighting up a smoke during patience. Give me a break!