CSS 2.0 wrote:

Ashba killed any remaining interest from me. I tried my best to support the guy and initially that kind of worked in his favour since Axl just sounded so damn good at the beginning in 2009/2010 (he looked worse for wear but I couldn't care less), but from there on out it was a downward spiral like we've never witnessed before.

I vividly remember the Rock In Rio "performance" in 2011... Streamed online for the world to see. That was the straw which broke the camel's back - what a fucking disaster.

Yeah it was like that for me too.

Initially I was excited about DJ joining, as I was very skeptical about Robin.

For the record I like Robin's stage presence - he's a watchable dude and I would have liked him in a Rhythm roll with occasional leads on the CD songs - but I just didn't think he had the chops to do Slash's stuff well.

Dj seemed like he would be an improvement at first as it was obviously more important to him to be faithful to the original guitar solos (which is as important to me as sticking to the lyrics.).

I find him a conundrum - I've met him twice and he was a very friendly and cool dude. So I have nothing against him. But I don't really like his stage persona for GNR. His personal style seemed more Motley Crue than GNR (that's not an insult as I LOVE motley - but its a different band) and the effect was kinda like watching Motley Ape Slash and it just seemed a bit forced. Marketing wise it just felt too transparent like you could see the strings or something.

To be honest if he'd dropped the hat and if he didn't pull quite as many of slash's quitar stances I'd have been down to keep him. Like how Robin evolved from 2002 to 2006 I can imagine a version of DJ that I thought was a cooler than the one we had.

Anyway - I was super excited for the band in 2009 - that Asian tour was off the hook to me - finally they were doing a lot of CD songs - Axl was smashing out the screams on twat and it sounded awesome. All guns were firing so to speak.

Then it went to hell with that rio disaster. I remember live streaming it and the shock and disapointment were hard. I convinced myself it was an off night at first but as we all know the next few years were hard. I respect Axl might have some vocal issues or whatever but its just hard to get used to that voice.

It was one reason the 2016 and the Axl Dc shows were so triumphant for fans. Raspy Axl was back for the first real time since 2010 or something. It was like now this is the man.

That shoot to thrill cover.....fuck me....that is Axl Rose folks. It dropped my jaw.