Madison wished she looked like that. Warchild is really butt ugly though, and she's old too. AKA Crazy cat lady. We really get the best of the best in regards to fans for this community.

This girl is a certified nut for sure, very entertaining. Doubtful she was even born when AFD came out.

Me neither, I always thought they sucked.

Romney will come out the winner in the end. Gingrich simply has too much baggage. Too bad Huntsman can't get any respect, he's head and shoulders above any of these clowns.

That's crazy...the poor man's pro shot.

Well, it happened: Guns N’ Roses rocked Bridgestone Arena Sunday night — making it through a three-hour show free of meltdowns, riots and original members ... save for Axl Rose.

Indeed, today’s Guns N’ Roses is essentially an Axl Rose-fronted cover band. But as The Spin learned, the bullshit GN’R is pretty no-bullshit when it comes to nailing every nuance of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-nominated band’s classic canon with Guilty Pleasures-worthy precision. And with tickets prices, uh, slashed at the 11th hour to a measly $10 (for seats in the lower bowl!), spending a night out with Axl was actually cheaper than spending one with Guilty Pleasures.

We’re not gonna lie: By the time we made it downtown, we were pretty psyched to see Axl & Co. As rock fans, seeing an aging Axl’s Chinese Democracy-era Guns N’ Roses felt like finally feasting eyes on some long-overlooked, cult-classic horror film. That, or it’s the cock-rock-concert equivalent to a midnight repertory showing of Electric Boogaloo.

Hours before showtime, we noticed armadas of Affliction shirt-donner parties and post-pre-gamed hordes of heshers appearing ready to rock. Some perhaps a little too ready, as we were greeted with a carpet bombing of “hell yeahs!!” and other unintelligible loudmouthed musings. We noticed one bandanna-headed Axl look-alike slumped against the building, moaning and pathetically puking all over himself. It was a very Heyn-and-Krulik scene for a Sunday night in Downtown Nashville.

We figured killing time with a couple rounds at neighboring Paradise Park — where a cover band was churning out exceptionally spirited versions of “Fortunate Son” and “Purple Rain” for the three other bar patrons — would effectively find us missing an opening set by Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society. Unfortunately, despite entering the arena at damn near 10 p.m., we wouldn’t be so lucky.

What is the sonic secret that unites this so called society? To us, BLS sounded like an angry, over-driven Tommy Lee Jones screaming an Ozzy Osbourne impression over sludgy grooves and a muddy melange of riffs Dimebag wouldn’t have even saved for a Damageplan record. And was Wylde really garbed in an Indian headdress? That’s a bridge too far.

In between songs (?), the band would break to let an in-power-stance Wylde wank out unaccompanied, meandering solos while banging his blond mane from side to side like it would get the knots out. Seriously, Zakk Wylde jerks off into a flying V and it’s supposed to sound like music, but it actually sounds like Black Friday at Guitar Center? We don’t get it, and we don’t wanna get it. On their feet, with heads banging, the rest of the crowd — which filled up most of the half-curtained-off arena at about 8,000 strong — seemed pleased, however.

Prepared to wait indefinitely for Axl and his employees to take the stage, we were actually surprised when, after what felt like a relatively short interim (a single smoke-and-piss break) the house lights dimmed and GN’R circa-now came out to the sounds of the Dexter theme. Soon, DJ Ashba — a cartoonishly tattooed and asymmetrically coiffed Hot Topic scarecrow of a man, and one of the band’s two Slash stand-ins — led the band into the title track from Axl Rose’s answer to SMiLE, Chinese Democracy.

It was 10:59 p.m. and we had a three-hour show ahead of us. Could we go the distance?

Well, we did. And in the process, we enjoyed the piss out of ourselves (maybe even literally). That’s not even the diminished expectations talking. While we could have conjured a dozen potential openers (“My Michelle” maybe?) better suited than “Democracy” to more immediately galvanize the crowd, the headbangers seemed to need a minute to adjust and just bask in the enigmatic presence that is … Axl Rose.

Despite his caricatural appearance, Rose can still handily consume a crowd with his charisma — even when dressed like a glam-rock pimp daddy pushing 50. His voice more often than not sounded intact as he pushed his seething pipes to top register, propelling classic screamers like “Rocket Queen” and “You Could Be Mine.” And given the repeated, across-stage sprints the singer did, it’s no wonder he appears in better shape than he did when the tour launched in October. The singer’s side-to-side slither is tamer than it once was, but he still managed to sneer convincingly and angrily chuck his mic stand against the drum riser a time or two.

An early-in-set, pyro-punctuated, three-card-punch-par-excellence of Appetite for Destruction staples — “Welcome to the Jungle,” “It’s So Easy” and “Mr. Brownstone” — had us singing along like 12-year-old dorks, wholeheartedly convinced we were actually seeing Guns N’ Roses and it was actually kicking ass. Such moments, when the band was playing its household hits, were consistently rewarding throughout the marathon gig. Performed before a sea of rolling camera phones, “Sweet Child o’ Mine” might have inspired a marriage proposal or two, the fall-of-Saigon-worthy onslaught of explosions that rained hellfire during “Live and Let Die” made us feel like we were suddenly in a Michael Bay movie, and if “Don’t Cry” almost made us well up, “November Rain” sealed the deal. Near show’s end we even noticed a stone-faced, middle-aged security guard stealthily mouthing along to “Patience” with all the stoic sincerity of a Cormac McCarthy character.

While the more high-octane Chi Dem cuts seemed to work well amid the mix of hits, the album’s headier jams were mostly met with mass bewilderment and/or bathroom trips. Same goes for the spotlight guitar and piano solo moments interspersed throughout the set. Like when Axl would run offstage to change out his chain wallet or something and that Bumblefoot bro would wail on The Pink Panther theme and toss picks out into the crowd as if he were Slash and we gave a shit about catching one. Compensating for those moments were pleasantly unpredictable surprises such as an ever-under-appreciated epic “Estranged,” Tommy Stinson fronting the band through The Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer” and the first performance of “Civil War” since the Slash era.

Yet, all that wasn’t enough for Rose to hold the whole of the crowd in palm until show’s end. Perhaps because it was literally Monday morning by the time the band was breakin’ it down for a call-and-response sing-along during “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” the crowd in the already capacity-reduced arena had thinned out considerably. And by the time the band was sending us on our way with a finale of flare and fireworks during “Paradise City,” much of the confetti was falling onto empty seats. But the faithful — and The Spin — were nonetheless stoked.

Had it included some semblance of an original lineup (or even just Slash), GN’R’s sprawling, surgically precise pastiche of fiercely appropriate arena-rock clichés and scuzzy, note-perfect nostalgia we ate (and definitely drank) up Sunday would have probably ranked among the best balls-out RAWK! shows we’d ever seen. But at gig’s end, the scene onstage — while flawlessly executed — was still one of a bona fide rock icon giving cues to a bunch of underlings getting paid to play the part. They played it well. But when it comes to this kind of rock ’n’ roll, competent virtuosity and convincing cross-stage trots and kick-spins can never suffice for true star power.

Still, we had an awesome time watching Axl and his guitar-wielding goon squad try and make it work.

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville … na-1242011