Hahaha....

You are such a dick.

I think they should recreate the recording of Rocket Queen with her live... let's just go fucking balls deep on the bad insults.

Well he had to for one, because GN'R is still his baby. Regardless of how he has treated it.

The other thing is last night, especially mid-show and seeing the huge pop they were all getting... had to... be an ENORMOUS weight being lifted off his shoulders. He has carried that torch for so long, gotten beat down because of it, turned into the Adolf of the music industry, hated by everyone, has quite possibly the worst music rep in LA (which is saying something), and had completely ran out of options. Any further would've been Whitesnake territory (and would've buried them with the label... not that they weren't already).

Axl pressed one button and his entire life and the global GN'R fan world collectively did this...

Even after the Troubadour last night, all of us feel like amnesia. Even with the Dallas comparison, like when that Season came back and none of the previous year had happened (for us 22 years, minus that actual written CD songs), the transition was quite uncomfortable and bizarre.

This?

Still bizarre... and frankly none of it has sunk in yet. Axl is the #1 news story on TMZ at 7pm? Really? GN'R is the biggest news story in rock? In the world?

One 2 hour show at the Troubadour and suddenly we've taken a time machine back to 1994 and picking up where we left off. Like nothing happened before and most people are happy to leave it that way.

I personally have a really hard time believing that Chris Pitman being on the biggest stage of his career, then shitting the bed, is anything more than he fucked up.

Maybe Pitman got scared? Maybe he freaked the fuck out like Izzy and realized he'd be playing spring-loaded dancing keyboards for 40,000 a night? Then again he played MANY festival shows with GN'R from 2001 to recently as well. So maybe that's bullcrap?

Something happened. He put out tweets acting as if he would be there, then nothing, then the flip out, suddenly Melissa is there.

If Chris was just sick, and was going to return at Coachella -- GNR's press people would've already just went ahead and said Melissa was not an actual member, but a fill in. Even if someone like Del James let it slip to a fan. Something.

But they didn't did they?

Chris is gone, and only a few months ago he wasn't. SG deserves some credit on this. He called it from the get and took major shit from all of us, but I would find it bizarre for all of this Melissa-Mania and then suddenly Chris is back in 2 weeks and doesn't want to tour anymore. He was supposed to be apart of this from day one. He said so.

They weren't super-tight during the UYI days. But they were all on the same page. Especially when Gilby showed up and was just happy to have the gig and was willing to do whatever to make it work, and little did he know Slash & Duff were secretly dying inside from too much Mr. B.

BUT...

They were a tighter group... much tighter group... during the UYI days than they were during the AFD days. They were tight during CD era 01-02 and CD era 06-07 as well. But the wheels fell off during the third and final CD era. DJ is a showman and a writer, NOT a guitar player, and was criticized (unwarranted) for being a crappy player and I thought so as well, to discover years in that DJ is a showman player from the school of Ace Frehley and KISS, rather than a guitar player's player. Ron had personal problems and got sloppier and sloppier as his tenure in the band went on

Now we have what we have. Richard & Frank were the tighest players of the nuGN'R group from 2006 onward, but they are used to playing almost robotic like to nail the pieces. Slash plays looser, as does Duff.

The good news is the two most likely players to be good at adapting to change are the ones in the band --

Duff doesn't need to get on the same page with Slash. Nor Axl. Nor Dizzy. Those four know exactly what the fuck they are doing.

The problem is for the last 20 years Slash has been the frontman of his band. Imagine if when The Stones nearly broke up in the late 80's and Keith Richards & Mick Jagger went solo and Steel Wheels had never happened. Then 20 years later in 2007-09 the Stones get back together and merge their bands. That's the kind of the situation that GN'R is in right now.

Axl, Slash, Duff & Dizzy are all on the same page. Even Dizzy seemed to be a touch in with his UYI timing last night rather than CD era. But Slash has spent the last 20 years fronting his own band. Even during the UYI days, Slash took his lead from Axl, then the band followed Slash, and that's how it all worked out.

That's how Slash is used to that, except imagine he hasn't fucking done it for 22 years, goes back to the Troubadour and does it again one night, at around midnight -- tired. Tommy "The General" Stinson ain't around no more, Duff doesn't do that shit, and neither does Axl. Guess who's default job it is again? Slash. Frank was playing CD era, but Slash was expecting UYI era. Problem is... Frank doesn't even know what the fuck that is. Neither does Richard.

That's what happens when 'ya don't call Gilby & Matt. Just sayin'. And this is coming from a Richard & Frank mark.

Adjustments... adjustments. Slash will be band leader, and he was finding his groove last night.