I'm not sure...Robin seems to have avoided comment on Axl, which would be the thing to do to keep the door open, meanwhile Axl says it's the nature of their friendship that they chat when they have a project on. Meanwhile trent has announced he is putting NIN to sleep after the current dates this year. What will Robin do then? Why not give Axl a call and help him set up a GNR tour? Especially now he plays on a GNR album.  The upside is he gets to keep doing what he enjoys doing - playing live in a major act, and all the benfits that goes with it.

I think what Axl needs is others at his talent level, and preferably, a guitarist that commands respect in musical circles. Slash does that because his blues playing is exceptional, Bucket does that because of his formidiable technique and unusual approach.

My opinion is that if new GNR had had more of the CD era material finished in the early part of this decade, if their 'return' had been marketed with a more traditional immage...(bucketheads unusal look is tough but catchy - but coupled with Axl's rap look and Robin's gothicy appearance at the time was too tough to sell all at once), and had they kept Bucket+Axl together as a cohesive unit - and maybe done some apperances together then the band would have received a lot more recgonition.

People will always miss the old band because they were iconic. I think anything with Axl + Slash would fly as GNR, and likewise I think if a similar Axl + Bucket relationship had been allowed to foster in the public's mind - through appearances together (even controversy or whatever) - and if bucket had been shown off better (simply shredding at the speed  of Notthingham Lace or Soothsayer alone would convince like 90% of rock fans you are cool - but instead his solo spot on the gig is him dancing and using ninja toys.) It could have worked.

Bands as good as old GNR don't just come along every 5 mins. There's very few people in the world with such good skills and chemestry. I think most of the delays were basicly Axl trying to find people he doesn't massively upstage.

He's managed to make a kickass album in the end! It's just a shame the pragmatics of that made it hard for the public to be presented with one clear version of what GNR is.

That's called Chinese Democracy...they just were not in the same room when it went down!

Speaking of autotune....

Sounds like its going on here in the word "given" but maybe its my ears.

Didn't perla actually hit slash once or did I imagine that?

Awesome!

Looking forward to seeing what the line up is and what CD songs they do.

Hope this is the first of many shows.