I don't want this to seem negative as I love GNR, but when I think of the band I often think of that disney pirate quote "Take All You Can and Give Nothing Back".

I think GNR are the priates of the music world. They were basically street dudes who made good.

They've always had that sort of attitude - In Slash's book he told of crashing vans for fun to see how many times Geffen would replace them, we know that the band used label negotiations as a way to dine out large for months with no intention of signing to any of them.

You see it over and over again in the history of the band - from their interactions with others to the disputes between each other.

I'm not saying they're not artists because they are - Axl is a top-list all time front man  and songwriter, Slash is the guitarist of his generation. 

But at the same time they've always had a "fuck the world before it fucks you" mindset.

I wouldn't call it entitlement exactly (ironically that's what they accuse the fans of) but the GNR journey has always been about what they can get out of the deal. They like to make people happy as well I guess - but I think it's a secondary consideration.

Respectfully disagree there.

Axl was strong and great in 2016, but for much of 2017 he wasn't vocally at his best.

I think Slash saved these shows and gave them the credibility they had.

I'm quite fond of bumble and the other guys - but it was really Slash back that made this the big reunion event it was - I like Duff - but Duff with Ashba and Axl singing as he did in 2017 would have just been a modest year like say 2013 or 2012 was.

For me I think the problems are:

1. Diagnosed or Not, and ok it's his personal business, but it's obvious from the public symptoms and testimony of others,  Axl has not always been in the best mental health. He had to take control of the band so as not to be fired for it - but history has shown the pressure of that has taken its toll over the years.

2. A lot of people in the music business are criminals - unfortunately this interacts with Axl's situation so that he gets less trustful, more paranoid, and then acts in ways that self-harm in order to punish people who tried to screw him.

3. The pirate mentality I mentioned above. Maybe it's rock and roll mentality I dunno. But they will feed the fans only after they eat first, and they're pretty hungry. A good example of this is no reunion album. They didn't need to do one to sell out. So they didn't. Other bands would do it for the desire to do it alone...but GNR is about what they can take...and it wasn't needed.

I hate to sound that cynical cos I do love the band and the music, but as they say "it is what it is" and that's how it seems to be - after being a fan for something like 28 years now.

My issue with the concert is that vocally it's not one of Axl's best nights.

Like most of the 2009 and 2010 shows (which had the same line up and many of which were proshot) he was amazing.

So why release that one?

Yeah but I see this as a bit of a chicken-egg thing.

Like you take a guy who is hooked on drugs, then take away from him an achievement most could only dream of and would be nearly impossible to replicate, so he falls further into a slump and takes decades to quit the habit. Then the fact that he stayed in a slump is used to justify talking his life away from him. But would it have gone that way if things were different?

I feel the same about Y2k. They use it as a joke now how we all prepared for it and then nothing happened, but did nothing happen because of the preparations?

That's concerning. Does it fit the clues about divorces and recent touring? I'm not familiar with pumpkins history in recent times.