I think CD and CB are both great albums. I think one of the differences for the sales is probably the ease with which VR use the media. When CB came out VR were ALL over the media, television, interviews...there was saturation level coverage of Slash and co in rock newsoutlets for a while.

Bh was totally not a worse case senario...in contrast it was a step in the right direction. The original GNR was popular because of everyone, but a large part of things was Axl's voice and Slash's guitar. The loss of slash left a hole in the guitar department, the addition of bucket brought in a guitarist that was clearly at virtuoso level and thus a guitarist that could be respected by guitarist type fans.

While I agree that immage is everything these days, BH's image serves to make him more memorable to a non-guitariast than the other guitar masters such as Gilbert. So i think people see him as "that freak with the deadly guitar skills"...sure he cops a lot for it...but at the end of the day he can back it up in playing. I'll grant it wouldn't have helped but I think more of an issue for the 2002 line up was Axl's change to the urban gangster look, and Robin's variation on the solos and general apperance. For whatever reason circa 2002 Axl's voice appeared to have different qualities too, and I don't think that would have helped people dig it as GNR. You have a new band, with a new style voice, new style of guitar parts, and a host of different unexplained appearances all at once. Tough for the mass market to handle.

holy fuck...watching that reminds me of the chemestry izzy, slash and duff have.
I forget sometiems I think cos i'm in to the new music so much.
I was hoping for this kind of magic in velvet revolver...maybe on the 3rd album when that ever surfaces...or on Slash's next solo outing.

I've long thought that Doug Aldrich (who's presently with whitesnake but gets around) would be an intresting choice for GNR.

He has a very strong blues vibe to his playing (ala Slash/Robin) yet also has a very capiable technical shred side for breaking out of the blues box. In whitesnake he's more than happy to be a co-lead guitarist and share solos and stuff, so I think that he'd be comftorable with the shared guitar duties in GNR.

I think the future of this band also is heavily concerned with bumble. I know he doesnt get a lot of love round here, but he is a technically amazing player, and its he who added all those rhythm parts and polish that got the guitar parts of the album up to release standard for Axl.

Bumble and Aldrich would blow my mind.

I'll be up for live footage if it's done well.

Like live footage where you see the solo's being played in time and shit and see some of Axl's passion would be awesome.

I won't like it if its badly edited so a guitar solo is playing while the guitarists are clearly strumming a power chord or something, and if the best bits of the song with no vocals cut away to like footage of the stage being built or something.

So depends how it's done. if it captures the awesome energy of Axl live...it could be great to watch and potentially something to show to people to arouse interest in the band.