Thanks to Mack Arillo:

On this last European leg of the tour, we sometimes weren't all together in the same city except for the performance itself. On a few occasions, we weren't even in the same country. Our plane could drop some of us here and others there.

On July 5, 1993, we all rendezvoused in Barcelona for a huge outdoor show at the Olympic Stadium. Axl came in from Venice. I returned from who a visit with Linda to the Spanish island of Ibiza. Slash was already in Barcelona.

After Suicidal Tendencies and Brian May had played their opening sets, our manager, Doug Goldstein, sent an oddly formal request to see me and Slash before the show. This was unusual.

When Slash and I arrived at the vibe room, one of the tour managers was sitting there waiting for us. The guy was clutching some papers. He put a slim stack of pages down in front of each of us. I leafed through it. It was a legal document giving Axl the right to continue to play as Guns N' Roses even if either Slash or I - or both of us - were not part of it. Though it didn't affect our status as shareholders in the operation, Axl and Axl alone would control the name if we signed this agreement.

"What the fuck?" I said.

"Look man," the tour manager said. "The truth is, you guys are not in good shape - you know that yourselves. If one of you dies, nobody wants to have to spend years in court battling your families or whatever."

That was not what it said, however. There was nothing about death in these documents.

With the crowd outside already getting rowdy, the guy then implied Axl wouldn't go onstage that night unless we signed the documents.

I pictured people getting hurt if a riot started - at least that was my fear. And I was so fucking exhausted - it felt as though I'd been dragging a house around behind me for the last two years. Besides, at the time I never thought GN'R could possibly exist without us. The idea seemed ridiculous. And in that case, maybe the documents didn't need to be fixed?

Fuck it.

I signed, so did Slash.

Guns N' Roses - the trademark now owned by Axl - took the stage.

The next day, I grabbed Doug Goldstein on the tarmac at the airport. I had woken up really upset about what had happened the previous night. Slash and I shouldn't have signed those papers. But management wouldn't let the whole thing go forward anyway. Right? I shouted at Doug, saying he needed to fix things.

"Look, Duff," he said, "you're a smart guy. I manage Guns N' Roses."

"Yeah, I know, Doug. And that's why we have to - "

"No, you're not getting it

"Are you trying to tell me you manage the name Guns N' Roses?"

I was still a member of the band. Not a paid hand. Slash and I still had the same equity stake as before. We had just relinquished control of the name.

Doug looked at me with no expression.

"You manage the guy who owns the name Guns N' Roses - is where you're going, Doug?"

He shrugged. That was where he was going.

I was apoplectic with rage. I couldn't even speak.

We boarded the plane.

Only five more shows in Europe. Five. More. Shows.

You can make it.

After twenty-six months, the final concerts of the Use Your Illusion tour appeared on the horizon.

I believe you're right with the Satch connection, only that he recommended Ron to them in 2004. This is when Ron made his connection with Guns public, and things went a bit haywire when the control freaks of the organization got wind of it.

IMO, Ron showed some character to jump back in to the bandwagon in 2006 to save their sorry asses.

I think that's a pretty fair assessment on how Axl approaches his song-writing. He probably comes up with the outlines to piano-based songs, but a lot of time he does seem to want a band that's able to "complete" him, offering him raw material which he can tinker with.

Axl's strength are lyrics and production. This is the way it has been since the original Guns. If you have a solid band, which can work out backing tracks amongst themselves and put an epic solo there for good measure, all Axl "needs" to do is to come up with the words and up the ante.

This is why the old band came up with such good music. It was organic, with four people in the room coming up stuff for Ax to elevate. When the foundation is good, he can do that. If you stick a lot of stuff into ProTools in an attempt to mimic that process, it'll become patchy and additional production won't save the crumbling structure - a problem CD oft suffers from.

Thanks for the breakdown.

I would think his voice therefore wears a bit during a show, which hurts particularly the high notes. Whatever one thinks of LALD, the amount of those screams alone always gets to me. It's a bit of a showoff, but you'd think he'd give it a rest if he'd feel his voice couldn't handle it.

A month after the SA tour Guns will be in the East Coast, which is big money district and he needs to show up on time and pack a good punch to ensure his pension fund is well taken care of.

But throw in Catcher, Going Down (be it a Stone Roses cover or not) and Oh My God and a lot of the problems would go away.

Whoa. 128 pages.

Kudos to all of you guys. Despite how many heated words are exchanged in this thread or elsewhere, you all definitely have a passion for this band and the material they present us with.

To sum up: Estranged was rad, and everybody obviously wanted the rest of the show to be on par with that. Not only because it was THE big show, but because this lineup this lineup has the chops to take a classic like that and do a pitch-perfect rendition of what made the UYI-era GNR the biggest band in the world.

At least during that one song, I looked past Axl's age, stormtrooper helmets, mumbled lyrics, hissy fits and whatever. They rocked on that, and they rocked hard.

Axl, please. Let this band grow, they're good enough to carry you.

Let's hope Ax doesn't whack himself after this one.

The Nov Rain closing - he omits "nevermind the darkness..." as well as "nothing lasts forever...".

He just goes back to "I know that you can love me / when there's no-one left to blame".

I'm not trying to be a Devil's advocate here, but the repetition of that line made me consider it from a different angle. "When I'm gone, you'll forgive me."

The thought gave me goosebumps, as well as many other portions of the show.

But we'll know soon enough where this train is heading.