2006 there was a reason to be excited. Post 2009? Not so much. Nothing was ever going to materialize out of that situation. EVER.

If you ever wanted new music....now there's a chance.

I'm happy for Adler. Yeah he's made major mistakes(we all have) and the fan base seems divided on the guy but he's waited 25 years for tonight.

Mama's Good Boy wrote:

This question was posed in a different era.   Pre-DJ Ashba era.    The prospect of new material AND touring with Robin/Tommy/Richard was appealing and the animosity between the Axl and Slash camps were at an all time high.   

Fast forward 8-10 years and its just a different situation.     Replacements of replacements leave the band.   I think Axl even stopped pretending to care about releasing new material..   

Patching things up with Slash all the sudden was the best choice.

I don't agree exactly. Axl ALWAYS cared about releasing new music. I can't remember who it was here at Evo (might've been Apex), who said from day one Axl met resistence from the label. Axl was ready to put out CD by 2000, 2001 at the latest. The label were the ones who felt it wasn't ready. When they rejected the album, especially in his emotional state at the time, that was a HUGE ego blow. Not to mention Axl had brought in big name producers such as Moby, Youth, Roy Thomas Baker and the legend himself Bob Ezrin, Ezrin of which summed it up as there wasn't much he could do to salvage Chinese, because there were no singles on the album. And there weren't at that time. Better came after the fact. Chinese didn't catch (and never would have), and Street of Dreams would've been a horrible single. The only things that album had that could've been marketed was Better and TWAT. And I stand by that.

Fast-forward to Chinese II in recent years. The label gave Axl NO support on the Chinese release. Every manager he hired tried to double-cross him into a reunion, and the label had pretty much made it clear that they would no release any future GN'R material. Axl also couldn't get live stuff released without Slash's consent, and both of them went back and forth with who would veto the other's live concert DVD/CD.

After awhile Axl just got beat down, and the cross of GN'R/AFD that he thought would be there to protect him, keep him in the band (when Niven tried to constantly get him fired), actually ended up becoming too much of a burden for Axl.

Axl was stuck. He couldn't release material. He couldn't get more than 5,000 people out to a show. And the label was constantly a pain in his ass. After awhile he just gave in, when he was finally ready.

For all we know Axl could've LOVED DJ Ashba's material... means nothing... label would've never released it and never promoted it.

All of this was a stare down at a poker game that Axl lost years ago when Slash left the band. Uni just was waiting to see when Axl finally figured it out and was willing to fold his cards at the table and give his ego away.

Steven is there!!!!