Wembley Arena
Sunday 30th July 2006
reviewed by Cars
main page
I had been told the support act would be on at 6.30. I assumed that would be Bullet For My Valentine, a band I constantly hype throughout this site & a big reason why I was looking forward to tonight so much. However, at 7.15 still no Bullet & then a man appeared on stage saying that the next act was banned from Wembley for life back in 1991. My instant thought was "oh, Skid Row were banned from the Stadium back then". Then he shouts "here's Sebastian Bach". OH MY GOD! Seb was the singer for Skid Row for their first 3 albums & EP & is my favourite singer in the world bar none! To see him was just fantastic. He is so underated & is what every rock star should be - in your face, an amazing voice, cocky & visually like Taz on a ton of caffeine! He played mainly Skid Row songs which I happily sang all the words to (even if nobody else was!). He didn't seem to care or even be aware that a lot of people were unsure who he was. By the end of it the crowd were eating out of his hand. During Here I Am the sound cut from the guitars so he just stood there singing Wasted Time a capella instead. He informed us he had played Sheffield, Birmingham, Nottingham "& all sorts of other fields & hams!" but it was Wembley he loved. Cheesy but everyone lapped it up. I won't go on anymore about him as I have two other bands to cram into this review but hearing him singing 18 & Life was probably my gig highlight of the year.
Setlist:
Slave To The Grind, Big Guns, Here I Am, Wasted Time (a capella), Piece Of Me, 18 & Life, Stuck Inside, The Threat, unknown song (that he dedicated to George Blair & Tony Bush! lol), Monkey Business, By Your Side, Take You Down With Me, I Remember You, Youth Gone Wild.
I was really pleased to see so many of the crowd wearing Bullet For My Valentine t'shirts. I won't go into how huge they're going to be yet again but I'm so pleased they will have reached an older audience with these shows so they're not just dismissed as another teeny band. They were as ever top notch. A little disappointed they only played for 40 minutes, especially as Seb was on an hour. Still though they rocked & looked very at home in the Arena enviroment which is just as well since they'll be selling them out themselves soon! Highlights were Her Voice Resides, Cries In Vain & of course the already classic track that is Tears Don't Fall.
(setlist coming soon after I've nicked it from Prodigal!)
Now, I'd heard horrible rumours in the toilet queue (which all ladies reading this will appreciate is a very long queue!) that GN'R didn't arrive onstage in Glasgow until midnight! After chatting to the girl at the merchandise stall I found out the night before he hadn't turned up until gone 11. Knowing I had to get my last tube by 11.30 that worried me a great deal!
So, as we sat in our seats laughing at the Velvet Revolver t'shirt wearers & noting that the Chinese Democracy stage decoration looked like it had been provided by Del Boy, we didn't hold out much hope of seeing Axl at all!
However, at 10.20 the opening riff for Welcome To The Jungle came through & I scarcly remember hearing a crowd raw so loudly. The first 4 songs were faultless & it was great. Huge flames during Live & Let Die, Axl's dodgy snake-like dancing during Mr Brownstone. If you squinted so you couldn't see Axl's bizarre appearance you could nearly have been back in 1992. Then it turned pretty weird. One of the guitarists did an awful guitar solo incorporating God Save The Queen. It was nearly saved during Sweet Child O'Mine. Knockin' On Heavens Door started promising but Axl for reasons known only to him didn't do the "aye, aye, aye, aye, yeah" on the end of each chorus line. After that it was just odder than ever. Dizzy Reed was bought to the centre of the stage for a keyboard solo which was pointless. A new song was next which to be fair was okay but after that yet another guitar solo from one of the other band members. Why? GN'R have enough material to do a different set for 3 or 4 nights so why fill it with solos? Especially when it's not with the likes of Slash or Duff. Dizzy aside nobody knew or cared who the rest of the band were anyway. At that point we had to leave to get our train.
I'm pleased I saw Axl. I'm loathed to say I saw Guns N'Roses because really I saw Axl & a tribute band. It might have got fantastic from when we left but I doubt it.
Setlist (up until we had to go):
Welcome To The Jungle
It's So Easy
Mr Brownstone
Live & Let Die
(pointless guitar solo)
Sweet Child O' Mine
Knockin' On Heavens Door
(pointless keyboard solo)
unknown song from "new" album
(another pointless guitar solo)
Sebastian Bach - 10 out 10
BFMV - 9 out of 10
GN'R - 6 out of 10
Were you at gig?
Go to message board to vent!
