Music

Guns N’ Roses

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I bought tickets for Guns N’ Roses for myself, son, daughter and son-in-law on February 10th 2021. We finally got to use them last night, November 22nd 2022, after a covid inspired year-long delay. And I’m pleased to say there wasn’t a mask in sight. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any of course, because the concert was at the local football stadium so it was somewhat difficult to tell whether the amorphous mass on the other side of the field actually comprised people, let alone people with bandannas on their faces.

Congratulations Brisbane! The Gunners managed to get more people into the stadium than most of our sporting teams although, to be fair, you can’t actually take a chair out into the middle of the field during a game. I’ve had enough of sitting (or mostly standing) in front of the stage so we go for seats on the side, looking down on the stage from a 30-45 degree angle. The promoters don’t miss you when it comes to the cost of these seats and I paid top dollar to be able to see not much on the stage to be honest. But the big screens either side of the stage were BIG so my initial reluctance to go to a stadium concert (this was my first) and my disquiet when I saw how far away we were (despite, as I may have just mentioned, the price of the tickets) was assuaged when the gig got underway and the visual and sound and fury hit us full-on.

I just read a review of the concert and the reviewer made the point that there aren’t many stadium fillers in the music world these days including the Gunners – there were a lot of empty seats. If you’d asked my opinion on this when the music started I’d have agreed but a couple of songs in, when the lights scanned the arena it was clear that many people in the stadium bars were not throwing that last beer down for anyone. Twenty minutes in, the only areas not filled were those behind light towers and other impediments. So the reviewer obviously didn’t turn round after the first few songs. And I can tell you this for nothing, this little black duck won’t be attending concerts by those remaining few noted stadium fillers like Cold Play and Ed Sheeran.

Actually the people who finished their beers rather than catch the first couple of songs did themselves a favour because it took that long for Axl to get his mojo. Initially he looked and sounded like me doing “It’s So Easy” in a Ginza karaoke bar. By the time we got to “Welcome to the Jungle” he was sweating and snarling and looking mildly deranged and it was game-on. Speaking of how he looked, minus the bandanna, long hair and beard I couldn’t decide whether he was morphing into Kiefer Sutherland, impersonating Shane Warne or auditioning for Derek Jakobi’s “I Claudius” (you have to be able to remember back to 1976/77 for that one).

Axl’s always had a reputation for being somewhat unreliable. The sound curfew may have had something to do with them kicking off a 7.00pm scheduled start at a respectable 7.10pm but he also seemed to be making an extra effort to stay onside (that’s two football references in one sentence) by having Aussie badges sewn into the parts of his jeans that weren’t holes. And he must have spent the afternoon in a souvenir shop because he changed his t-shirt about eight times and each one had something antipodean on it except the one that said “Satan is a Lesbian”. Alright!

Much as the sound i.e. the actual music, is vital to the whole, if the singer isn’t on song, so to speak, the performance lacks something. The concert went for bang-on three hours and the time flew by, I have to admit. But it could have been shortened and improved (IMHO) by cutting a few songs that Axl struggled with. His once incredible range came out to play occasionally but sometimes he seemed uncertain as to whether to bang it up an octave to banshee or remain in the safe baritone range. Sometimes that decision was taken mid-sentence and occasionally mid-word. But let’s not quibble – to churn out that volume for that long is seriously impressive.

The musicians and musicianship were as you would expect. Duff’s base is still making my organs vibrate and did anyone ever tell him he looks like a dishevelled David Bowie. They have a Ronnie Wood lookalike guitarist (while we’re doing appearance comparisons) called Richard Fortus and there’s not much of him which is emphasised by his playing a huge Gretsch White Falcon guitar. And he can really play it. They let him off the leash a few times and his lead work was very good even if the weight of the guitar seemed to be dragging him closer and closer to the floor. But no matter how good he is, he or anyone for that matter, playing in a band that has Slash in it, will always be the rhythm guitarist. The songs are always the stars of these shows but Slash’s playing was not far behind. We got the full range from finger picking acoustic to rip-roaring, fire-breathing electric 12 string on a twin necked Gibson and everything in between.

There were three other musicians who were stuck up the back – the drummer and two keyboardists – who rarely figured on the big screen. One of them is a rather attractive young blonde lady who we saw about three times on the big screen and not at all on the stage because there was a light tower right in front of her from where we were sitting. My unmarried son was most disappointed.

And here’s the set list:

It’s So Easy
Mr. Brownstone
Chinese Democracy
Slither (Velvet Revolver cover)
Welcome to the Jungle (Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’ intro)
Reckless Life
Double Talkin’ Jive
Live and Let Die (Wings cover)
Shadow of Your Love
Estranged
Rocket Queen
You’re Crazy
You Could Be Mine
I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges cover) (Duff on lead vocals)
Absurd
Hard Skool
Better
Civil War (Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” outro)
Sorry
(followed by band introductions)
Slash Guitar Solo
Sweet Child o’ Mine
November Rain
Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb cover)
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan cover)
Nightrain
Encore:
Coma
Patience (The Beatles’ “Blackbird” intro)
Don’t Cry
Paradise City

I know, I know. Witchita Lineman?? I guess if they can have a Paul McCartney song they can have a Glen Campbell song.

Melissa’s Fight-Night

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My television viewing is fairly limited. I like the occasional movie or Netflix series but mostly it’s sport and politics. So at the moment it’s the first cricket test between Australia and England and opinion shows on Sky News Australia and Fox News from the USA. I know that last bit will get me branded a racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, climate denying, white supremacist by the socialist doctors’ wives collective but such are the burdens we who espouse common sense and human nature as our fundamental political tenets, are made to carry. For the child bride it’s who-dunnits, real estate, food and politics. She hated cricket until she met me.

Anyway, to the point of all of this. Last night in the early evening, we had exhausted the TV options so put on some music. If one is going to drink, one is much happier with accompaniment. When I say we put on some music I don’t mean we downloaded onto my phone some stuff from the iTunes Store and bluetoothed my phone to a stand alone speaker. I mean we physically took one of hundreds of CD’s from our CD cabinet, put it into a CD slot in our stereo player and turned up the volume. Call me old-fashioned.

The CB chose Melissa Etheridge, someone who would have no truck with my TV viewing choices, I’m sure. But then her sexual preferences don’t particularly appeal to me and her choice of father for two of her children (carried by someone else incidentally) – David Crosby – implies some potential genetic foibles down the track. Notwithstanding, we like her music. In fact we like it to the extent that we’ve seen her in concert, twice.

The first time was December 1995 when she accompanied The Eagles on their Hell Freezes Over Tour. The second time was in April 1996 when she toured on her own. And that, in a very roundabout way, is the subject of this very digressionary missive.

The concert was performed at an office building site which was then occupied by Festival Hall. That same office building now houses our financial advisor. Considerably more fun was had there when it was Festival Hall until it was demolished in 2003. Great concerts in a cosy environment included Yes, The Eagles (on their 1976 tour), Status Quo and, of course Melissa. Plus there was boxing and cheering for the bad guys while being showered with blood at World Championship Wrestling (RIP legends like Skull Murphy and Killer Kowalski). And the wrestling was legit back then – really. But not as legit as what we saw after the Melissa Etheridge concert – I’ll get to that. We even went to the Roller Game once – LA Thunderbirds v New York Bombers. I’ll never forget my father on his feet yelling “come on Ronnie” as Ronnie Rains literally ran round the track wearing roller skates and flung himself over a collapsed pack to win the game with seconds to go. That was legit too.

So, back to Melissa. On entering Festival Hall with the CB and her sister, I was somewhat perturbed to notice a paucity of males. In fact there was me and another bloke a couple of rows away. We exchanged nervous glances and girded our loins for the oestrogen express that was about to shirt-front us. We were seated in an elevated spot on the side. There was a seating area on the floor in front of us and a large block of seats was unoccupied until a few minutes before the concert when an army of buzz-cut flaunting, overall wearing, brickies labourers arrived. I think it was a busload of the Gold Coast chapter of Muffs Anonymous. And they were all pissed so you can imagine the hijinks….and the noise. To their credit though, they did confine the raucosity to between songs.

Melissa was thrilled she had such a devoted cheer squad which was basically everyone there except me and the other bloke (and the CB and her sister). And she played up to them by at one point commenting on how hot it was and how “moist” she was. The sisterhood swooned with orgasmic delight. Two people rolled their eyes. At that point I started to feel really sorry for her backing band – all males. After a rock concert usually the band (and the roadies) can look forward to the star’s cast-offs at the after-concert party but there would be no nooky for these poor bastards unless they were gay and played with each other both on and off the stage.

An ablution solution was also problematic for the girls (the straight ones). Neither of the two sitting with me had the courage to relieve themselves either alone or collectively for the duration of our time there. For me and the other bloke – not a problem apart from running the gauntlet of what could potentially be a resentful and hostile clutch. I’d have rather invaded a Hells Angels clubhouse dressed as the Village People policeman.

To give Melissa her due, she put on a good show and no doubt incited all manner of goings on afterwards. The Gold Coast bus driver would have seen some shenanigans through his rear-view mirror on the way back to broad beach, sorry Broadbeach.

However not everyone was happy. As the throng made its way down Albert Street towards the carpark a hullabaloo started somewhere close by. There was a lot of shouting as a red faced, ball fisted, hellcat stormed through the crowd, obviously looking for someone. That someone had attended the concert without her now apoplectic “friend” and she was cowering only a few metres away from us.

“Where’ve you been, you cunt” screamed the hellcat. And before the poor girl had a chance to open her mouth, HC smacked her with a right hook that wouldn’t have been out of place inside Festival Hall when Hector Thompson was on the card (you’ll have to look him up). She went down like the proverbial bag of shit and as the obviously alpha member of that partnership glowered over her beta’s shaking, crumpled body, we made our way to the carpark lest she make eye contact with one of us. You can’t beat a bout of brutal lesbian violence to round-off a pleasant evening.

Twanging the Wires

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I’ve been promising myself to do this for ages and finally bit the bullet – I started guitar lessons this year. Actually “started” isn’t precisely the right word as my first guitar lesson was last century when I was 15 years old and it was conducted at my high school. The first turned out to be the only one with this teacher because, I can’t remember how but the professional musician father of a friend of my brother’s, offered to teach me around about the same time. I had one lesson with him before he left his family and buggered off with a woman other than his wife so that was the end of that. To complete this family’s story, my brother’s now ex-friend is wanted in connection with the murder of his wife and three kids. There’s a $1,000,000 reward for information leading to the solving of that case. I could make a joke about the Jackson family and the Osmond family and the Manson family but won’t. So I decided to teach myself, as you do.

I’ve had a guitar since I was 15 (I now have seven) and I pulled it out occasionally over the years and ever so gradually gained a modicum of proficiency although, to be fair, my guitar playing is to Eric Clapton what my mother’s driving is to Lewis Hamilton.

But I needed some incentive to focus more time and effort if I was to improve and my Brazilian employers from some years back managed to do that, bless them. The Brazilian people I worked with in the world’s second largest resources company were mostly (there are always exceptions, right) the nicest people imaginable – friendly, pleasant and smart. How the corporate culture got so poisonous I am yet to fathom. I left this company in 2009 after three tumultuous years during which I spent more time with lawyers than customers and I was the marketing general manager. Litigation with a smile. And with persistent and acrimonious litigation comes stress. And what’s a great way to relieve stress? There are many obvious ways including the Jeffrey Toobin method (look it up – he hilariously still works for CNN) or the way I chose – playing the guitar.

I’ve mentioned this previously but the finish to my Brazilian corporate experience was bitter/sweet – rather frustrating but a blessing in disguise. The poisonous culture got me. Admittedly, I provoked it and it was a bit bigger than me but they claimed I jumped the shark. Unlike The Fonz there would be no more repeats for me.

Taking a step back, when I play (the guitar) I can’t concentrate on anything else thereby alleviating stress – that’s how this works. I guess anything that requires the use of two hands and a brain fits that bill. But I’m a shit carpenter so making furniture was out so I took up lessons again. One term later with a teacher who wanted to eliminate all of the bad habits I had picked up over decades of playing with myself (errr), I realised this wasn’t working but I had found the work ethic again and dedicated myself to improvement.

I’ve read a lot of music biographies and auto (laugh out loud) biographies and most of them are forgettable even those describing the most fabulous and depraved careers – I guess you had to be there. It was the Guns ‘N Roses boys who did it for me. The best book I read in this genre was Duff McKagan’s (he’s the Gunners’ bass player) although that is irrelevant to this story. More relevant is his band-mate Slash who told me (via his book) that he practiced 12 hours a day. That point stuck in my mind and inspired me to do nothing remotely like this. Which is why I will never be as good as Slash. That and a decided gap in our respective natural abilities.

Slash and Duff doing their thing

What I did discover is that you can only carry yourself so far. A combination of indolence and red wine was conspiring to carry me even shorter distances. I had plateaued and needed a mountaineer. So I found a teacher and the first things he said to me were “show me what you can do” and “what else do you want to be able to do”. That was all I needed to hear. So in another year or two of intense practice I’ll be able to finger pick Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and there won’t be a bar chord that I haven’t heard of. The child bride is getting heartily sick of hearing mangled versions of Streets of London and Landslide as I try to train my right thumb and three of the four fingers to at least appear to be cooperating.

It works for me to the extent that I’ve even written a few songs. Just in time for the revival of vinyl records which is just as well because how else do you get a song into the Top 40?

A Bit More of the Music Died – RIP Tom Petty

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I wrote this on January 19th, 2016, the day after Glen Fry died. I am repeating it here on the occasion of the untimely passing of Tom Petty, one of my all-time favourites. The sentiments are unchanged.

A Tribute to Glen Frey and Those Who Preceded Him

Back in the day, to succeed in the entertainment business you had to firstly have some talent. It wasn’t necessary to be the Stephen Hawking of your field but you had to have something unique plus a work ethic and perseverance such that what talent you had was honed into something an audience would respond to – positively hopefully. As a youngster with musical ambitions you pick up a guitar or a violin or sit at a piano and play it until it emits something that doesn’t replicate the old finger nails down a blackboard sound. You write some lyrics that initially sound like the sort of crap regularly produced by rap so-called “artists”. You know the stuff – like the doggerel graffiti we used to scrawl on toilet walls as kids. And then you write something else. Then you listen to and watch those whose work inspires you. Then you do it all again.

The people who succeeded kept at it. It took the Stones for example, years to write an acceptable (to them) song. They and their peers all practiced and worked and starved and practiced and took some drugs to stay awake so they could practice some more. They performed in shit-holes in front of drunks but gradually the decor improved and the audience sobered up and the venues grew. Think of those who have stood the test of time either through their music or as performers – the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Kiss, AC DC, the Who, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac (versions I and II) Guns N Roses, Status Quo, the Doobie Brothers, Grateful Dead, David Bowie, Dylan, Lemmy and locally, people like Barnesy and Chisel.

The Eagles epitomise this. Compare their really early live work (still pretty good admittedly) to what they have turned out in recent years. Some people call it over-produced and just too perfect. Others appreciate the talent, the time and the work that goes into producing works of art, whether you like it rough round the edges or smooth as silk. But you can’t deny the mastery that produces the words and music of Hotel California.

Glen Frey died today and at 67 still had years of excellence ahead of him. It’s hard to imagine the Eagles carrying on without him and I’m not sure they should. We saw them five times over 39 years – every time they came to Brisbane. And I’ll still be listening to their music and watching their shows long after Australia’s Got Talent and The Voice and other shouting competitions have been confined to the garbage can of history.

Speaking of instant fame, it’s interesting to observe how people get noticed now compared with the pre social media and reality TV days of yore. Consider the following – a drug habit, a drink problem, a troubled childhood preferably with one parent and even better (cynically) the victim of abuse, an early brush with fame (we used to call this being a “groupie), regular wardrobe malfunctions, a stint in jail for unpaid traffic offences or drug induced shoplifting, some plastic surgery, a sex tape, a stint as a celebrity lesbian, the subject of unsubstantiated rumours, abusing a Twitter account, having “colourful identities” as friends, hooking up with someone exactly like you and generally behaving like a wanker. If you can tick half a dozen of those boxes, welcome to the world of celebrity. This automatically makes you an expert on climate change, famines, world peace and nail polish and gets you on the judging panels of those short-cut to fame and fortune (closely followed by obscurity again) talent shows.

Assuming there’s a rock and roll heaven, Glen Fry and Bowie and Jack Bruce and Jerry Garcia and Roy Orbison and Lou Reed and now Tom Petty and all those members of the 27 club like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Gram Parsons and Janis Joplin must be wondering why they bothered.

But I, for one, am glad they persevered and practiced and worked and drank and partied and shagged (all work and no play makes Keith a dull boy). Because out of all of that came the music of our time.