JOIN US'It was like an 80s' jukebox playing'
It’s not everyday that a band you grew up listening to comes to your City and plays a three-hour long set.
Expectedly, the concert by the legendary American rock band, ‘Guns N’ Roses’, was the best thing to have happened to thousands of fans, who eagerly made their way to Bhartiya City to experience their music live on Friday.
After a short but powerful opening set by local rock band, ‘Thermal and a Quarter’, frontman Axl Rose took the stage, followed by guitarists Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal, DJ Ashba and Richard Fortus, bassist Tommy Stinson, drummer Frank Ferrer and keyboardist Chris Pitman.
The band started their set with ‘Chinese Democracy’, which was all that was needed to get the crowd’s adrenaline pumping! A lot of their popular songs were performed — ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, ‘Estranged’, ‘Don’t Cry’, ‘November Rain’, ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’, ‘Civil War’ and ‘Paradise City’ among others, which the audience sung along with.
Interestingly, a lot of covers were also belted out, with the likes of ‘Knockin' on Heaven's Door’ (Bob Dylan), ‘The Seeker’ (The Who), ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’ (Neil Young) and ‘Another Brick in the Wall part 2’ (Pink Floyd) to name a few.
At some point or the other, each of the musicians also got to perform a solo, with Richard Fortus’ guitar solo of ‘Blacklight Jesus of Transylvania’, Dizzy Reed’s piano solo to Led Zeppelin’s ‘No Quarter’ or even DJ Ashba’a guitar solo of ‘Ballad of Death’.
Over 25,000 people sang and enjoyed the music of the yesteryears, with most of them leaving with a smile on their face. “It was one of the longest international performances I’ve seen in India and it was worth the money to watch a band like ‘Guns N’ Roses’ live for three hours. I had thought I’d mind the fact that ‘Slash’ was missing. But DJ Ashba
totally rocked it. It was a mesmerising evening!” shares Gaurav N, an audience member.
According to Arnav Vishwasrao, who attended the concert, it was a well-arranged set list.
“The one thing they got right was putting the classics between the not-so-popular songs. Putting all of them back-to-back wouldn’t have worked.” He adds, “The concert was like an 80s’ jukebox playing. It was quite a good turnout, contrary to what I’d expected.”
But the one thing that seemed to tick off a lot of people was the layout. The platinum pass holders were further away from the stage than the cheaper gold pass holders, who were only a few feet away from the band. The worst off were the silver pass holders, who practically had to see the entire show in the screen.