![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() It’s possibly a reach, but this run up to full-on touring with his own band could also have been a good exercise in being part of a band again, rather than the band, in a situation where fucking around simply wouldn’t be tolerated. Though he’d clearly learned something about humility and being reasonable from the fact that Guns were back together at all, one imagines that being in a stadium-sized situation in which he wasn’t The Boss was a lesson only a band like AC/DC – bigger, from before his time, a famously tight ship – could have taught. When everything looked screwed for AC/DC – Brian Johnson going, Malcolm Young having to retire, Phil Rudd being arrested and sentenced to eight months house arrest – here was a tour that didn’t bring things limping to a halt, but determinedly came out fighting.īut it can be argued that this tour did something for Axl as well. And rather than disappoint ticket holders, what actually happened was that AC/DC gave fans a genuinely new moment, something unplanned, but brilliant. It was different, but not that different. If we were there to do the show, he was there, and he was there at the same time as us, ready to go.” We said, ‘Okay, we’ve got to get some rehearsals to get this happening’, and he fully committed and went about it very professionally. ![]() “I’d heard a lot of things, but I talked to him one-on-one and he was very respectful to me and the others,” recalled Angus Young. Even if he did have to do the shows on a throne after doing his foot in at the Troubadour show. Plus, though it raised eyebrows, it might shake things up a bit, get some new energy in the room. Some said it wouldn’t work, but truthfully, a more fitting fit to fill the vacant singer role in Acca-Dacca would be hard to find.įor AC/DC, here was a killer frontman, a singer with the same brawling vocal style as Brian Johnson or Bon Scott, who wasn’t a stranger to stadium stages. But when properly harnessed, he can Make It Happen. Unfocussed, it results in drama and shitshows, like Guns’ appearance at Download 2006 or Reading 2010. Unpredictable, uncontrollable and occasionally un-easy to get on with as he may be, though, Axl is also a man with a devastating energy to him. Knowingly, the subsequent tour was dubbed – in honour of a comment about the unlikelihood of the whole thing – Not In This Lifetime… Even more knowingly, the first show, a surprise gig at LA’s Troubadour, took place on April 1. It was a genuine surprise that it actually happened, that the relationships were repaired, that Axl had appeared to have backed down and allowed such a thing to come to pass. Remember when that guy Buckethead was playing guitar and then he wasn’t and someone else you didn’t know was? Same thing. Even with band members leaving the line-up in the two years leading up to Slash and Duff McKagan getting back on board, it would have been folly to read anything into it – it was simply dudes leaving. Nobody can pretend that they saw the Guns N’ Roses reunion of 2016 coming. Besides, Guns were never getting back together anytime soon, so it’s a moot point. Who would actually want to invite him in, and who would have the clout to get him to agree anyway? They’d have to be even bigger than Guns N’ Roses. Two? You’re being guffawed into the next county. At one point, had you bet that Axl Rose would be the man to, without any real drama, put the wheels back on one band, you’d have been laughed out of town. ![]()
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