What they played.

For Antonia -- who I don't know personally, but admire professionally nonetheless -- the set list for the show Guns N' Roses played at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom on Friday, May 12:

Welcome to the Jungle
It's So Easy
Mr. Brownstone
Better*
Live and Let Die
Sweet Child O' Mine
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Madagascar*
You Could Be Mine
The Blues*
Out Ta Get Me
November Rain
My Michelle
Chinese Democracy*
There Was a Time (T.W.A.T.)*
Patience
I.R.S.*
Nightrain

Encore: Paradise City

(* unreleased song, from the allegedly forthcoming Chinese Democracy)

This was a much better performance than anyone had predicted or probably anticipated -- in fact, it was pretty close to a full-on arena-rock spectacle. Even so, for a pretty big portion of the audience this was visibly a nostalgia trip occasionally marred by the introduction of unfamiliar songs.

I've got more to say, and had we not been operating in Axl time -- in which a show scheduled to start at roughly 9pm gets going two hours later -- I'd say it now, while the impressions are still vivid and my ears are still ringing from explosions the likes of which I've not encountered in some years now. But since everything ran by Axl's chronometer tonight, my report will come just a bit later. (Not Chinese Democracy later, but, you know, after I get a little sleep.)

[Update: Per Darcy, Brooklyn Vegan has a few words and some nice photos.]

Playlist:

Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction (Geffen)

Guns N' Roses - Greatest Hits (Geffen)

Comments

[DJA]

Brooklyn Vegan has some good pics from the gig. Axl looks like he might finally have emerged from his persistent vegetative state.