Mark William Schoppe's Review [posted 2.24.93]

The show was great, the best Gn'R show I've ever seen!! They played a stripped down and straight forward show; no horns, no backup singers, no pyrotechnics. The songs were (in order):

Welcome to the Jungle
Garden of Eden
It's So Easy
Attitude
Double Talkin' Jive
The Garden
Live and Let Die
So Fine
You Ain't the First
You're Crazy
Used to Love Her
Patience
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
November Rain
Dead Horse
You Could Be Mine
Sweet Child O' Mine
Nice Boys
Paradise City

Axl announced early on that they'd be doing several songs they don't normally do, including some they've never done live before. I got the impression that they mean to keep this up for the rest of the tour, possibly doing every song in their repertoire before they're through. The songs that they'd never done before (at least according to Axl) were "The Garden" and "Dead Horse". Axl actually played the guitar on that last one! They did an acoustic set in the middle, something they plan to keep up in this tour. They brought a couch out on stage and sat around on it. They had waitresses wearing G-strings and no tops deliver drinks. They had Dominos deliver a pizza, which they threw to the crowd. They basically just kicked back and had fun. The acoustic set lasted from "You Ain't the First" until "November Rain" (they resumed playing electric instruments for the second half of "November Rain").

I was surprised at how many songs they didn't play that I thought they would: Mr. Brownstone, Yesterdays, Don't Cry, Rocket Queen, The Godfather. They also stopped doing the intros to their songs (eg. the "Wild Horses" intro to "Patience", the "Mother" intro to "Paradise City"). They said they had planned to can the drum solo by Matt, but they kept it in anyway. It was much different than it had been the previous times I've seen them. They used it as a segueway into "You Could Be Mine". They also did a slow bluesy jam with Dizzy on the piano and Slash on the guitar before "Sweet Child O' Mine". It reminded me somewhat of the jam they did before "The Godfather" in the televised concert in Paris last year, but it was different.

Overall, I think it was the best concert I've ever seen. There were a few fuckups, especially with the songs they hadn't done before, but their energy and intensity more than made up for it. Also, there was a tremendous positive vibe in the air. I left feeling happier than I've been in a long time.