As inevitably as summer’s swift exit and post-Olympic comedown in the UK comes the news that perennial rock punchline, Guns N’ Roses, are bowing to their destiny and playing a residency in Las Vegas.
What passes for G’N'R these days. Nice hat, guy who isn’t Slash.
Oh, the bitter, bitter irony of it all. It’s as though they’ve given up on any pretence at relevance and are content to throw out softball pitches for snarky bloggers and hipster music scenesters. Cheers, Axl – well-played.
They are, of course, in good company – Motley Crue, former architects of public outrage and groupie-despoiling rock pigs of no small reputation have recently done a lucrative residency at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and it hardly seems like a huge stretch for Axl’s elite unit of anonymous studio musos to ply their hit-stuffed back catalogue in such a theatrical, glitzy and surface-level locale as Vegas.
And it’s not as if I begrudge musicians from finding creative ways to leverage their reputation to bring in revenue – with the music business being the walking corpse that it is, who can blame any established band for finding a way to pad their pension funds a little? – but surely there’s a better way to do that than plying one’s trade in a haven of douchery, captive tourists and investigative forensic medicine?
Is Axl really smart or just trolling us all at this point?
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There was a rumor a few years ago that Axl was working in a like a steel plant here in Chicago because he had no money. Dunno if it’s true but I certainly believe it.
I think that the fact that Axl has way more money than common sense is a large part of the problem – there comes a point at which many bands of G’N'R’s level tour in order to support an accumulated lifestyle and entourage rather than for any artistic consideration…