The eyes still have it.
If every other aspect of Guns N’ Roses’ performance at AT&T Stadium on Wednesday felt comparatively safe, you only needed to look into Axl Rose’s eyes — glittering, with a hint of madness dancing behind his pupils — to understand the unhinged force of nature this influential band was and, arguably, still is.
The 54-year-old Rose also remains utterly magnetic — the loudly enthusiastic crowd (an eyeball estimate put its number at around 35,000 or so) was locked on his every move — and transfixing in a way too few rock frontmen are in the 21st century. He’s like a cobra, coiled and waiting to strike.
The purists will haggle over which line-up represents the true, vital core of Guns N’ Roses, but for those who book tours and pay what has to be several millions of dollars to put on these shows, the men (and woman) standing on stage in Arlington represent the “classic” GNR line-up: Rose, reunited with guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan after a nearly 25-year estrangement, alongside more recent members like Frank Ferrer, Richard Fortus, Dizzy Reed and Melissa Reese. (Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler are MIA for this particular reunion, which marked the “original” line-up’s first North Texas appearance since the fall of 1992.)
For more than two and a half hours, the seven musicians on stage diligently worked through GNR’s multi-platinum catalog, touching on all phases of the rock band’s career, from 1987’s breakout Appetite for Destruction through the two-part Use Your Illusion opus — even 2008’s wildly uneven Chinese Democracy got a moment in the spotlight.
Spread out on a vast stage tucked into an end zone, with attendant pyrotechnics and rather modest video screens (modest being a relative term: the images were several stories high), Guns N’ Roses never seemed to really enjoy its time before the adoring audience.
There was a grim detachment evident, as Slash muscled through one dazzling solo after another, or as Rose carved startling nuance out of a lyric, veering from a whisper to a roar. (The two men were rarely near each other, performing yards apart.) Perhaps the band is merely confident in its abilities, and doesn’t need to pretend it’s great to be playing together again — with no new album to support, this arena run around the world is purely a mercenary exercise, as evidenced by the staggering price tags at the merch table.
Or, as likely, the “Not in This Lifetime” tour is meant to rehab GNR’s reputation and burnish its legacy.
Rock lore is rich with tales of GNR’s wanton hedonism and wildly unprofessional behavior at the apex of its career, and in a way, the current tour seems like Rose and his collaborators reclaiming their pride: Guns N’ Roses can be a relevant, reliable rock band, professional if not necessarily punctual (Wednesday’s show began a half hour after its scheduled start time).
Sleek has supplanted seedy, and bruising recklessness has been replaced with cordial politeness: “So, how do you like to be addressed here? As Dallas or as Arlington?” Rose inquired, as Wednesday turned into Thursday. “I’m just askin’!” (Hard to imagine snarling young Axl really giving much of a crap about where he was, never mind what its residents preferred to be called.)
The shift is surprising, but eased somewhat by the relentless nostalgia bath, whether it was the epic opening chords of Sweet Child o’ Mine, or the grand, wounded heart climax ofNovember Rain, the raw ugliness of Mr. Brownstone or the amphetamine rush of Rocket Queen.
Rose was in mostly fine voice throughout — the stadium seemed to swallow his more delicate phrasing, but when he unleashed his signature roar, it could probably be heard all the way to Waco — and the band was airtight throughout, whether it was Ferrer’s thunderous timekeeping, Reed’s tasteful playing or Slash’s fretboard fireworks (his one-two punch of Nino Rota’s Godfather theme and the extended climax of Eric Clapton’s Layla was as impressive as any of the GNR riffs).
Guns N’ Roses, for a night at least, proved why it has endured through all the tumult of the last quarter century.
In those moments, when the music matched the flash in Axl Rose’s eyes, the years fell away, and the safe, yawning expanse of a football stadium felt dirty, dangerous and thrilling.
