Head Into The Weekend With Guns n Roses Paying Tribute To Biz Markie Last Night at Metlife By Covering "Just A Friend"
I love this band.
I hope this tour never ends. I really do.
When they announced their reunion the chances of them actually hitting the road playing shows were slim to none in people's minds. That's why they named the tour "The No Chance In Hell Tour".
Fast forward like 4 years later and it's still going strong.
Axl still looks like shit, but his voice hasn't skipped a beat, Slash is still 100% Slash, and Duff is still a handsome mother fucker.
I would have killed to be at this show last night.
1- Metlife is a very disrespected ballpark. Yah, it sucks to get to, and it's in a shit hole area, but newsflash for you- the entirety of New York City is a shithole. Metlife has FANTASTIC food options (not as good as Guaranteed Rate, or Target Field, or Petco) but awesome food at Metlife. Tickets aren't what I'd call "cheap" but they don't gouge you like the Yankees do. And we all know seeing shows in ballparks is an incredible experience.
2- Axl having the decency to honor another artist is insane. The fact he knows there is music outside of his Guns n Roses/Axl Rose bubble. RIP to Biz Markie.
3- Guns does segues better than anybody. Flipping "Just A Friend" into the greatest song ever, "November Rain" is just perfection.
Anybody that's been to one of their shows knows Slash's famous trick of playing the Theme from The Godfather. Which he extends into like a 3 or 4 minute epic solo, and then flips into the intro of "Sweet Child O' Mine" and everybody loses their minds.
Nothing like it.
Again, I love this band.
p.s. - Luckily for us in Chicago, we dodged a major bullet, and will get to see Guns n Roses next month. Thanks to the kindness of neighborhood association leaders and city council.
Block Club - The Cubs can host a rare, Thursday night concert at Wrigley Field later this summer.
City Council voted Wednesday to approve the Sept. 16 Guns N’ Roses concert.
Typically, midweek concerts after Labor Day are not allowed under the ordinance controlling night games and concerts at Wrigley Field. But the ordinance passed Wednesday will make a one-time exception for one of the three concerts the ballpark is hosting this year.
The Guns N’ Roses show was originally scheduled for July 21, but rescheduled for September after Wrigley Field returned to full capacity for games and shows.
Last month, the Cubs also were allowed to host a one-time Friday night game on June 18 against the Miami Marlins because the team was returning home late the night before from an away game against the New York Mets.
Weekend night games typically are banned for the Cubs because they worsen traffic congestion and parking problems in Wrigleyville on what are already busy nights for area restaurants and nightclubs.
Game fuckin on.
Do you know how utterly ridiculous it is that one of the biggest rock bands in the history of the world, and one of the most well-known sports organizations on the planet, needs to get Nancy from Lakeview and Gladys from Andersonville’s approval to throw a concert?
Roll your eyes all you want but this is how ass-backward things are in the City of Chicago.
Not only is Labor Day the "cutoff" for fun in Wrigleyville, per Alderman Tom Tunney's edict, but The Cubs are limited to how late they are "allowed" to project noise from the ballpark and also how many evening events they can hold per season.
No joke.
A 100+ year-old baseball team, one of the most prominent organizations in all of sports has to get the ok from its neighbors on how many night games they're allowed to host per season.
Did you ever wonder why the Cubs have almost zero Friday or Saturday night games every year? And why ones like the Saturday night vs. the Cardinals over Fourth of July weekend was such a huge deal? Because we can't have nice things in Chicago. Well, you can, but you have to know somebody and you have to pay.
Or, in Axl and Slash's case, you have to be one of the greatest rock and roll bands on the planet responsible for such gems as "Mr. Brownstone".
This is like people who move to college towns bitching about parties and drunk college kids everywhere, but on steroids.
Wrigley Field has been standing in the same spot at Clark and Waveland since 1914. It didn't just pop up a few years ago and begin wreaking havoc in the neighborhood.
You can't decide to live in the surrounding area because you're attracted to all the nice parks, restaurants, bars, shopping on Southport, the Jenni's Ice Creams, good schools, and stable property values, which are all due to the $4 Billion dollar baseball club down the street, and then complain that they cause too much noise or traffic.
The great Tip O'Neill was famously quoted as saying "All politics is local." And in Chicago, neighborhood politics is the name of the game.
Spineless Aldermen kowtow (great word, get familiar) to “neighborhood associations” because they’re terrified of losing their backing come re-election.
If you've never been to a neighborhood association meeting you're really missing out.
You have these non-elected wackjobs showing up to these monthly meetings with a laundry list of complaints- everything from their mailman giving them some of their neighbor's mail on accident, to kids riding bikes on sidewalks and not the street, and even more nonsense in between. True "get off my lawn" shit. Once a quarter or so, if your alderman gives a shit, they'll show up to take the temperature of the group. When they're not there, again, if they give a shit, they'll send their chief of staff in their place. This usually happens for all the neighborhood associations throughout the alderman's ward.
From there, the alderman figures out which way the wind is blowing and usually goes with it at City Hall. Again, it's all about keeping the job. Keep the people who actually vote happy, keep your seat. Local politics 101.
In all seriousness though, thank God this show is happening. Fingers crossed we don't get shut down again but this band is already on borrowed time, and the rescheduling of this show was always a coin-flip as to if we'd actually see it happen. I've seen Guns 6 times since they reunited (1 Detroit, 3 Chicago, 1 Foxboro, 1 Austin) and they've been six of the best concerts I've ever been to. If you're on the fence about pulling the trigger on tickets, I can't recommend doing it enough. Especially since it's at Wrigley. For some reason, concerts at baseball parks are just a whole other experience. And one as legendary as Wrigley all but guarantees it will be an all-time event. But get there early, the first 3 shows I saw them, they had Alice In Chains open for them (amazing) so I figured there was also a buffer from doors til they went on. Well the last few they had no opener and went on right away which is bizarro world for Axl Rose. They melt your face off for 2 to 2.5 hours. And that ends my Guns n Roses testimonial.