2002.08.29 - VMA, Radio City Music Hall, New York, USA

Guns N' Roses Cap Night Of Spectacles From Diddy, Eminem, Timberlake

Guns N' Roses' surprise performance at Thursday's 19th annual MTV Video Music Awards was easily the night's highlight presentation, even though P. Diddy, Eminem and Justin Timberlake had more pizzazz and Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow had more heart.

The group — which included longtime GN'R keyboardist Dizzy Reed and a batch of new faces like ex-Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson, ex-Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck and guitarist Buckethead — kicked off its medley with "Welcome to the Jungle," the song that had thunderingly announced GN'R back on their first VMA appearance in 1988.

Storming back and forth across the stage, sporting long braids and a bandana, Axl Rose was noticeably winded by the end of the tune, but the mania was in full force as Guns launched into their second track, a ballad likely planned for the long-promised Chinese Democracy. The group closed with "Paradise City," again bringing the crowd back to the glory daze of hair metal.

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Hey! It’s Guns N’ Roses

By Stuart Derdeyn
Music Reporter

Usually surprises on awards shows are nothing special. Not so the triumphant return of Axl Rose and the new lineup of Guns N’ Roses.

Having the kings of the Sunset Strip metal scene close out the MTV Video Awards was unexpected — only host Jimmy Fallon’s mouthing a lyric from the G N’ R’s hit “Patience” hinted that it was the seminal ’80s rockers who were the big surprise waiting backstage.

Roaring onstage to the opening powerchords of “Welcome to the Jungle,” Rose was in fine howl and looking healthier than ever. Any doubts as to whether his weird-looking new band, featuring former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson and masked guitarist Buckethead, could satisfy or not was put to rest as the crew swaggered through “Paradise City” and other G N’ R classics from the band’s ’87 masterpiece Appetite Destruction.

Spin magazine recently rated the album the No. 1 metal album of all time and put Rose on the cover of its September issue.

With any luck, we’ll finally get to hear Chinese Democracy, the long-awaited next chapter in Guns N’ Roses’ recorded history this year. That’s the album the manic Rose has been working on for more than a decade.

Guns N’ Roses is on tour right now, playing selected gigs in Europe and Asia. We can only hope the kings of noise play “Sweet Child of Mine” in our town.

Some Somber Moments at MTV Awards

By Jon Pareles

This year's MTV Video Music Awards were moved to August from early September to avoid the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. But the show, telecast live Thursday night from Radio City Music Hall, couldn't escape the sobering memories. It opened with Bruce Springsteen performing ''The Rising,'' a song about a rescuer killed in the fire, with a singalong chorus that turns it into a ritual of memorial and resurrection. Mr. Springsteen and his E Street Band, who were performing at the Museum of Natural History, played an hourlong set for the fans gathered in the rain.

The usual party of preening, self-promotion, contrived shock and giggly titillation was supposed to start after that, but it didn't get going until a surprise finale: the return of Guns N' Roses. Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani appeared, thanking musicians for supporting the city, and Sheryl Crow sang a ballad to a montage of New York scenes. Lisa (Left Eye) Lopes from TLC, who died in a car crash, was remembered in a video.

Mary J. Blige, accepting an award, said the video ''No More Drama,'' had been made after Sept. 11 and that ''I got a chance to vent for people all around the world how they felt on the inside.'' Most of the stars wore black.

Winners included Eminem, No Doubt, the White Stripes, Pink, Ms. Blige, Jennifer Lopez, Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, Linkin Park, Kylie Minogue, Coldplay, Moby and Chad Kroeger. But the Video Music Awards generally have little to do with the awards and everything to do with posing and positioning.

Eminem, who has insulted Moby and Christina Aguilera on his albums, was booed when he attacked Moby again, while Ms. Aguilera sneered, ''Interesting,'' when she announced Eminem's award for best male video. The rapper Nas, who has been waging a war of words with Jay-Z, called for ''peace in hip-hop.''

The show also plugs new products aimed at MTV's audience, including fall movies and the night's most hyped moment, the first solo performance by Justin Timberlake of 'N Sync. It was a choppy, hip-hop-style track called ''Like I Love You''; Mr. Timberlake did Michael Jackson dance moves and urged, ''Give me the chance to be your man.'' 'N Sync came on stage moments later to present an award (and deflect rumors of a rift within the band).

Mr. Jackson himself had appeared earlier. A cake was brought out because it was Mr. Jackson's 44th birthday, and Britney Spears, dressed in a black leather-and-lace dominatrix outfit, said he was the ''artist of the millennium'' and handed him a statuette of a shiny G clef. Mr. Jackson, apparently under the impression that he was getting an award, thanked God for being named artist of the millennium. But later Thursday night, MTV's website, MTV.com, reported that the statuette was not an award, and that ''no such award exists.''

Most of the production numbers were comparatively subdued. Eminem, clinging to his status as scourge, rapped his self-rightous ''White America'' in a jacket and tie with a simulated chamber of Congress behind him, as ersatz legislators threw papers at him. P. Diddy brought a cast of dozens to jump around -- on trampolines and bungee cords.

The comparatively unflashy awards show reflected a change occurring within pop: a turning away from the confections of 1990's pop to a resurgence of rock. The elemental, bluesy rock band, the White Stripes won three awards, and the show featured performances by two garage-punk bands, the Hives and the Vines (who were outplayed); Shakira, the Colombian songwriter who has appeared in the past in elaborate productions, just brought along some samba drummers and a rock band and belted the song ''Objection.'' The two teenage award winners, Ms. Lavigne and Ms. Branch, are rock songwriters, rather than pop song-and-dance acts like Ms. Spears.

And Guns N' Roses, long missing in action, may have chosen the right time to return, in the form of the singer Axl Rose backed by seven musicians. Continuing the night's New York City theme, the new Guns N' Roses played songs written for Los Angeles as tributes to New York: ''Welcome to the Jungle'' and ''Paradise City.'' And between them, Mr. Rose performed a new anthemic ballad, ''Madagascar,'' singing, ''I can't find my way back home.'' Yet he had found his way back to MTV's cameras, at just the moment when the station wants to rock again.

In the Spirit of Incoherence

The MTV Video Music Awards honored Michael Jackson, sort of, and featured an inspiring Springsteen and a belligerent Eminem.

Pop Beat
By RICHARD CROMELIN
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Highlighted by a surprise pre-tour appearance by a rejuvenated Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, the 19th annual MTV Video Music Awards telecast on Thursday ... what’s that? That was the Hives? Oh. Sorry.

Sparked by the Who’s memorable return to its instrument-smashing glory, the MTV Video Music... say what? The Vines?

Let’s try this. Climaxed by an amusing spoof of the long-absent Axl Rose and an imaginary Guns ’N Roses, including a masked guitarist with a pail on his head, the MTV ... yes? That was Axl and the new Guns ’N Roses? The guitarist is named Buckethead?

How about Michael Jackson accepting that “artist of the millennium’’ award from Britney Spears? That really happened. So what if MTV explained later that there is no such award—it was Spears who called him the artist of the millennium.

Let’s face it: It’s futile to try to make much sense of the MTV Video Music Awards, the hyperactive cable music channel’s night to let it all hang out. As usual, MTV this year crammed everything it could into the three-hour-plus show, coherence be damned.

The shadow of Sept. 11 could not be ignored, and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band opened the night with “The Rising,” his urgent plea to embrace and transcend the horror of that day. The drama of the performance was enhanced by its outdoor Manhattan setting at the Museum of Natural History.

Thanks for the inspiration, Bruce. Now, back at Radio City Music Hall. Here’s Britney in biker fetish gear. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani introduces Sheryl Crow’s somber reflection, “Safe and Sound”; the two surviving members of TLC weep for the late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes; and Shakira shakes her booty.

If the tone was erratic, there were some familiar elements to latch on to, such as the show’s tradition of surprise appearances and pairings—though this year it has dwindled to the level of David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, making nice after the front-porch-of-the-rest-home spat they started on their summer tour.

In fact, everyone was on his or her best behavior, except Eminem, who looked annoyed every time the camera found him. The rapper also escalated his running feud with Moby, soliciting a hail of boos with his snipes at the bookish electronic musician (“I will hit a man with glasses”) as he accepted his best male video award.

It’s too bad this belligerence will remain foremost in many viewers’

minds, because in addition to winning the most awards (four), Eminem was far and away the most provocative performer on the show. His “White America,” set in what looked like a congressional hearing room populated by outraged lawmakers, brilliantly described why the rapper is perceived as such a threat, and he segued into “Cleanin Out My Closet,” a harrowing journey into the tangled strands of his dysfunctional family.

Beyond that, it was hit and miss, with the retro rawness of the aforementioned newcomers the Hives and the Vines (appropriately staged as a battle of the bands) neutralized by such events as the first-ever solo appearance by ’N Sync’s Justin Timberlake. The word “historic” was floated in advance of the big moment, but that’s stretching the term for what turned out to be a wan evocation of Michael Jackson’s culture-bending appearance on the Motown 25th anniversary special.

Now that was historic. Maybe they should rethink that artist of the millennium thing.

An Axl to grind

Rose is back with something to prove, but his edge is not

By Renée Graham
GLOBE STAFF

Since Axl Rose’s surprise performance at last month’s MTV Video Music Awards, many have been wondering whether the hard-living, hard-rocking leader of Guns N' Roses is at last ready to emerge in full from his decadelong professional exile.

Here’s a better question — who cares?

Oh, I'll admit, for about a minute there, after overheated VMA host Jimmy Fallon bellowed “Guns N' [bleepin’] Roses!,” I almost headbanged myself into unconsciousness when Axl bounded onstage and launched into the G N'R classic “Welcome to the Jungle.” For a brief instant, it was the late 1980s again with Axl doing that weird serpentine shimmy, prowling about like a pit bull, bruising his vocal cords, and thrilling the living daylights out of everybody.

Absorbed in the moment, one could almost ignore the fact that those introduced as Guns N' Roses were anything but — no Slash, no Izzy, no Duff. Instead, Axl was backed by a bunch of guys who could just as easily have been a very proficient tribute band.

But soon came the end of the affair, the fading of that old feeling. This wasn’t the lithe, sinewy Axl of 1987 but a middle-age man desperate to prove time hasn’t eroded his ability to whip an audience into a frenzy. Wearing his trademark bandanna — swaddling what had to be long, braided hair extensions — he huffed and puffed his way through “Welcome to the Jungle.” By the end of the song, and he only sang a snippet, he couldn’t have been more winded if he’d been running up Heartbreak Hill with a piano on his back. For someone who hasn’t' done much singing in public since the early 1990s, Axl wasn’t in good voice. Fortunately, he didn’t attempt “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” which, given the shakiness of his voice, would have been an unholy mess.

Then Axl sang the nondescript “Madagascar,” which might appear on his looooong-delayed album "Chinese Democracy,” which, given Axl’s track record, will hit stores sometime after the Big Dig is completed. (In a post-performance interview with MTV’s Kurt Loder, Axl said, “You’ll see [the album], but I don’t know if ‘soon’ is the word.”)

He closed his three-song medley with another GN’R chestnut, “Paradise City,” but as with “Welcome to the Jungle,” it was almost more than Axl could handle. His backup band did its part to keep things pumping along but pretty much left Axl eating its dust. I mean, come on — Axl was upstaged by the aptly monikered Buckethead, a guitarist who wears a KFC bucket on his head.

Simply put, it’s too late in the day to revive Axl’s career. Running around the stage at Radio City Music Hall, he was like a man trying to distance himself from his memories — and ours. Fifteen years ago, GN'R blasted out of the LA underground like a bullet. The band’s debut, “Appetite for Destruction,” was a masterpiece of decadence and decay. With riffs so hot they left blisters, the album had enough enough raw combustion to give parents the vapors for years. (In its September issue, Spin voted “Appetite for Destruction” the greatest metal album of all time.)

But the eye of the storm was always as dysfunctional as he was hypnotic. He spat lyrics with racial and homophobic epithets, petulantly sparked concert riots, and made a T-shirt bearing the maniacal mug of convicted killer Charles Manson a fashion trend. Every sneer and swagger only served to sell more tickets and albums. Success and fame seemed to inoculate him from everything, except his own massive ego, which ultimately devoured both the original band and any semblance of a meaningful career. He stomped off into a self-imposed exile, and for most of the past 10 years has been holed up working on the new album that has yet to see the light.

And now Axl is back. He turned 40 this year, having spilled away his best years as a hard-rock Greta Garbo. In his recap of the VMAs, Time’s Josh Tyrangiel called Axl’s performance “competent,” but also said it “felt like the world’s most outrageous lounge act,” and that was kind. Axl has had the first-act rise and second-act fall of a prototypical “Behind the Music” subject, and now he’s demanding his redemptive coda.

Then again, he clearly needs it more than his audience does. We’ve moved on, while Axl still wants to party like it’s 1989. Showered in confetti at the end of his performance, Axl raised his arms over his head and proclaimed, “Round one.” Down for the count was more like it. If this woeful performance was meant to show that Axl is tanned, rested, “ and ready to vie for the rock crown again, all it really proved was that rust indeed never sleeps.

Speaking of VMAs, what was the sideshow that passed for Guns ‘N Roses?

While MTV’s on-air hosts “ooohed” and “ahhhed” over Guns ‘N Roses’ telecast-capping performance, a good chunk of the public was scratching their collective heads.

After all, Guns ‘N Roses circa 2002 is more like The Axl Rose Experience. Only Rose, the band’s frontman, and keyboardist Dizzy Reed are around from the group’s glammy glory days.

The new cast of GNR characters is a band of heavy hitters, including the guitarist known as Buckethead and drummer Brian “Brain” Mantia. But for all the energy that the retooled GNR spewed forth at the VMAs, Axl sounded simply terrible. Rose’s voice has always tended toward the screechy, but his out-of-breath, sandpaperish screech at the VMAs could have made Triumph the Insult Comic Dog howl.

Maybe it was just an off night for GNR, and Axl and company will deliver the goods at Arco Arena on Dec. 30. That is, if the tour makes it this far. The opening date for GNR’s current tour ended in riots when the show was canceled at the last minute. (Our man Axl was running late and promoters canceled the gig.)

And in terms of late, will GNR ever release its years-in-the-making “Chinese Democracy” album? Or is the band simply being stymied by its dictator?

In a brand new Q&A; video posted online at the "Jump In The Studio" section of METALLICA's official web site, Ulrich offers his opinion of GN'R's VMA performance and the imminent return to the music scene of one of rock's most eccentric frontmen.

"In the last two weeks, there's been a lot of Axl bashing going on in various places," Lars stated. "I'm psyched that Axl's back. I've always liked GUNS N' ROSES. My perception was that Axl was pretty psyched to be back on TV and back in front of an audience, because he had a lot of energy — maybe a little too much energy. [James Hetfield chuckles in background] But I thought the band sounded good, and what I heard of that new song sounded pretty interesting. I've always had a soft spot for old Axl. So no Axl bashing from me."