After cancelling their sightseeing trip to Jerusalem following the terrorist attack on Friday, rockers Guns N’ Roses have put on a hell of a show in Israel to close out their European tour – in front of 60,000 people.
A show that had even Ha’aretz – whose writers regularly promote BDS (or at least some of them) – trying to find superlatives to describe it.
The reason that more than 60,000 fans streamed to the park on Saturday was for the band Guns N’ Roses, complete with its charismatic lead singer, great guitarist and excellent musicians. That, more or less, was the band that performed on Saturday. And it sounded great. It’s not GnR without Slash, the lead guitarist, who played wonderfully on Saturday, except for a few slipups here and there. The sweet howl that, in the rock world, has his name on it, plus raising the guitar at a 79-and-a-half degree angle, were heard and seen again and again on Saturday. At one point in the middle of a solo, a string of saliva dripped painfully slowly from his mouth and sat suspended on his curls. While it wasn’t very aesthetic, that moment reflected his and the band’s efforts. Nobody played on automatic pilot. For three hours.
The Times of Israel described it thus:
Guns N’ Roses closed out their European tour with a high energy, marathon-length show in Tel Aviv that lasted for more than three hours on Saturday night in the Yarkon Park.
Lead singer Axl Rose, 55, spent the entirety of show, which had no breaks, dashing across the stage and tossing the microphone stands with abandon, defying his three plus decades of rock star living.
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“There sure are a lot of you here,” Rose told the crowd at the start of the show, one of the only times he addressed the crowd directly.
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The temperature hovered around 29 ° C (84 °F), causing Slash to drip with sweat during his lengthy solos. But the band’s energy didn’t flag for the entire show, even as audience members began to droop.Even up until the last encore of “Paradise City,” Rose was sprinting from one side of the stage to the other. As the well-known chords echoed across the park, fireworks sprouted atop the massive 1,000 square meter, lighting up a sea of humanity, arms raised, singing along to every word.
Here are some videos and photos from the action to give you an idea of what it was like. But only an idea.
https://youtu.be/MNBEQSC3Q6M
(And they even snuck in a Pink Floyd cover. I am not sure if that was meant as a middle finger to BDS, but I would like to believe or even pretend it was!)
https://www.facebook.com/shawn.eni/videos/10159065264260416/
More footage here.
And fan reactions:
And it seems as thought it was not just the fans who appreciated it
Once again, a high profile band gives Israeli fans some joy. Now on to Radiohead!
Update: A funny and informative review here.
