The legendary American rock band Guns N’ Roses made the outsourcing boomtown of Gurgaon the last stop on their debut tour of India Wednesday night, a tour 20 years in the making.
In 1992, the band had been slated to play Mumbai (then Bombay), but cancelled after riots that pitted Hindus against Muslims shook the city. They played Israel instead.
The show in Gurgaon, just outside New Delhi, hit all of the band’s high notes, including anthems like “Patience” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” but also the kind of low that has haunted it for decades: an apparent squabble between band members toward the end.
The venue was the so-called Leisure Valley, a bare patch of earth in the center of Gurgaon’s business district, a clutch of high-rises housing the Indian offices of international companies like Google and Accenture. A crowd of about 8,000, just over half the venue’s capacity, turned up for the show, made up of office workers in suits and ties, college students in black T-shirts and even entire families.
The band’s leader, Axl Rose, took the stage exactly on time amid roaring guitar riffs, and the band thundered immediately into the title track of their latest album, “Chinese Democracy.” Dubbed “the Titanic of rock albums” by the New York Times critic Jon Pareles when it came out in 2008, “Chinese Democracy” took 15 years to make and may be the most expensive album ever produced.
The crowd, mostly familiar with earlier albums like “Appetite for Destruction,” struggled to recognize the opening song. But they warmed up as the guitarist DJ Ashba teased into the anthemic introductory notes of “Welcome to the Jungle.”
As Mr. Rose began his trademark shrieking vocals, the crowd seemed to hold its breath, perhaps collectively wondering if the 50-year-old still had the pipes. By the end of the show, it was clear that the growl of the ’90s was missing, but for a not-so-healthy looking guy, he sounded good. Those legendary screams in songs like “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Live and Let Die” and “Paradise City” were close enough to the originals to give a slight tingle to the spine.
In all, the band played a three-hour set, rolling out newer songs and revisiting some classics like “It’s So Easy” and “Mr. Brownstone,” as well as throwing in a handful of covers, such as Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.”
But Guns N’ Roses’ trademark epic ballads didn’t always fare so well. “Estranged,” from the “Use Your Illusion” double album, was a particular test – the band only managed to play a passable version of the melody-heavy, nine-minute piece of musical theater. It wasn’t something the purest Guns N’ Roses fans (and I include myself in that camp) were happy about. That sometimes-ethereal piece of music calls for three good guitarists, and the three on stage were mediocre.
Much of the crowd seemed to be hearing the songs from “Chinese Democracy” for the first time, but the melodious grooves of “This I Love,” “Street of Dreams” and “Catcher in the Rye” seemed to hit the right nerve, and attendees swayed in time.
The band really got the crowd’s attention, though, by throwing in a cover of AC/DC’s “Riff Raff.”
In true Indian fashion, hawkers sold popcorn and peanuts during the show. Looking at the eclectic mix of concertgoers, which seemed to include both middle-aged parents bringing their kids and kids bringing their middle-aged parents, it seemed that more than one generation had been waiting for this concert to happen.
Each band member got a showcase song: the bassist Tommy Stinson sang one of his own, called “Motivation,” while the pianist Dizzy Reed did a rendition of Led Zeppelin’s classic “No Quarter.” (View the entire set list here.)
The song that got the loudest crowd response was, as expected, the seminal “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” with its instantly recognizable opening guitar riff. This was quickly followed by two other Gunners classics, “November Rain” and “Don’t Cry.” The latter was the 23rd song of the night, and Mr. Rose was both visibly and vocally drained.
Still, the band went through “Civil War” and “Nightrain” before exiting the stage, leaving concertgoers wondering aloud whether it was over or not. (Concerts of this scale in Delhi are still rare, so many people didn’t know whether to expect an encore or not.)
Amidst chants for an encore, Mr. Rose came back onstage and declared himself happy to be playing in India. “This has been a longtime dream,” he said. Then he dedicated the entire show to Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar maestro who died on Tuesday. The dedication was followed by an acoustic jam between the guitarists Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal and DJ Ashba, then the mellow classic “Patience.”
As the clock neared 10 p.m., the opening riff to “Paradise City” blared through the speakers. The band had managed to finish a three-city tour of India successfully, without any major hiccups, fulfilling the dreams of many in the audience who had craved a chance to see their music heroes from yesteryear live.
But it was not over yet. After all, what is Guns N’ Roses without some drama?
After the band came out together for a final bow, Mr. Rose seemed to decide he still had one more song in him. He called the band members back on stage. Mr. Stinson seemed to balk: he was visible from where I sat nearly throwing his bass backstage, as a roadie tried to stop him.
The rest of the band started playing “Nice Boys” from “Rose Tattoo,” but Mr. Stinson didn’t come onstage. Mr. Rose disappeared backstage, and reappeared moments later. He was followed by Mr. Stinson, who threw his bass onto a pile of equipment, flipped the middle finger at some crew members and left. The band finished the last song without a bassist.
Kabir Taneja is a freelance journalist who owns all of the Guns N’ Roses albums, including “Chinese Democracy.” You can contact him on Twitter @KabirTaneja.
