- Jan 27, 2011
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There’s several anecdotal posts in this thread about times where GnR have been unreliable, late, and crap. I’m not saying they can’t pull off great gigs at all, just that they can’t do it reliably.
Sounds like they had serious issues last weekend, and they are trying to blame it on the stadium.
I just don’t buy the excuses, especially since they didn’t do sound checks etc.
There were definitely issues at the weekend. I'm not going to disagree there.
It's difficult to pinpoint where those issues stemmed from. I don't think it's right for the band to "blame" the venue. As @The Scarecrow has noted above, gigs in large stadiums aren't ideal from a sonic perspective due to late reflections, slapback echoes, comb filtering, phase cancellation, which frequencies are being absorbed/amplified etc.
The crew and the system techs and riggers should know this, though and with an act as large as GNR, large stadiums won't be unfamiliar to them - although ours will be an outlier due to the lack of data in the modelling programs that are used to calculate the system requirements. It smacks a bit of lack of preparation, but these shows are run on a real tight schedule. The logistics are mind boggling. I think the Guinea Pig comment from Richard Fortus is fair. They were.
It's a cavernous space, and more often than not, for a non-purpose built/designed venue specifically for audio, it's usually a bit of a crapshoot as to what venues will sound "good". There are plenty of studios around the world that technically shouldn't sound good, but they just do, whether they're purpose built or not.
That unknown can be mitigated somewhat by the systems and placements and absorption methods used, but never entirely.
As for Guns, they aren't gonna blame themselves. Axl had an off night, but the band were tight af. It usually is anecdotal evidence nowadays as previously Axl was a massive diva. Nowadays, I think that all but been stamped out and he's a lot more chill. Usually they're on time judging by the setlists I've seen on this tour give or take 10 mins or whatever. I won't disagree that historically it has been a huge issue, though, because he has been a complete (and well documented) knob in the past, so i understand the prevailing attitudes towards him as a performer.