Guns 'n Roses @ Toulon

When I was a teenager, Guns ‘n Roses was one of THE bands I was listening to (although if I’d have to pick one band from those innocent years of youth it would surely have to be Metallica). So I was quite excited to hear they were playing a gig in Toulon. Sure, there isn’t much left of the original band apart from Axl Rose, but still… I had seen Slash play a couple of years ago, as warm-up act for AC/DC, and they did play quite a few Guns ‘n Roses songs then as well, but the songs just didn’t sound quite right without Axl’s crooning…

So, me and Mikko got tickets for the gig, and booked a hotel in Toulon, and off we went, on the train. After checking in at the hotel, we quickly made our way to the Zenith Omega center, where the gig was taking place. The warm-up act was kind of lame (perhaps it reflects the fact that the star of Guns ‘n Roses is kind of fading?). Thankfully, Axl didn’t do his “make the audience wait 2 hours for me” act, and showed up with relatively little delay.

The gig was actually really great, almost to my surprise. Axl was on great form - the guy is definitely a pro, and has loads of charisma as well. And his crooning was much the same as I can remember – and it’s definitely true that you need Mr. Rose to sing those songs. I think most of the audience was like me and Mikko – nostalgia fans – since the crowd reaction was quite something when some of the old classics were played, whereas the new songs from the Chinese Democracy album incited little reaction from the crowd (although the songs were pretty good actually).

After the gig, we had a couple of beers in a nightly Toulon, and then hit the sack. The next morning, we had a couple of hours before catching our train back, so we had a walk around the historic center of Toulon and the port area. Toulon sometimes gets bad press (there’s a big military presence here due, Toulon being the main French naval base on the Mediterranean), but is actually a pretty nice town. After a rather good-value lunch at a nice pedestrian square, we made our way back to the train station.