Guns N' Roses - 'Welcome To The Videos' (Geffen)
3/5
By: Kari Wynn
Always an experience, revisiting former favourites. Not only can you indulge in some good old fashioned questioning of your pre-formed taste and sanity, but one can also engage in every muso's beloved pastime of Destroy Your Idols. And what better opportunity than through some vintage, dated videos? Welcome to the promo's, baby... you're gonna diiiiiiiiieeee.
G 'N' R's retrospective has no extra features. No backstage antics or outtakes to clutter up your viewing pleasure. No bonus footage, lyrics or director's commentary. Nay, we need no extras to rock - just straightforward videos and nothing else. Apparently.
Cue opener 'Welcome To The Jungle' - our hero Axl, a just-off-the-bus country bumpkin, arriving in the big scary city. It's not completely out-of-line; Mr Rose is from Southern Indiana (poor love). Mere seconds later we see a big-haired, straight-jacketed Axl tied to a chair, 'Clockwork Orange'-style, being forced to watch visions of guerilla warfare interspersed with well-endowed young ladies decked out in spandex. Just your typical day in LA.
'Sweet Child O' Mine' sees the band beginning to cultivate their favourite format - the we're-a-decadant-rock-band-playing-in-a-large-room/airplane-hanger/giant-stadium-and-later-we're-gonna-climb-back-on-the-bus/go-back-to-our-sleazy-hotel-room-and-shag-some-of-those-hot-groupies-over-there niche. Although often imitated, no band took it to new and ridiculous levels like G'N'R. Hell, it works for them.
Bring on 'Paradise City' - the 'Sweet Home Alabama'/'Freebird' for the 80's. Though normally live footage of a band feels like a cheap cop-out, nothing seems to exemplify how brilliant the track is quite like a stadium full of dirt-heads losing their minds to the sight of Axl's 'I've got jelly in my pants'-swagger. Clearly the aftermath of this comes in the form of 'Patience', which sees the band back at yet another sleazy, cheesy dive where various women clad only in bad lingerie try in earnest to tempt their attention away from the task at hand. Slash divides his time between his guitar and a giant boa constrictor, and Duff seems to only have eyes for a nice hot cuppa. Sorry ladies, this is a rock band, after all.
But it's not all corny in a good way - eventually, big budgets allow the group to make videos that go absolutely nowhere. 'Don't Cry' sees Axl trotting through the snow dressed as a Revolutionary War soldier, followed by the sight of him floating suicide-style in a pool followed by his then-girlfriend, Stephanie Seymore, bitchslapping some blonde bimbo in a bar in the first thirty seconds. The next half-minute shows Slash driving a screaming woman off a cliff. Yelp! But - don't worry, folks! Although the blast from the crash has clearly burned away his shirt, we see an uninjured Slash polishing off his guitar-solo while standing on the edge. Phew. That was close.
'Live & Let Die' (why Wings!? Why, God? Why!?) brings in the old live footage again - but can be viewed more as an unfortunate fashion parade by Axl. From sporting the Metal Scotsman and Gay Cowboy looks all the way to Baseball Umpire and Denim Cut-Off Hotpants, it's somewhere between horrifying and hilarious.
Let us not forget 'November Rain', or the 'Thriller' of the Metal universe. Based on a short story, 'November Rain's storyboard goes something like this: Axl is at a church getting married, coupled with flashbacks of a bed-ridden sweat-a-thon and the guys hanging out at the Rainbow Room. Best man Slash has forgotten the rings, but luckily a leather-gloved Duff steps in and saves the day. Slash strops down the isle to play his guitar outside in a dust-storm, where he's appreciated, while the rest of the crowd heads off to the extravagant outdoor reception. A sudden downpour forces the entire wedding party into running for cover (which makes you think either the pollution in LA has really gotten out of hand, or some joker has just doused the backyard with napalm). One bloke is so terrified he jumps right through the wedding-cake. Fast-forward: the rain has apparently killed off Axl's bride, who is buried in style, with a coke-mirror firmly planted through the middle of her face and a bouquet of red flowers losing their colour all over the casket. Deep, man.
The second half of the DVD drudges along like the boring rock dinosaur that it is. More moody black-n-white live footage. More chicks in hotel rooms. The highlight is 'Dead Horse' (insert your own witty flogging comment here), which has karaoke-style lyrics appearing across the bottom, so you can scream along in true metal-angst, and makes the band look like apes banging on the glass in the zoo. At least they weren't masturbating or throwing faeces (though it probably would have been more feasible if they were).
And finishing off the DVD is G'N'R's cover of 'Since I Don't Have You', which you probably cherished if you were a teenage boy. Naked chicks! Making out with each other! Making out with the band! Strippers! There's also this laughing man who looks like Data from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' - is he Satan? Is he the band's manager? We'll never know. Gotta love a flick that makes you think.
Sadly, since these precious, precious days, it seems our dear Axl has climbed into a bucket of chicken with a side-order of crazy and forgotten all about this. He's been far too busy making wildly expensive albums and never releasing them. Slash's axe has been whored out to Michael Jackson among others. The other two, well who knows? So their videos weren't all that great as we remember. They were cliché, sexist and worthy of a visit from the fashion police. Perhaps in this situation it's better to pull out your scratchy old copy of 'Appetite for Destruction' and slap on a bandana if you want to relive the good ol' days. You certainly don't need the visuals.
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