Discography » Albums » Live Era '87-'93

Disc 1

# Nightrain
# Mr. Brownstone
# It's So Easy
# Welcome To The Jungle
# Dust N' Bones
# My Michelle
# You're Crazy
# Used To Love Her
# Patience
# It's Alright
# November Rain

Disc 2

# Out Ta Get Me
# Pretty Tied Up
# Yesterdays
# Move To The City
# You Could Be Mine
# Rocket Queen
# Sweet Child O' Mine
# Knockin' On Heaven's Door
# Don't Cry
# Estranged
# Paradise City

Live Era '87-'93 - at cdnow.com
Released: 11-30-1999
Engineers include: Chuck Reed, Bryan Golder, Eric Caudieux. Recorded live between 1987 and 1993.

» RELEASE NOTES
Guns N' Roses: W. Axl Rose (vocals); Slash, Izzy Stradlin (guitar); Dizzy Reed (keyboards); Duff McKagan (bass); Steven Adler (drums).

Additional personnel: Gilby Clarke (guitar); Matt Sorum (drums); Teddy Zig Zag Anoreadis, Roberta Freeman, Tracey Amos, Cece Worrall, Anne King, Lisa Maxwell.

Much of G'N'R's oeuvre may have been fueled by the snarling guitars of Slash and Izzy Stradlin (and later Gilby Clarke), but later songs were impressive epics swept up in passion, including the larger-than-life "November Rain" and the lesser-known but equally impressive "Estranged." Beneath the tattoos and snarls, Guns N' Roses also had a more sensitive side that can be heard on the bittersweet "Yesterdays" and this package's only previously unreleased number, the transformation of Black Sabbath's "It's Alright" into a piano-driven solo piece sang and played by Axl Rose.

BestBuy.com

» REVIEWS
Rolling Stone (1/20/00, p.56) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...visceral evidence of a time when Guns n' Roses ruled the Earth and every show was 'A Rock N Roll Bash Where Everyone's Smashed'."

Q Magazine (1/00, p.138) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...leans on the more credible hellfire days of 1987's APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION and 1989's G'N'R LIES....tightly wound moshpit napalm as 'Nightrain', 'Welcome To The Jungle', and 'Mr Brownstone'..."

Mojo (1/00, p.98) - "...captures the raw, heady rush of their zenith with goosebump-raising live versions of classics 'Nightrain', 'Mr. Brownstone', and 'Welcome To The Jungle'....a surprisingly welcome whiff of patchouli..."

CMJ (12/27/99, p.22) - "...an orgy of raunchy, sweaty, ferocious rock....proves that Guns N' Roses, at its peak, actually lived up to its still-snowballing legend..."

» ROLLING STONE REVIEW
There is a definitive souvenir of the live G n' R experience lurking somewhere in the band's attic. This baby isn't it, for reasons having little to do with the actual performances. Like, where are the dates and venues for these twenty-two tracks? As rock scholarship, "Recorded across the universe between 1987 and 1993" doesn't cut it. The credits also give no hint as to which lineup - the original five, the Use Your Illusion-era big band - plays what. As for repertoire, the avant-glam sprawl of the twin Illusion LPs is shortchanged (no "Coma" or "Civil War") in favor of Appetite for Destruction, reprised almost in its entirety. And "Move to the City," from the '86 Live?!*@ Like a Suicide EP, runs for eight minutes, too many of 'em going to brass and keyboard solos. So that's what's wrong with Live Era. Here's what's right: the contrapuntal bark and skid of Slash's and Izzy Stradlin's guitars; Axl Rose's supercharged bray, a blood-and-spittle shower of contempt ("You Could Be Mine"), paranoia ("Out ta Get Me") and desperate measures (the Illusion II epic "Estranged"); the shotgun union of pop brains and death-ride metal in "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Sweet Child o' Mine." On a real firefight night, G n' R were thirty years of rock & roll history, muscle and bad temper soaked in diesel and vodka, and the stage was their bully pulpit. This set is a narrowly missed opportunity to truly seal the historical worth of the band's guts and glory in concert. But Live Era's master blasts are visceral evidence of a time when Guns n' Roses ruled the earth and every show was, as it says on an old gig flier reproduced in the booklet, a rock n roll bash where everyone's smashed. (RS 832)

DAVID FRICKE