Description

Original European vhs PAL release

Well…they could have done with separate reviews, given that they are actually separate releases, but as much of one relates to the other, why bother. After all, when Use Your Illusion, parts one and two, were first released, most reviews tossed the two albums in together and tried to find some theme or direction present in one but not the other. Indeed, Select, before casting itself as an indie bible and subsequently going out of business, searched in vain for a tendency towards ballads or rock anthems were none existed. Instead, as reviewers noted, Use Your Illusion I was a ragged collection of a band drunk on success and surrounded by lackeys incapable of telling them a two-disc collection was excessive and Use Your Illusion II was, well, much the same. Cut to a few years later and, like the maxim says, Guns N’ Roses were big in Japan and ripe for filming during a series of live shows. And so, it comes to Use Your Illusion I and II – 1992 Live In Tokyo. The part 1 and part 2 were filmed at the Tokyo Dome, Japan on February 22, 1992 during the Japanese leg of the Use Your Illusion tour. This recording features the second half of the concert, the first half appearing on Use Your Illusion I. In watching the three hours of footage across these two discs, you sense that Sweet Child O’ Mine, Don’t Cry and their cover of Wild Horses, taking only three songs as examples, would be replicated note-for-note through not only these Japanese gigs but in every show on Guns N’ Roses’ ’92 world tour. November Rain, taking another example, is not noticeably different from the version of the song that appeared on Use Your Illusion, leading you to suspect that even Axl’s ad-libbing between songs was scripted and played on the auto cues that appear throughout the concerts. Finally, these concerts see Guns N’ Roses venture far from the sleazy Los Angeles streets and strip clubs that birthed the band, even to employing tuxedoed backing singers. Anyone who sat open-mouthed through the band’s appearance at the Freddy Mercury tribute concert and who remembered watching a balding backing singer furiously shaking his skinny white rump to Guns N’ Roses will have long-realised how far this band had moved towards respectability but the backing singers cooing over Estranged will have all but the most hardened fans muttering ‘sell-out’. Well even though their oldest fans will scream sell out there are still plenty of fans that discovered the band around this time and the fact still remains that Guns N Roses were among the biggest and best selling artists around this time. ‘Use Your Illusion 1 live in Tokyo’ shows the band on top of their career so anyone who preferred this period in the bands history will get a lot for their money.

Track list:
1. Introduction
2. Nightrain
3. Mr.Brownstone
4. Live And Let Die
5. Its So Easy
6. Bad Obsession
7. Attitude
8. Pretty Tied Up
9. Welcome To The Jungle
10. Dont Cry
11. Double Talkin Jive
12. Civil War
13. Wild Horses
14. Patience
15. November Rain