Product Description

The six years these performances represent include all lineups of the band until it broke under the weight of Axl Rose's temper and ego. Guns' unflinchingly rebellious music addressed life on the streets and among the band's most incendiary material were songs about the school of hard knocks ("Welcome to the Jungle"), drugs ("Mr. Brownstone"), and mortality("Dust n' Bones"). The only time this dangerous edge becameworrisome was when the band cut "I Used to Love Her", a catchy number that attracted the ire of many people because of its flip treatment of abuse in a relationship.
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, includingthe 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 canbe heard on the bittersweet "Yesterdays" and this package'sonly previously unreleased number, the transformation of Black Sabbath's "It's Alright" into a piano-driven solo piece sang and played by Axl Rose.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Nightrain
2. Mr. Brownstone
3. It's So Easy
4. Welcome To The Jungle
5. Dust N' Bones
6. My Michelle
7. You're Crazy
8. Used To Love Her
9. Patience
10. It's Alright
11. November Rain

Disc 2:

1. Out ta get me
2. Pretty tied up
3. Yesterdays
4. Move to the city
5. You could be mine
6. Rocket queen
7. Sweet child O'mine
8. Knockin' on heavens door
9. Don't cry
10. Estranged
11. Paradise City

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7680 in Music
• Released on: 1999-11-30
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Double CD
• Running time: 133 minutes

From Amazon.com
Guns N' Roses' career could be neatly summed up in a lyric from their song "Pretty Tied Up": "I just found a million dollars that someone else forgot." Indeed, GNR satisfied a grassroots hunger for bigger-than-life hard rock at a time when legions of alternative bands were enjoying their first burst of overweening critical attention and commercial cachet. The last and most spectacularly successful band to prosper from Hollywood's burgeoning 1980s Sunset Strip glam-metal scene wrapped a couple decade's worth of sometimes tired clichés around a tight, assaultive musical attack that enticed millions yearning for poor role models. And if their edgy songs often blurred fantasy and reality, the best of them had a street-level honesty that couldn't be denied. A de facto greatest-hits collection culled from performances recorded around the world, Live Era best documents the early, ferocious performing prime of GN'R's original quintet on its first disc, leaning heavily on their landmark Appetite for Destruction album to great effect. But the second volume often chronicles the band's steady decline into bloated self-parody and neo-Vegas "professionalism."--Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Better than the Greatest Hits but not awesome... Here's why:
It shows them at their BEST on songs like Out ta Get Me and Welcome to the Jungle and My Michelle is just awesome, but it also shows them at their most over the top bloated self-parodying selves on songs such as November Rain(a classic, no doubt, but GN'R were meant so save ROCK, not Elton John for christ's sake) and the totally ruined funk-fest of Move to the City, what the hell had they done to a song that used to rock in the early days and was now full of overblown horn solo's. Axl took the blame at the time, his crazy ego and all that, but Slash has since admitted it was his idea, not that this makes it okay though, it still sucks.

There's also the heavily supported rumours that Axl re-recorded many of his vocal parts for this LP because he is such a perfectionist, so it ain't really 'live' I guess. You can tell this is true on My Michelle, he's hitting high notes he could NEVER hit in the old live shows and his voice isn't raspy it's more high-pitched and whiney, which happened to him around 1997. Although it's still cool.

Having said all this, it still kicks the ASS off anything 'live' ever released by any other rock band has ever, fact.

One of the better live albums out there
Personally, I rank "Live Era" up there with the likes of "Live at Leeds" and "Get Yer Ya Ya's Out!" and all the other classic, landmark live albums. This double-LP shows Guns N' Roses at their absolute peak, the scorching 8-minute version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" being quite possibly my favourite ever live track.

If you're a fan of real, honest rock music, or simply a casual Gunners listener, this is essential.

5/5

Like Being There Yourself!
This album is brilliant, you can feel all the passion and energy of the band and from the fans.

Seen Guns N Roses a few times and this live collection captures everything perfectly especially Axl's voice and Slash's guitar riffs.
All the favourites are here too although if you're willing to wait a few weeks for delivery, get the Japanese import version as that has "Coma" as a bonus track which is right up there as one of their best songs.

Bottom line? The best Guns N Roses/Live album ever!