Stupid Crappy Camera Phone
Who's the woman on the right? Jamie-Lynn Sigler. The one on the left? Shannon Elizabeth (who arrived with Lance Bass, of all people). Like me, both of them were rocking out to "Sweet Child Of Mine" last night. And sadly, this is the only photo that came close to looking like anything because the fucking camera in my fucking phone is awful. So I apologize for the lack of photos of Axl and the band.
I can tell you that, by the standards of this B-Level GnR, last night's show was pretty awesome. Axl's voice was strong when it wasn't drowned out by the band (the audio guy sucked), and the band sounded good, although it's very telling that it takes 7 current members to recreate the sound of the departed original 4. They hit the stage around 11:10pm and played until 1:30am, getting through most of Appetite* and other assorted hits mixed in with 4 new songs. Axl was in a great mood, with lots of smiles and banter, and even messed with the audience by saying that Izzy had called him to wish him a good show, leading everyone to believe Izzy would come out (he did not). As he's done every night, Sebastian Bach joined Axl for "My Michelle." The crowd loved every minute of it, even singing along during a bizarre guitar solo of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful."
Yes, this concert was nothing compared to the glory days, but at least I fulfilled my dream of seeing Axl perform live. Hopefully the next time I do it, he'll be joined by Slash, Duff, Izzy, and Matt.

* Quick side story: when Appetite for Destruction came out in 1987, I was in 3rd grade. I went to Camelot Music in the Coral Square Mall with my mom to buy the cassette. At the cash register, the cashier said to my mom "You know this has curse words in it, right?" My mom looked at me and said "It does?"
"Only in one song," I lied.
"No, they're in almost every song," the clerk interjected. So my mom refused to let me get the tape, and I had to copy it from a friend.
To this day I cannot fathom why the cashier would do something like that, except to go on some lame power trip. And were that chain still in business, I would never again shop at a Camelot store.