{"data":{"id":"77486471-396f-4723-92e1-11e3307ac89f","originKind":"SYNDICATED","title":"Concert review: Guns N' Roses rock singalong at Commonwealth Stadium","summary":"From the opening, slightly subdued howls of Welcome to the Jungle to Slash doing a handstand at the end of the show, Guns N’ Roses earned their money Wednesday night under a full moon at Commonwealth Stadium, where they’d played almost exactly nine years earlier (also on a hump day).\n\nFor nearly three hours, the majority focusing on 1987’s Appetite for Destruction and covers of Black Sabbath, The Damned and of course Wings, the elephant in the bowl was how high could 64-year-old Axl Rose push his voice up the mountain, and boy did he give his all, even when he couldn’t hit the highs.\n\nSlash, as usual, was worth the ticket price alone, though veteran bass enchanter Duff McKagan might have been my favourite band member all night, not only doing a journeyman carpenter-level backup vocal job all night, but also taking lead on The Damned’s New Rose about halfway through.\n\nAfter Jungle, Rose perfectly handled the bluesy thumper Bad Obsession in his shiny snakeskin plaid shirt and shades, doing a good job on It’s So Easy as well as the machine whirled around him, vampire lips and a snake tongue up on the big screen.\n\nThat perfect album kept going with Mr. Brownstone, after Chinese Democracy and Velvet Revolver cover Slither Rose laughing, “That’s very ominous. It’s like the neutron bomb in that old movie called Outbreak.”\n\nThermobaric, not to nerd out, but point taken. Then in flew Wings’ flashy-flashy Live and Let Die when I’d say the band really woke up and started churning – that drummer Isaac Carpenter is just a little whirlwind.\n\nMissing was the insanely talented, classically trained Melissa Reese on keys and helping out with vocals, still sitting out the tour for “unforeseen personal reasons” – but longtime keyboardist Dizzy Reed made some of the sweetest sounds of the night.\n\nAnd the slight irony of London-born, total master Slash wearing a Sex Pistols God Save the Queen shirt was layered, down to the fact punk is so delightfully sloppy, and there’s nothing like that all in Slash’s delivery.\n\nAs The Hearts’ Dwayne Marineau noted as this played, his two favourite guitarists are Slash and Willie Nelson, and we had one of them here in front of us, switching Gibby and Fender guitars almost every song – including working that gorgeous Les Paul Goldtop a few times.\n\nRose, grinning, held the mic stand over his head after making it through the cover with a lowered octave.\n\nThe solid “new” song Hard Skool was a bathroom (dare I say “slash”) break for some, undeserved, the guitarist gnawing on the notes so intensely even I was making that guitar-player chewy face.\n\nThen, with an accompanying tale of getting high and “seeing colours and s—” and listening to Black Sabbath for the first time, Rose totally killed Sabbath Bloody Sabbath after Junior’s Eyes, another top 10 highlight of the long night. Total banger.\n\nPopping into the Use Your Illusions for Double Talkin’ Jive, Yesterdays and the heart-gutting Estranged, you could see the young Axl of old as he energetically ran around the stage as Dizzy coated the stadium with that beautiful piano playing.\n\nSo good, and around now I was already liking this show more than AC/DC, who had about twice as many people in attendance (one cop told me around 22,000, more than would fit in the downtown rink for sure). That said, Rose had an AC/DC belt buckle, and Slash hopped like Angus Young later on in tribute.\n\nMcKagan did that sweet Damned cover, then Slash went totally wild during the very singalong Rocket Queen, which somehow reminded me in a good way of Bowie’s Glass Spider tour here in ‘87 … the whole space thing, perhaps, but expertly done.\n\nNothin’ and a highly energized You Could Be Mine begat what for a blessed minute I thought was going to be a Slash-teased cover of Alice Cooper’s Only Women Bleed, instead of Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.\n\nMost bands, by now, would have played their entire set, P.S., which is not a bad time to mention how awesome Atlanta’s The Black Crowes were, singer Chris Robinson speculating whether they’d played here in the last 20 years – a not small loose squadron of people at this show mainly to see them. (First time I did was in front of Robert Plant in 1990, loved them since.)\n\nIt was ear-candy, sweet-rockin’ hit after hit for these boys, including Jealous Again, the rocked-up Otis Redding Hard to Handle, nah-nah-nah hit Twice as Hard and the beautifully spooky Remedy. I tried for a T-shirt, but alas, too many festival perogies!\n\nOK, back to GN’R as Rose got political, saying “I just don’t know where the f— we live” in response to, well, everything happening down south and over in Europe and the Middle East; cue Civil War with its jab at military capitalism.\n\nHere, Slash had his craziest solo of the night (pretty much the only person I want to see soloing outside of bluegrass musicians and maybe Paul McCartney on drums), followed by the again total crowd singalong – clever, Mr. Rose – Sweet Child o’ Mine.\n\nThe singer’s most gorgeous moment of the night was, again summoning late Bowie somehow, sitting down at the piano for November Rain, Slash’s notes cutting through the air like a pearl chainsaw as a lonely bat flew in circles under the full moon and a blinking drone.\n\nSomeone was delivered out on a stretcher during Patience – and a recorded blast of a CP rail horn rolled in the weirdly-spelled, ever-escalating Nightrain, which Rose kept low.\n\nFinally, Paradise City put a bow on, the full band coming out smiling and bowing to ample applause. Slash and Duff flicked a few picks out into the crowd (as Rose had his whistle earlier during Patience), then the 61-year-old guitarist did that hilarious handstand, and we were off, the fuzzy folk McGowans cheerfully busking outside.\n\nRose’s voice can’t do what it once did, yep. But as we all age together, I’m happy to say this was one of the best shows of the year, up there with The Offspring, Angine de Poitrine and Arrested Development, with “Weird Al” coming right up Tuesday after Thursday night’s lunar eclipse.\n\nNo complaints here as Edmonton finally overflows with music instead of rain.\n\nfgriwkowsky@postmedia.com\n\n@fisheyefoto.bsky.social\n\nRelated Dolly Parton's music, kindness mourned by Edmonton country singers\n\nReview: AC/DC a deafening, by-the-numbers blast at Commonwealth Stadium\n\nReview: Rockin' Thunder fest literally lives up to its name\n\nBookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.\n\nYou can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.","url":"https://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/edmonton-concert-review-guns-n-roses-commonwealth-stadium","imageUrl":"https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/edmontonjournal/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/0829-you-gnr.jpg","publishedAt":"2026-08-27T16:05:29.000Z","sourceLabel":"Edmonton Journal Music","tags":["Entertainment","Music"],"authorName":"Fish Griwkowsky","contentHtml":"\"Guns

From the opening, slightly subdued howls of Welcome to the Jungle to Slash doing a handstand at the end of the show, Guns N’ Roses earned their money Wednesday night under a full moon at Commonwealth Stadium, where they’d played almost exactly nine years earlier (also on a hump day).

For nearly three hours, the majority focusing on 1987’s Appetite for Destruction and covers of Black Sabbath, The Damned and of course Wings, the elephant in the bowl was how high could 64-year-old Axl Rose push his voice up the mountain, and boy did he give his all, even when he couldn’t hit the highs.

Slash, as usual, was worth the ticket price alone, though veteran bass enchanter Duff McKagan might have been my favourite band member all night, not only doing a journeyman carpenter-level backup vocal job all night, but also taking lead on The Damned’s New Rose about halfway through.

After Jungle, Rose perfectly handled the bluesy thumper Bad Obsession in his shiny snakeskin plaid shirt and shades, doing a good job on It’s So Easy as well as the machine whirled around him, vampire lips and a snake tongue up on the big screen.

That perfect album kept going with Mr. Brownstone, after Chinese Democracy and Velvet Revolver cover Slither Rose laughing, “That’s very ominous. It’s like the neutron bomb in that old movie called Outbreak.”

Thermobaric, not to nerd out, but point taken. Then in flew Wings’ flashy-flashy Live and Let Die when I’d say the band really woke up and started churning – that drummer Isaac Carpenter is just a little whirlwind.

Missing was the insanely talented, classically trained Melissa Reese on keys and helping out with vocals, still sitting out the tour for “unforeseen personal reasons” – but longtime keyboardist Dizzy Reed made some of the sweetest sounds of the night.

And the slight irony of London-born, total master Slash wearing a Sex Pistols God Save the Queen shirt was layered, down to the fact punk is so delightfully sloppy, and there’s nothing like that all in Slash’s delivery.

As The Hearts’ Dwayne Marineau noted as this played, his two favourite guitarists are Slash and Willie Nelson, and we had one of them here in front of us, switching Gibby and Fender guitars almost every song – including working that gorgeous Les Paul Goldtop a few times.

Rose, grinning, held the mic stand over his head after making it through the cover with a lowered octave.

\"

The solid “new” song Hard Skool was a bathroom (dare I say “slash”) break for some, undeserved, the guitarist gnawing on the notes so intensely even I was making that guitar-player chewy face.

Then, with an accompanying tale of getting high and “seeing colours and s—” and listening to Black Sabbath for the first time, Rose totally killed Sabbath Bloody Sabbath after Junior’s Eyes, another top 10 highlight of the long night. Total banger.

Popping into the Use Your Illusions for Double Talkin’ Jive, Yesterdays and the heart-gutting Estranged, you could see the young Axl of old as he energetically ran around the stage as Dizzy coated the stadium with that beautiful piano playing.

So good, and around now I was already liking this show more than AC/DC, who had about twice as many people in attendance (one cop told me around 22,000, more than would fit in the downtown rink for sure). That said, Rose had an AC/DC belt buckle, and Slash hopped like Angus Young later on in tribute.

McKagan did that sweet Damned cover, then Slash went totally wild during the very singalong Rocket Queen, which somehow reminded me in a good way of Bowie’s Glass Spider tour here in ‘87 … the whole space thing, perhaps, but expertly done.

Nothin’ and a highly energized You Could Be Mine begat what for a blessed minute I thought was going to be a Slash-teased cover of Alice Cooper’s Only Women Bleed, instead of Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

Most bands, by now, would have played their entire set, P.S., which is not a bad time to mention how awesome Atlanta’s The Black Crowes were, singer Chris Robinson speculating whether they’d played here in the last 20 years – a not small loose squadron of people at this show mainly to see them. (First time I did was in front of Robert Plant in 1990, loved them since.)

It was ear-candy, sweet-rockin’ hit after hit for these boys, including Jealous Again, the rocked-up Otis Redding Hard to Handle, nah-nah-nah hit Twice as Hard and the beautifully spooky Remedy. I tried for a T-shirt, but alas, too many festival perogies!

OK, back to GN’R as Rose got political, saying “I just don’t know where the f— we live” in response to, well, everything happening down south and over in Europe and the Middle East; cue Civil War with its jab at military capitalism.

Here, Slash had his craziest solo of the night (pretty much the only person I want to see soloing outside of bluegrass musicians and maybe Paul McCartney on drums), followed by the again total crowd singalong – clever, Mr. Rose – Sweet Child o’ Mine.

The singer’s most gorgeous moment of the night was, again summoning late Bowie somehow, sitting down at the piano for November Rain, Slash’s notes cutting through the air like a pearl chainsaw as a lonely bat flew in circles under the full moon and a blinking drone.

Someone was delivered out on a stretcher during Patience – and a recorded blast of a CP rail horn rolled in the weirdly-spelled, ever-escalating Nightrain, which Rose kept low.

Finally, Paradise City put a bow on, the full band coming out smiling and bowing to ample applause. Slash and Duff flicked a few picks out into the crowd (as Rose had his whistle earlier during Patience), then the 61-year-old guitarist did that hilarious handstand, and we were off, the fuzzy folk McGowans cheerfully busking outside.

Rose’s voice can’t do what it once did, yep. But as we all age together, I’m happy to say this was one of the best shows of the year, up there with The Offspring, Angine de Poitrine and Arrested Development, with “Weird Al” coming right up Tuesday after Thursday night’s lunar eclipse.

No complaints here as Edmonton finally overflows with music instead of rain.

fgriwkowsky@postmedia.com

@fisheyefoto.bsky.social

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You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.

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