By Juan Alvarez.
It’s past midnight and the still-excited attendees of the Guns n’ Roses concert begin their retreat from the San Marcos University Stadium. The venue was full (more than 40,000 spectators according to the organizers), so progress is slow, like a procession. This time the cult object has been Guns n’ Roses, and if it had been possible the fans would have put Slash, Axl Rose, bassist Duff McKagan, keyboardist Dizzy Reed, guitarist Richard Fortus, drummer Frank Ferrer and keyboardist Melissa Reese.
“What a good concert…”, “What a capo is Slash”, were the comments with the greatest consensus. “It seemed like his own show.” “Did you see how he played with seven or eight different guitars?”, It was also said in the middle of the crowd. This ratified what was predictable, and what had already been seen in 2016 at the Monumental Stadium: When it comes to appreciating what is musical at the current moment of the group, the talented guitarist puts the show on his shoulders. However, that does not mean that the other musicians did not do their thing. On the contrary, what was seen and heard on Saturday night was formidable because of how well assembled the eighties band is seen and heard today.
And Axl himself also contributed a lot to that. Beyond the already idle realization that he does not sing like before, the vocalist was in a very good mood and in sufficient physical condition to give himself energetically to his classic dance, the usual jumps and races all over the scenery. There are cases in which artists usually strive to sound like on their albums, but others prefer to make each concert -especially when it is in the stadium format- a basic staging with certain nuances, very independent of what they did in the study 30 years ago. That was what was seen and heard in San Marcos. Full fanservice. And the gratitude of the fans was immediate.
YOU CAN SEE: Guns N’ Roses in Lima: fans camped outside the San Marcos stadium to see the concert
During the almost three hours of the show (it started at 9:20 pm, a surprising punctuality), the public did its part. It is already inevitable that many continue with the trend of trying to record everything with their cell phones, and well, it is their way of enjoying the show; however, there were times when it stopped, especially when Slash hypnotized everyone with his riffs and his solos. As if to contradict those who used to affirm that the Peruvian public was ‘cold chest’, many sang along to the songs, and did not stop jumping, especially with the fabulous ending with ‘Paradise city’. There were attempts at pogos, but they did not materialize due to lack of space, and because cases of fainting were reported that, being attended to quickly, did not escalate.
Although a little more could have been done to avoid the funnels of people that formed when leaving the field and the stands of the stadium, and that could generate risky situations, one point in favor of the organizers was allowing early entry . Opening the doors at 3 pm allowed the very long queues of recent similar shows to be avoided. This also contributed to the fact that the performance of Molotov, the opening band, could also be enjoyed by all. At this point, the debate over whether or not Mexicans were the right ones to open the show quickly dissipated; as happened with the doubts about the performance of the members of Guns n’ Roses: the years have left natural traces on the bodies of these rockers, but as soon as they start playing, nobody doubts their validity.
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