Guns N’ Roses ‘knocks on Tel Aviv’s door’ - concert review

World-famous  American hard rock legends Guns N’ Roses made the second stop on their world tour Monday night, performing for three electrifying hours for a capacity audience at Park Hayarkon in Tel Aviv, after a similar show last week in Abu Dhabi.

The enthusiastic crowd was on the older side, with the mast majority of attendees over 30, though there were plenty of audience members who were in their teens and 20s, not yet born during the band’s heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Like in their previous appearances in Israel in 1993, 2012 and 2017, the band got the crowd moving when they performed their most identifiable songs, like “Paradise City” and the Paul McCartney cover,  “Live and Let Die.”Legendary frontman Axl Rose, in his 60s, was in decent vocal form and displayed impressive mobility onstage as he moves from singing in front of the left side of the venue before speeding quickly to the right.

Joining him were his band co-founders Slash (lead guitar) and Duff McKagan (bass guitar, backing vocals),  bolstered by longtime members Dizzy Reed (keys, backing vocals, percussion), Richard Forts (guitar, backing vocals), Frank Ferrer (drums) and Melissa Reese (synthesizer, keys, backing vocals).

'Sweet Child O’ Mine' brings loud cheers 

Loud cheers emerged when Slash played the familiar open D-chord beginning of the band’s most famous song: “Sweet Child O’ Mine” with similar responses coming from classics “Welcome to the Jungle” and the Bob Dylan cover “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.” The creative use of stage lighting added to the show’s spectacle.

Slash switched guitars multiple times during the show, sometimes even playing a double-neck guitar which branded a six-string and twelve-string guitar into one. Some of the show’s highlights were his numerous guitar solos that amazed the crowd.

The show was epic, but there appeared to be occasional technical issues with Rose’s microphone and Slash’s guitar, as I sometimes had trouble hearing them throughout the show.

The three-hour runtime, combined with a 30-minute late start meant that the crowd was likely exhausted by the end of the evening. But it was well worth it.