Mumbai — I didn’t go to the Guns N’ Roses show expecting transcendence. I went because my friend’s stepdad had a Groupon and gout, and I needed closure for the version of me that once shouted “YOU’RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY!” at a vending machine that ate my dollar in 2003.
Technically, this was a concert.
Emotionally, it was a wellness check.
Imagine a Harley-Davidson showroom fell in love with a Planet Fitness parking lot.
Denim. Tank tops. A lot of upper-arm tattoos from a time before irony. One man was wearing a shirt that simply read “Appetite for Reconstruction.” No one laughed. I saluted him quietly.
Axl Rose emerged 17 minutes late, dressed like a wealthy scarecrow. His hat was the same hat. His voice was… present. At times he sounded like a goat trapped in a canyon. At other times, like a vacuum being emotionally manipulated. But he tried. And in 2025, that’s punk.
Slash looked exactly the same, like a haunted Funko Pop of himself.
He shredded. He never stopped shredding. At one point, the shredding looped into itself and achieved sentience. A woman near me whispered, “Is this still November Rain or are we in a memory?”
This was less of a concert and more of a public reanimation.
Each song carried the emotional weight of someone trying to prove they still can, not because they should. But isn’t that all of us?
There was a moment—right before Sweet Child O’ Mine—where Axl looked out at the crowd and said, “You still here?”
We were.
God help us, we were.
No, they’re not in their prime.
Yes, Axl looked like your uncle yelling at a grill.
But for two hours, we weren’t aging.
We were just loud.
And if you squinted—really squinted—you could see the echo of the band they once were.
More importantly, you could see the echo of the person you were, too.
And that person?
They still scream the lyrics. Even if they have to sit down to do it.
Rating: 4 out of 5 surgically repaired knees.
