Guns N\u2019 Roses<\/a> were once the most dangerous rock \u2019n\u2019 roll<\/a> band in the world: a group of excitable maniacs whose songs tore through the ozone layer of late Eighties pop and planted a ragged, bourbon-soaked flag in the dirt.<\/p>\n But on Saturday night, as Download Festival headliners, every trace of that visceral danger was absent. In its place, we witnessed a well-drilled, super-professional cabaret outfit who sashayed through the hits and smiled sweetly as they did it.<\/p>\n The opening song, Welcome to the Jungle, formerly a clarion call for delirium, was more like a polite \u201cGood Evening\u201d, before Axl Rose, lustrous of hair, pearly of tooth and dressed in the first of a series of sparkly shirts, gazed at the crowd and remarked how nice it is when \u201ca few of your close friends drop by\u201d. Mr Brownstone, written, let\u2019s not forget, as a lament for encroaching heroin addiction, wafted out over our sun-kissed heads like an agreeable cloud, while Yesterdays found Rose wailing at the extreme end of his register, a place so close to physical pain you prayed he\u2019d never return to it. At least their latest single, Nothin\u2019, was memorable, in the sense it was laugh-out-loud bad \u2013 an awful, soggy mess of a song.<\/p>\n Slash seemed content to perform guitar solo after guitar solo – Guilherme Neto<\/p>\n As befits a cabaret band, the covers were a mixed bag. Live and Let Die and Knockin\u2019 On Heaven\u2019s Door were both tolerable, but Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was gruesome, and Duff\u2019s cover of the Sex Pistols\u2019<\/a> Black Leather was no more necessary or welcome than Axl\u2019s ruination of Wichita Lineman. Slash, wearing his hat and a fresh Mot\u00f6rhead T-shirt, remained silent, seemingly content to grind out endless guitar solos, which, after an hour or so, became like audio soup \u2013 reasonably tasty at first, but you soon realise you\u2019ve had all the flavours you\u2019re ever going to experience.<\/p>\n After nearly three long hours, Sweet Child o\u2019 Mine, November Rain and Paradise City finally proffered a warm blanket to a multi-generational crowd, albeit one already pouring out of the festival ahead of a chilly night in their tents. A decade into the Guns N\u2019 Roses reunion, and with a reported $965 million\u2019s worth of tickets sold, there\u2019s no doubt that plenty of people want to see Axl, Slash and Duff together again. But when you\u2019re presented with them in the flesh, you wonder what anyone\u2019s getting out of it.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n