He was incredible, wasn't he? Unbelievable vocal range, stage presence, piano skills and songwriting ability. The whole package.

Pretty much the only person who rivals him is Axl on a good day, but Axl's vocals are nowhere near as versatile as Freddie's.

I dunno, I think Axl's genuinely trying to explain himself. He doesn't quite get what the Hall of Fame is, or why it's important. I'm inclined to agree with him; the whole thing is a PR exercise for the self-aggrandizing guys behind it.

Though ultimately I suspect the whole thing was doomed the moment Izzy decided not to show up. Once he backed out, it ceased to be about the AFD crew alone. Gilby was the "obvious" fill-in guy, and once he stepped on board you have Sorum and Dizzy being entitled to turn up. And once THAT happens, Axl starts wondering why the cut-off point is The Spaghetti Incident? and why the current incarnation of GN'R isn't entitled to be a part of the show.

I think Axl was probably up for showing up if the hall was inducting the AFD guys only, because that wouldn't reflect badly on his current project. But once you start talking about different lineups, you have a problem.

I dunno quite how to feel about this - largely because they're not using actual images of Tupac, they're using a CGI creation like the young Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy. But at least the young Jeff Bridges was created using performance capture of old Jeff Bridges. It looks like Tupac was rendered using motion capture of a completely different person performing a pastiche of Tupac's stage moves. Totally different thing.

If there was some way of capturing the performance of an artist and rendering it as a 3D hologram, fair enough, but this is... well, it's a tribute act. An imitation. Even bits of the vocals can't be Tupac's real voice - he didn't perform at Coachella in life, did he? So that bit at the beginning where he goes, "What up, Coachella?" must be an impersonator.

Weirdly, one instance where you could render someone's actual performance is our very own Slash - using the motion-capture work he did for Guitar Hero III.

It's a bit of a conundrum, because the only way you'll actually capture a performance for posterity as a 3D hologram is if you get a living artist to agree to do their stage routine in a performance capture rig. But to do that you'd have to tell them that you're capturing a performance so that if they die you can create a CGI version of them to project as a hologram. Which is a bit ghoulish.

Right! Take two - got my ticket for Thursday at Hammersmith. Went for standing in the end, despite fears that I will be peering at the stage through the fug of hormones from teenage girls shrieking over Lambert.

Ultimately I reckon Axl bailed because the pressure from the record company for a reunion would become unbearable if he consented to perform with the old band at the R&RHOF. Which is not the sort of thing that he needs when he's just gearing up for a tour and possible album with the current band.

Wasn't there a rumour that he was going to call the next album "Guns N' Roses"? That'd be the most almighty "fuck you" to the world in the wake of the R&RHOF.