Woohoo! I've just bought a ticket for the Dublin gig!

They should've put Better out as the first single. No question about it. The DJs were always gonna hit them with negative buzz; unless they put out a killer single and the public got behind it, it was always gonna be "Blah blah where's Slash blah blah I'm a whiny little bitch."

Better was an ideal single - short, punchy, killer hook, sounds very different to the old band while still retaining that bluesy feel with the outro solo, some great changes of direction and solos from both the lead guitarists.

They should've put Better out first, then hit the public with TWAT - a grandiose follow-up to November Rain, with the big outro solo that proves Axl didn't need Slash. In my head, I picture a video in which Buckethead emerges from a chicken coop on top of the same fucking cliff as in the November Rain video, plays that solo and is beamed up to his home planet. Ah, if only they'd released THAT in '02.

Once the band's demonstrated that it can do hard rock and an epic ballad that can outdo November Rain, it's time to bring out the crossover single - If The World.

Fuck, a trained monkey could've made this thing a hit. The one thing they SHOULDN'T have done is put Chinese Democracy out as the first single.

What an unbelievable fucking asshole, ruined the best bit of the song for everyone.

Mind you, one of the other guitarists coulda stepped up to the plate and rattled through the solo once it was obvious that Slash wasn't gonna get a new guitar in time - I thought it was ingrained in every rock guitarist's DNA...

Didn't we do this "fantasy 1995 album" thing before? I never understood Slash's hissy fit over Huge doubling up his guitar parts on Sympathy For The Devil (not least because, um, I think it sounds pretty good). Most of the killer riffs on Chinese Democracy have Huge's co-writing credits on 'em, too. Imagine if the SFTD line-up had recorded an album... you'd have stuff like Dime Store Rock and Beggars and Hangers-On, but with Axl-penned lyrics instead of "nervous twitchin' in my hands", Fall To Pieces (though it'd sound more like the "acoustic" demo version, I imagine), This I Love, maybe IRS, TWAT and Catcher if Huge was in the mix... might be interesting to try and cobble together a tracklist based on what we know.

James, I know the red mist descends whenever Fortus' name is mentioned on here, but if you'd read my post I never said that Fortus was better than Izzy, I said he was more reliable from the perspective of our hypothetical ruthless businessman. Izzy is wont to get bored and wander off into the desert at a moment's notice; Fortus can be relied upon to actually turn up to the gigs. Izzy doesn't like the hassle of touring with a large-scale production and backed out of VR because of that (and because he didn't want to work with egotistical frontmen again).

He's happy enough dropping in on individual gigs and contributing in the studio, though; fair enough, but you need a touring guitarist. I'd rather have Fortus up there than Kushner or Gilby or whoever the fuck is in Slash's touring band at the moment. Fortus has the on-stage energy that Slash used to have before he had the pacemaker fitted...

Anyways, it's all hypothetical and isn't likely to ever happen.