See Guns N' Roses Deliver Electrifying "Patience" Performance at Rock in Rio in 1991 | Page 2 | Revolver

See Guns N' Roses Deliver Electrifying "Patience" Performance at Rock in Rio in 1991

Celebrate 29th anniversary of 'GN'R Lies' with explosive trip down memory lane

Twenty-nine years ago today, on November 29th, 1988, Guns N' Roses released GN'R Lies, their sophomore studio album and the follow-up to 1987's legendary debut Appetite for Destruction. Having scaled the Billboard charts — and Eighties pop culture writ large — one year prior, Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan, Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler faced astronomically high expectations heading into the record's creation: as one of the biggest bands in the world, how could they not?

Fortunately for the rock world, a sophomore slump wasn't in the cards. GN'R Lies (a pseudo-album of sorts, comprising four songs off 1986's Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide EP, plus four never-before-heard acoustic tracks) proved successful, thanks mostly to "Patience," its lone single. A powerhouse ballad in the vein of "Sweet Child O' Mine," the tender recording marked the first (and arguably, only) time a hard-rock outfit successfully merged whistled melodies with blistering guitar solos (and in a supremely badass fashion, natch). It peaked at Number Four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and quickly became a staple of the band's live set – a legacy that continues to this day.

To commemorate the anniversary of GN'R Lies, we're taking a look back at one of the band's finest, heaviest performances of "Patience," delivered on January 20th, 1991 at the Rock in Rio II festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Of course, patience being a virtue and whatnot, we couldn't help but throw in the L.A. rockers' stripped-down rendition of the track from their 1988 show at New York's legendary CBGB.