Chinese Democracy a "toe-tapper". Early Guns N' Roses guitarist Tracii Guns said he thought it was "over-indulgent, sterile and not that exciting". "Chinese Democracy"'s protracted recording process attracted extensive media coverage. According to "Spin", a cottage industry grew around covering its development; "the only way the record could have lived up to its legend would have been to never come out at all". Five years after its release, "Grantland" journalist Steven Hyden wrote: "For years, it was widely assumed "Chinese Democracy" would never come out; in retrospect, the delay is all anybody cares about ... As music, "Chinese Democracy" is merely the
Chinese Democracy Tour completed the band's first performance in seven years, which was praised as "a triumphant return" by music magazine "Rolling Stone". The band performed a number of new songs, including "Oh My God" (released as a single in 1999), "Riad N' The Bedouins", "Chinese Democracy", "Street of Dreams" (all later released on "Chinese Democracy") and "Silkworms" (which remains unreleased as of April 2016), including a bulk of original songs and 'classics' such as "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City", "November Rain" and "You Could Be Mine". The Las Vegas show was followed two weeks later by the performance at Rock in