Patience was the song that really turned me to rock music and I have always thought the sound there is the most you can get from an acoustic guitar.

The sound is so clean and warm that nothing can beat it and the fact there are no drums there gave me the feeling of being closer to the song, like the song was recorded by a few guys playing the guitar for fun, like we used to do at one party or another…

Now I have discovered on YT this version of Patience played by Velvet Revolver and even if they didn’t change that much to it, the new voice makes it sound different while keeping the rest of it makes it sound the same. New and still the same, does it make any sense to you?

How do you like this version? Did you know it?

PS: Listen closely, did one of the guitar players played a flat note on 1:21 or is it just me?! I love those moments!!

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I have always thought about that summer camp I was telling you about and how this Guns’N Roses unplugged ballad made the change. If it weren’t those acoustic guitars maybe I would have still loved rap at this age, even if I doubt, since probably rock would have finally broken through one way or another. Today, the acoustic guitar I have in my room is one of the 3 things I need, along with my computer and my digital camera. I play every day and it clears my mind when I get back home after a long and busy day. I am also in love with electric guitars, but that is another story, I can not play the electric guitar every day since I live in an apartment and I do have my neighbors, you know…

For me, acoustic guitars are one of the most beautiful things on this earth, the sound is that pure and clear and in the middle of the night, after a few drinks with your friends at a party, this is all you need.

An acoustic guitar is the best way to bring back the long gone past

Do you realize that there is nothing better to bring back the memories of the past than an acoustic guitar, a bunch of old friends and a bottle of wine? Of course, this is if you know how to play that guitar. If you have that magic trio, then all that songs that you have thought forgotten come to life again and everybody will start singing along. That is why I love acoustic guitars, for the fact they remind me of all those lovely high school parties, of late night college fun, of playing on the seaside by night or by late nights around the fire in the mountains.

The acoustic guitar was part of my life since many, many years and I don’t know if I could live without it. I love electric guitars, I love how Joe Satriani makes those alien sounds and how Steve Vai pushes the music to where no man has gone before, but most of all, I love “Patience” of Guns’N Roses, I love Mr Big’s “Be with you” and the whole unplugged movement that started, in my universe, with Nirvana’s unplugged sounds.

That is why I love acoustic guitars…

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I remember the feeling I had when I first started to like rock music. I was in a summer camp, during high school period and it was this girl, one of my class colleagues, who was a big fan of Guns N’ Roses, and I mean really big fan of Guns N’ Roses and their music. I remember back then I used to listen rap and dance music and totally rejecting anything related or only close to rock music.

Back then, Guns N’ Roses’ “Don’t cry” was in heavy rotation on radio here in Romania and I had a lot of chances to listen to it, but I was just…turning off the radio just to not listen anymore since I was feeling that inside me, something is changing with each note I was hearing and I just didn’t want to. I was such a stubborn teenager back then, I guess…

So, I was running away from “Don’t cry” because I felt that anytime I was hearing it on radio, on TV or anywhere else, my love for rap music was fading away and it seemed less and less interesting, personal and close to my soul. Instead, rock music was gaining more and more of it. “Don’t cry” was getting to me and I was running away, I was fighting the feeling that was growing inside me for the lovely electric guitar sound, those starting riffs of Slash’s Gibson guitar and Axl’s scratchy voice. Of course, back then I had no idea what guitar Slash had, I only knew a thing or two about electric guitars but not much.

Anyway, I remember that a few months before this, I had bought an acoustic guitar of smaller size from a friend of mine (back then I didn’t know that acoustic guitars come on sizes so it didn’t make too much difference to me). I can not tell you now why I bought it, I was listening rap, no rock, but I think I just found that brownish acoustic guitar one of the things I must have so I’ve bougt it and how handy it came from that moment on.

Coming back to my story, I was in this summer camp and this girl brought with her 42 tapes (I am dead serious!) with Guns N’ Roses and some other rock bands, but mostly Guns N’ Roses. Of course Guns N’ Roses doesn’t have that many tapes, but there are compilations, best of, albums, live shows and this girl had them all! And I really mean all, plus tones of black t-shirts with Guns N’ Roses and the skull. We had some Walkmans with us in this camp and I remember borrowing tapes from her and starting to listen.

And the acoustic guitars broke the defense line

I remember the moment I dropped the defense line and I let myself in the hands of music…And, most of all, I remember the song that made this change possible…

It was not “Don’t cry”, even if it is of the songs I really love even today and it was part of my transformation. It was “Patience”, a song that broke my heart in two, a song that I found so sweet and clean that I could not resist anymore. I came back an other person, I came back a rocker. I remember sitting in the dark while driving back from the camp, at night and listening Patience over and over again, I remember the acoustic guitars, the clean sound, the sparks in those treble sounds and Axl counting in the beginning…one..two…

And so a rocker was born, a guitar player and an avid seeker of new sounds, thanks to Guns N’ Roses, thanks to Patience, thanks to acoustic guitars and their lovely, clean sound. And thanks to that girl…

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