Aloha !

Like JordanRose is saying; Jon never had a really strong voice to begin with. It's detoriated with every tour. It's just that since 2000, and especially 2003, it became a lot more obvious as the smoking really took it's toll and Jon blew his voice again. The 2005/2006 tour was terrible and I'm positive Jon re-learned how to sing or probably had surgery as well.

So yeah, it's mostly smoking and not practicing in between shows. As soon as that last note is sung by Jon of whatever tour, he just rarely goes for the more difficult songs anymore. He doesn't push himself, which means that with every tour he has to start from scratch, hence sounding dodgy at the start of every tour and then better by the end of it. It's the lack of practice that kills him at the start of every tour.

Actually, there's not much left of Axl's voice. He goes offstage about every 3 minutes to catch his breath on an oxygen tank. That part you highlighted is him standing still belting out notes that are within his reach. On most songs however he sounds dreadful. There's the odd line here and there that make things think he's still got it, but they've become more rare with every performance.

Jon's not the worst singer from the bands that errupted in the eighties, but he's certainly not the best either. Jon however had one of the biggest ranges and pretty much lost it all. He's rarely singing anything anymore, it's mostly him just hitting and stretching out the notes. It ain't easy for him because he's lost most of capability to hit anything decently, and just because you're hitting something doesn't mean it's singing. Jon is fortunate enough however to cater to an audience that rarely actually listens to the performances and thinks "long note = incredible". Show his vocal qualities to someone who truly listens to his singing and you'll find they've not got many good things to say about it, because like I said, he just isn't singing anymore.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan