Back in 1988 when I first heard the classic ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ and the rockier ‘Welcome To The Jungle’, I did not appreciate the fact that these songs along with the rest of the tracks on the break-through Guns N’ Roses album Appetite For Destruction would connect with me to the extent it remains one of my favourite all-time albums to this day. Perhaps this can be relayed to the fact at the time I was a 14 year old kid and the big killer tracks on Appetite would were a near constant at parties, night-outs and even weddings in the years that followed. So fast forward near 30 years and having realised that the guy Slash is now touring with is not the violinist Nigel Kennedy (not sure how on earth I made that mistake) but indeed the rock vocalist (and guitarist) Myles Kennedy the opportunity of hearing the duo backed by touring band The Conspirators was more than appealing.
Missing the support act was slightly disappointing but with both my mate Des and I over the 40 mark, standing for 3 plus hours is proving a challenge these days. The show opened with a track called ‘You’re a Lie’ with Myles impressing on vocals. To the delight of the crowd GNR classic ‘Nightrain’ followed and instantly the standing crowd went ballistic with all those in seats also jumping about singing along for all their worth. The set was a mixture of new tracks, Slash solo numbers, GNR classics and a few additional surprises to boot. ‘You Could Be Mine’, ‘You’re Crazy’, ‘Mr Brownstone’, ‘Rocket Queen’, ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ and curtain closer ‘Paradise City’ all featured from the GNR back-catalogue and with each track came roars of appreciation from the crowd who evidently enjoyed the GNR material as much as I did. With only ‘You Could Be Mine’ featuring from the Use Your Illusion albums I am guessing Slash prefers to reflect on his Appetite days with Mr Rose (indeed if memory serves me correct ‘You Could Be Mine’ was written during the Appetite period) which for me were never really matched in the albums that followed. Having listened to Myles perform with Slash a few times on the box I had pretty high expectations and other than ‘You Could Be Mine’ I was impressed with the way he made the GNR songs in particular his own.
Not being overly familiar with the post GNR material belting out from the stage the show did enough to keep me interested with particular highlights being ‘Too Far Gone’ and ‘World On Fire’. Bassist Todd Kerns also did a great job of entertaining through-out the set and highlighted his talent by taking on the lead vocal on ‘You’re Crazy’. Velvet Revolver material was rare with only ‘Slither’ appearing (unless I missed it) with Myles sounding more than an able replacement for Scott Weiland. For those hard-core rockers in the crowd the introduction of rock legend Glenn Hughes for a duet of Deep Purple song ‘Burn’ appeared to get the blood pumping once again before the aforementioned perfect curtain closer ‘Paradise City’ brought the night to a fitting close as streamers dropped from the roof.
Bazza Mills
@bazzamills
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