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OK so this is what was supposed to happen here : pleasant evening in pub, tootle over to the Apollo, smile warmly as three quarters/fifths (depending on the year) of Guns ’n’ Roses attempt to reclaim past glories whilst being ably let down by that prick out of Stone Temple Pilots. They might even play Sweet Child o’ Mine.
What was not supposed to happen was the best “Rock-n-fucking-roll” show Gigwise has seen, like…. ever, which saw your correspondent in the mosh pit for the first time in four years screaming “YEEEEEEEEESSSSS FUUUUUUUU-CCCKKKKKKIIIIINNNNG YEEEEEESSSSSSSS” repeatedly whilst punching the air in a rawk fashion and being covered in sweat, beer and (hopefully) Slash’s spunk.
You see, to call Velvet Revolver a bleeding brilliant rock band would be a severe understatement. To dismiss them as hoary old LA rock revivalists would be tantamount to herecy. They are mind bendingly, eye poppingly awesome. Right from piledriving opener ‘Sucker Train Blues’, to ‘Do It for the Kids’ (“Went too fast I’m out of luck and I don’t even give a fuck” – ROCK personified) and rock-power-ballad-in-actually-fuckin’-ace-and-much-much-better-than-on-album-shock-next-single-incidentally ‘Fall to Pieces’: before which frontman Scott Weiland sez he wrote it “in a bad and very lonely place in his life, to which I never wanna go back” let’s hope he doesn’t, as the man has suddenly turned into the greatest leather-clad-pervy sex god lead singer currently straddling the world. Imagine if gay men could have babies and then – due to the power of crack’n’smack – those kids aged dead quickly, then here would be the bum-love child of Freddie Mercury and king of the Gaylords Rob Halford. Ooh did I mention Duff yet? No? well, he’s fuckin’ ace too – looks about 21, six pack chest, surfer dood hair, cementing the rock-solid rhythm section line-up with plastik-Matt Sorum. He’s taken part in some serious Botox Bufoonery and resembles Zelda from Terrahawks (note to kids – dead scary, nightmare inducing puppet witch from 80’s Thunderbirds rip-off).
This is what a rock band show should be all about. Such is the strength of their new material, it doesn’t really matter that they don’t play much G’n’R stuff… but then the fact when they do they play ‘I Used to Love Her’ and ‘It’s So Easy’ is chuffin’ brilliant too. Displaying even bigger balls they then dance with death by covering Nirvana’s ‘Negative Creep’ – but the notion of covering Cobain & co. being an eternally bad decision is blown out the water by the sheer power of the ensemble. Seriously, they could have played ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and made it sound like something Satan would have written whilst suffering from a particularly bad bout of the shits.
If they don’t soon erect a bronze statue of Slash, complete with top hat, fag hanging out of mouth and Les Paul cradled like a new born baby in his hometown of Stoke soon… the 5,000 people in here will go down there and make it our-bleeding-selves.
Please, please, please go see this band.
FanPhotos by Jennifer Tolley
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