The Guns In Brixton

Velvet Revolver - Brixton Academy, London - 25th March 2008

It's a remarkably mild night in Brixton as we meet in The Beehive and sink a quick beer before heading off to the Carling Academy to see one of rock's current crop of killer live acts, Velvet Revolver.

We're on comp tickets tonight which saves us both the best part of a ton and more importantly to my skewed way of thinking, the need to do my usual time in the queue that snakes down the side of the venue.

We catch the last few songs of the support act, Pearl, during which time I remark several times that their rhythm guitarist looks like the bastard child of Anthrax's Scott Ian. The band itself are pretty good, ending their set with the best version of Nutbush City Limits that I've ever heard before heading off to the merch stand to sign autographs and chat to the fans.

This is a particularly endearing gesture to the fans in these days of high security, not to mention a lucrative one for the band who no doubt sell more than a few t-shirts and EPs on the strength of their pretty blonde singer's promise of kisses for all who come and say hello.

After observing the meet and greet for a few minutes, mainly to catch a closer look at the cute female bassist, not something you see every day,we head back in to the main hall to await the main event.

The lights dim and the band hit the stage with Let It Roll, the opening cut off their second and latest album Libertad, which having only picked up recently I'm still very enamoured with. It's a slice of honest, good old fashioned rock and roll, and translates perfectly to the live arena.

More authentically Guns'n'Roses than Axl Rose's current tribute band, Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagen looks lean and mean, his blonde main outshone only by his smile as he locks in with Use You Illusion era Guns drummer Matt Sorum. Slash, looking impossibly cool in shades and his trademark top hat cuts an impressive and distinctive silhouette and he stands in that pose playing his guitar like his life depended on it.

Dave Kushner, the only member of the band not to have previously been in multi-platinum acts, holds his own with Slash with no problems, running around the stage in his lumberjack shirt and baseball cap, looking uncannily like Tom Morello's slighty crazier twin.

It's ex-Stone Temple Pilots man Scott Weiland that really blows me away tonight, though. Not having paid much attention to STP I was aware of Plush and Sour Girl, but apart from that only his reputation as an unpredictable habitual junkie has preceeded him in my book.

Beginning the gig in a heavy duffel coat, he gradully disrobes throughout the show until he is wearing only a ridiculously tight pair of hipsters that threaten to reveal more than he intended at any moment, and a sheen of sweat.

He prowls the stage like a rabid wolverine, looking occasionally like a posessed GI Joe figure, as his voice soars through the thick wall of rock and roll noise that his band mates produce, letting the pace drop only twice during the show, once for the Guns classic patience, giving Duff and Slash the opportunity to take front stage, the latter with a Page-esque double necked guitar, and for their best know track Fall To Pieces.

To my surprise and delight we get another couple of Guns tracks, It's So Easy and Mr Brownstone, both of which sound even more vital tonight than when I'd previously seen them performed live twenty years ago. Judging by the 'STP' chanting crowd's reaction, and the fact that Sex Type Thing aside I didn't recognise them as VR songs, they play a similar number of Stone Temple Pilots songs.

I can never understand why so often artists are unwilling to acknowledge their pasts, so this well deserved showcase of former songwriting glories by both of VR's feeder bands is very welcome and takes the gig from being merely great to being absolutely fantastic.

Rumours have abounded this past week that Weiland is on the verge of quitting the band, fuelled by his very public spat with drummer Sorum on his blog and the recently announced reformation of Stone Temple Pilots, but I for one hope that this isn't the last VR tour, as Weiland had announced from the stage a few nights earlier - a claim refuted the following day by Slash, as the world needs bands like Velvet Revolver to show the young bucks just how it should be done.

(footnote - browsing the web a couple of days after the gig, it turns out that it was Scott Ian on stage with Pearl, looking every bit as young and vital as the last time I saw him in Anthrax nearly two decades ago.)