These days, seeing Slash isn’t merely a musical experience – it’s a theatrical one too. Such is the effort the affable Guns ‘N Roses and Velvet Revolver guitarist puts into his concerts, it would be churlish, upon entering Vicar St., not to suspend your disbelief and get into the spirit of the show. The scrum of touts, the anxious fans outside because they couldn’t get a ticket, and the enthusiastic crowd within all attest to the on-going popularity of the rock legend, however cartoony he might sometimes appear.
Though Slash and his band, which now includes vocalist Myles Kennedy (who was fighting an uphill battle against the ‘flu), along with seasoned LA musicians Bobby Schneck on guitar, bassist Tommy Kerns and drummer Brent Fitz, were in Dublin to promote the guitarist’s most recent solo effort, entitled Slash, no-one could accuse him of being precious about his earlier work.
Part of putting on a decent show is giving the audience what they want. So alongside 2010 offerings such as ‘Back From Cali’ and the instrumental ‘Watch This’, he also had the decency to play Guns N’ Roses anthems ‘Paradise City’, ‘Night Train’ and ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’, which was sung in its entirety by the overjoyed audience, understandably thrilled each time the band went into one of the older hits. He also dedicated Thin Lizzy chestnut ‘Ready To Rock’ to Philomena Lynott who was in the crowd.
From his outfit of jeans, vest, sunglasses and that top hat to his party pieces, which include playing the guitar behind his head, and cranking out the theme to The Godfather without the help of his henchmen, Slash is all about showmanship, as he was back in the glory days of the Gunners.
Bearing in mind that tonight was not the best we’ve seen from him, it would be easy to criticise his performance as an example of style over content, possibly accusing him of pandering to clichés and reliving his glory days as he throws classic rock shapes across the stage. But extroverted performances like his are all too often missing amongst bands today, who, possibly out of a fear of looking stupid, prefer to play rather than perform. For choosing to entertain, we salute him.