Vicar Street, Dublin
There is a buzz of anticipation heavier and more intense than a country full of vuvuvelas; grown men in Guns N’Roses t-shirts (fondly recalling those Paradise City days?) and young men in Velvet Revolver tops (turned onto Slash via Guitar Hero video games?) mingle as they wait for one of rock music’s most celebrated guitarists to grace the stage.
Away from the limelight, it’s possible that Stoke-on-Trent’s Saul Hudson – whose mother was at one point David Bowie’s costume designer, and whose father once designed album covers for the likes of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell – is as humble a guy as you could hope to meet. Strap a guitar on him, however, and he turns into a rock’n’roll gunslinger, shooting from the hip, basking in the spotlight, without so much as a glance in your direction.
Slash arrives in Ireland on the back of a recently released solo album (titled, with an admirable lack of pomposity, Slash), but the balding men with middle-aged paunches and a penchant for punching the air with a post-pint fist, aren't necessarily here for Slash's essentially workmanlike solo work. Which is why, politely received though they may be, the tepid new songs (including turgid instrumental Watch This) are forgotten when Guns N'Roses and Velvet Revolver material are delivered. The audience, needless to point out, go ape when the likes of Civil War, Sweet Child o' Mine, Paradise City, Slitherand Nightrainare dashed off with no small level of panache.
Undoubtedly, the show is proficient, but flaws are obvious; notably, the star being flanked by younger, slimmer dudes who consistently flag up the talents of the main man. Such ego-swelling platitudes for a guitarist who was once in a band known for its appetite for destruction?
As if that wasn't bad enough, Slash showboating his way through Love Themefrom The Godfather(an old "aren't I great?" trick he's been doing for years) brought to mind a grungy John Williams making his way through Cavatina.
Like the guitarist himself, not pretty, but perhaps more crucially, not necessary. If a proper refit isn’t integrated soon, Slash might end up like one of his t-shirt designs: garish, cartoonish and outdated.
