Location: Ljubljana / Hala Tivoli / Slovenia
Date: Friday, 08.02.2013
Back in late November the news dropped: Slash is coming to Slovenia! The legendary guitarist, who some call one of the greatest rock guitarists ever and others just a good player who can’t really be put on the same level as the true greats. Opinions will always clash, but one thing is clear: this is a notorious star who, with his curly hair, top hat pulled down over it, sunglasses and of course a guitar in his hands, introduced countless music fans to rock’n’roll, and who, together with Axl Rose, wrote one of the most controversial stories in hard rock history.
After last year’s successful tour, when he sailed across Europe over the summer alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and plenty of other stars, Slash also put out his second solo album, “Apocalyptic Love”, which he’s been pushing hard on stages around the world ever since. At the end of the summer the land of kangaroos hosted him, he returned to the stages of his native American soil, and then the new year arrived, bringing with it a return to the Old Continent for a tour. He first played a few shows in Eastern Europe before coming back to the Slovenian capital after seven years, on our biggest cultural holiday, no less. Križanke, where Slash played in 2005 with Velvet Revolver, was this time swapped for the small hall of Hala Tivoli.
Slovenian rockers Tide got the frozen crowd warmed up, landing the prestigious job of opening for a big international act for the third time, after Iron Maiden and Uriah Heep. Picking Tide again stirred up quite a bit of hot blood in the land of Carniola, but their professionalism on every level easily shoots down the understandable grumbling of regular gig-goers. Slovenia simply has only a handful of bands with a fully professional attitude, so they inevitably (whether they like it or not) rotate very quickly through prestigious events. But let’s focus on the show itself. In a half-hour session, Tide delivered a pleasing cross-section of their career, with a logical emphasis on the current release “No. 4”. The quartet bets on its punchy, almost arrogant stage essence of uncompromising, solid character, with duties spread evenly among all four members. Frontman Kevin Koradin was unfortunately too low in the mix and couldn’t be heard well from the crowd, but difficult acoustics are an old sore spot of Hala Tivoli. The band nevertheless sailed uncompromisingly down its chosen path and made it clear that they don’t hold the throne of the Slovenian alt rock scene for nothing!
By then the hall had filled up completely, setting a wonderful backdrop for Slash and company, who spent the next two hours spoiling a sold-out audience, mostly of the younger generation of rock’n’roll fans, beneath a huge banner of the current album “Apocalyptic Love”.
After the opening number Halo, it was already time for a wild ride on the night train, or rather the song Nighttrain, during which all the brakes came off between the crowd and the band. Maybe someone thought this would be a night of nostalgia for one of the once most successful bands, Guns N’ Roses, but Slash’s career didn’t die after leaving the infamous group, so over the years he’s piled up plenty of material, which he successfully presented in Ljubljana, with a logical emphasis on both solo albums.
The discovery of the night was definitely Myles Kennedy! The guy has been active in music for more than two decades, but he only stepped onto the big stage a few years ago with the success of Alter Bridge, and he went a step further when he joined Slash’s solo project and became his right-hand man. Last year at Graspop in Belgium, where I met Kennedy and his backing band “the Conspirators” for the first time, he didn’t quite manage to fully win over the festival crowd, but this time in Tivoli the picture was completely different! The crowd followed his stage performance and, with hands raised again and again, conjured up a breathtaking show that the musicians on stage visibly enjoyed. Slash’s frontman isn’t all that charismatic, but he’s all the more assured when it comes to his vocal duties. His vocal performance was built on exceptional adaptability, which was most noticeable in the G’N’R covers, where his tone moved a bit closer to Axl Rose while still keeping the necessary touch of his own expressive formula and temperament.
Slash spent most of the time working the right side of the stage. He was serene, with gleaming sunglasses covering his face and hiding any mood-driven grimaces. The highlights of the show were his solos, which luckily defied the acoustics of the Tivoli hall and rang out full to the crowd’s delight! The placement of the rhythm section in the mix was a completely different story, especially in the first part of the show, as the sound of the drums and bass couldn’t find its optimal spot in the overall picture, so the speakers rattled quite annoyingly in places. In that respect the intro to Civil War was a real little disaster. Though cool as a cucumber at first glance, Slash was alert the whole time, watching and dictating the flow of the show. He showed off the mastery of his riff rhetoric in the intro to No More Heroes, and in general he kept drawing the spotlights to himself by running his fingers up and down the guitar neck. In the bouncy Doctor Alibi, bassist Todd Kerns made a fine turn as lead vocalist, stepping out of the shadow of the night’s top two names, Slash and Myles Kennedy, at least for a moment.
As usual, Slash was very reserved, addressing the packed hall for the first time only near the end of the show, and with a handful of thank-yous he threw even more fuel on the already blazing atmosphere. The evergreen G’N’R classics Sweet Child O’ Mine, Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City, right at the close of the two-hour show, were (as expected) the most triumphant moments of the night judging by the response. Though Slash has been trying for a decade and a half to escape the shadow of his time with the notorious Guns, playing their classics still fills his wallet, so giving them a compromise third of the set list is perfectly understandable. With two solo albums released recently, the guitarist is clearly still creatively inspired, but unfortunately the audience fails to recognize that too. It simply ignores all his post-G’N’R projects and just feasts on the big Guns hits, so Slash is trapped in a kind of vicious circle of past mega-success, never to be let out of the claws of the Guns N’ Roses legacy, whether he likes it or not. The sold-out Tivoli show was proof of that.
author: Urban Bolta
photos: Nina Grad
Setlist:
1. Halo
2. Nightrain
3. Ghost
4. Standing in the Sun
5. Back From Cali
6. Nothing to Say
7. Serial Killer
8. Civil War
9. Not for Me
10. Doctor Alibi
11. Watch This
12. Bad Rain
13. Rocket Queen
14. No More Heroes
15. Starlight
16. Anastasia
17. You’re a Lie
18. Sweet Child O’ Mine
19. Slither
—encore—
20. Welcome to the Jungle
21. Paradise City
