The self proclaimed most dangerous band in the world are now comfortable enough elder statesmen to play the most mainstream of festivals, that back in the day they would either never have played, or the organisers probably wouldn’t have had them.

Just days after playing before 200,000 at Glastonbury (and many million more keyboard warriors watching the BBC broadcast) they played this headline show at the prestigious BST Hyde Park, the London location making it by reputation the most corporate date in the festival calendar. However the professional organisation must have been a relief to band and fans alike after the ill fated shows at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last summer.

There is a second stage in the corner of the arena which boasted some bands I’d have liked to have seen in The Dust Coda and Dirty Honey, but it’s logistically difficult to flit between stages in time, so I had to content myself with a varied four band bill on the main (Great Oak) stage. The three support acts had no stage set of their own other than a band logo and with our hot summer momentarily deserting us for a cloudy and windy day, the stage made for rather monochrome viewing and they struggled to engage a G’ n’R supporting crowd.

First up was a long overdue first chance for me to catch Larkin Poe, the Nashville band raved about in many circles, expanded to a four piece, at least as a live act. There was a great musical chemistry between the two Lovell sisters, lead singer and rhythm guitarist Rebecca complemented by elder sister Megan with some superb slide playing on a guitar wielded at ninety degrees from her body, lap steel style. ‘Strike Gold’ and ‘Kick the Blues’ were extremely eye catching openers while ‘Summertime Sunset’ boasted a riff with an Aerosmith style groove.

After the sisters paid tribute to the blues, ‘Preaching Blues’ was an old Son House number which I recognised as the song The Answer have played for many years, ‘Bad Spell’ featured a jam between the sisters, then ‘Wanted Woman’ reminded me in part of Spencer Davis/Chicago’s ‘I’m A Man’, before a 40 minute set closed with The Black Keys-like boogie stomp of ‘Bolt Cutters and the Family Tree’, featuring the ‘fight out of me’ chorus line. In their adaptation of traditional southern music for a rock audience, I could see similarities with fellow Nashvillians the Cadillac Three in some respects, though a good set lacked the variety in the songwriting to make it a great one for me.

The Darkness opened with ‘Growing On Me’, with Justin Hawkins’ falsetto in fine fettle, but surprisingly for a festival set most of the early songs were more recent favourites including ‘Motor Heart’ and ‘Heart Explodes’ and the best of them all in ‘Solid Gold’, sadly undermined by a poor, wind-affected sound for much of the set.

The fact Justin mentioned they were playing a 20th anniversary tour of ‘Permission to Land’ in December may partly explain their reluctance to play too much off it, with the exception of ‘Love Is Only A Feeling’, featuring a sweet solo from brother Dan. ‘Japanese Prisoner of Love’ was more enjoyable than expected and after an introduction in French from the ever eccentric Justin, belatedly the set warmed up with ‘Get Your Hands Off My Woman’. He had been engaged in a running gag with a top hatted G’n'R fan at the front called Ethan asking for plectrums, and now the falsetto call and response between the two was highly entertaining.

What was not a natural Darkness crowd were now entering into the spirit of things even persuading the band, Slade at Reading-like, to play ‘Xmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)’. After a brief snatch of it Justin implored people to bounce to ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ even before the song started and quite a few were doing so, amidst a greater number tediously filming on their camera phones. It had been a mixed set but ultimately a triumphant Hyde Park debut for the band.

The main support band were The Pretenders, given a significantly longer slot than the first two bands. They are a band I had never seen before, hard to pigeonhole and probably not a natural fit for a G’n'R audience. Yet few could accuse them of not rocking hard enough, notably guitarist James Walbourne, with a sharp and aggressive and direct sound, even if solos were kept short. Chrissie Hynde, one of the few rock stars genuinely deserving of the overused term icon, has hardly changed in vocal delivery and looks over the past 45 years and was a vibrant presence.

There was quite a lot of unfamiliar material to me – and presumably to most of a festival crowd – especially early on but a generous selection too of classic hits: ‘Kid’, dedicated to the memory of founder members James Honeyman- Scott and Pete Farndon, ‘Talk Of The Town’ and ‘Middle Of The Road’ ending with some feisty harmonica playing from Chrissie, before she dedicated ‘Hymn to Her’ to a recently passed friend.

‘Back On The Chain Gang’ was another highlight, then a fifties style rock n roller in ‘Thumbelina’ and an unfamiliar song in ‘Let The Sun Come In’ were unexpectedly lively. During the jangly ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’, there were pockets of people around me dancing along, while ‘I’ll Stand By You’, the one song where Chrissie unstrapped her guitar to focus just on singing, is an overlooked power ballad. ‘Mystery Achievement’ was a good song with a jam in that choppy, funky post-punk style, seemingly setting us up for the inevitable climax of ‘Brass In Pocket’ but no it was the last song – a black mark on an otherwise excellent set which was something of a revelation for me, making me wonder why they have only vaguely been on my radar all those years.

Their days of poor timekeeping long gone, Guns n’ Roses came on promptly at 7.20 pm, looking from a distance rather small under their elaborate stage backdrops and lights. A throbbing bass intro from the ever cool Duff McKagan heralded ‘It’s So Easy’, Axl Rose singing in a low growl as he did for many of the opening numbers, and holding the mike out for us to shout a lusty ‘f– off’.

‘Bad Obsession’ followed with a Stonesy raunch driven by Slash’s slide, though the gig nearly came to a premature end as Axl stumbled and fell, but fortunately all was well and indeed his energy throughout was impressive as he rushed from one side of the stage to the other. The title track from ‘Chinese Democracy’ was decent with solos from both Slash and Richard Fortus, though the fact it was the only number from that album may mean Axl has belatedly realised it’s not one fans want to hear, yet in contrast Velvet Revolver’s ‘Slither’ nestles very comfortably in the set.

During ‘Mr Brownstone’ I was wondering how Axl’s voice would measure up but didn’t really get to hear, so loud was the singalong around me, then after an extended intro the first of their undoubted classics in ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ unsurprisingly got the best reaction yet with a few outbreaks of pogoing around me. To Axl’s credit he didn’t back out of a fast and furious ‘Reckless Life’ from the early ‘Live Like A Suicide’, going for it, while ‘Double Talking Jive’ took on a fresh dimension mid-song with a solo from Slash that to me had a positively Richie Blackmore spirit to its fluency, before going back to basics with the enjoyable old school sleaze of ‘Pretty Tied Up’.

‘Hard Skool’ was a song I wasn’t familiar with, enlivened by a solo from Slash with an amazing flurry of notes and Axl deploying the falsetto that was to prove his other default vocal setting, now that his menacing banshee howl seems to have deserted him. His sharp tongue against his detractors is still very much alive though judging from the diatribe of ‘Absurd’.

In the recent Classic Rock rundown of their best 50 songs, ‘Estranged’ revealed itself as the connoisseurs choice other than the usual suspects, so it was great to hear this epic semi ballad with its changes of tempo and a piano solo from Dizzy Reed. With Axl mentioning it was 50 years since a fellow Brit wrote the song, ‘Live And Let Die’ sparked a mini mosh pit near me then another classic in ‘Rocket Queen’ was, as usual, broken up and extended to 12 minutes with long solos from Richard and Slash, the latter’s almost Frampton like with his use of the talkbox.

As a total contrast, there were a couple of punky covers in a marvellously snotty ‘Down On The Farm’ and, after an enjoyable ‘You Could Be Mine’, with most people singing along, Duff singing a cover of the Stooges ‘TV Eye’. ‘Anything Goes’ was one of the surprises of the night and though Axl was not at his best there was an interesting musical arrangement with Slash again on the talk box and Dizzy boogie-woogie piano.

Gradually the set was focused on the epics, ‘Civil War’ a case in point with Slash playing a 12- string against a backdrop of the yellow and blue Ukraine flag. His own solo slot then culminated in that unmistakable opening solo to ‘Sweet Child O Mine’, though the atmosphere near me wasn’t quite as electric as I’d anticipated for an undoubted classic.

After a break for his piano to be wheeled out, Axl returned in a very natty snakeskin jacket for an epic ‘November Rain’ in which his vocals and Slash’s solos, delivered high on the stage above .Melissa Reece’s keyboards, complemented each other very well. The ability of G n R to switch between different styles in dizzying fashion was epitomised by the way the song glided into ‘Patience’, Axl’s whistling skills intact and Slash and Richard perched at the foot of the drum kit playing acoustic guitars, then another about turn with the lengthy ‘Coma’, boasting a dark and twisted, alternative sounding riff.

While many of the random covers that bedevilled the last show of theirs I saw at Download in 2018 were absent, and the set was a lot leaner, nevertheless there was still time for an extended ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’ with solos from both guitarists and a crowd singalong as darkness fell, before Axl introduced one I’d particularly been looking forward to in ‘Nighttrain’ though the atmosphere where I was felt a little flatter.

Time was when any imposed form of timekeeping was anathema to Axl Rose but the new genial, mellower version explained they wouldn’t go off stage as such but play through to ensure they could still play three hours without falling foul of the strict curfew. So we got two virtual encores, first a relatively restrained ‘Don’t Cry’, before a fitting finale in ‘ ‘Paradise City’ with all the hallmarks that made the original band so exciting on display.

I like to think of the Guns’n’Roses story as a trilogy in three acts. One, the rise of these angry, hungry street punks to superstardom and the excesses of fame. Then the wilderness years with the endless wait for a new album, key band members leaving, predictably unpredictable timekeeping and a guitarist wearing a KFC bucket. Finally, this mature phase of a band at peace with themselves and carrying off a tremendous legacy of anthemic, and surprisingly varied, songs. The latter is certainly my favourite of the three and this superb show showed them at their best.

Review by Andy Nathan

Photos by Guilherme Nunes Cunha Neto (Guns’n'Roses) and Andy Nathan (support bands)

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)