Guns N’ Roses’ DUFF mckagan gets intimate in Islington.
ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL, LONDON Guns N’ Roses bassist gets intimate in Angel
“WE’VE BEEN WRITING a song about every city we’ve been to,” Duff Mckagan tells us, before launching into an apparently impromptu tribute. ‘London, Oh London,’ he sings, ‘I’ve been in love with you ever since I played The Marquee.’ It’s a reference to Guns N’ Roses’ first shows in the capital, back in 1987, and it’s not the only time his parent band get a look-in on a night that’s about as far away from Welcome To The Jungle as you can imagine.
Duff also plays three songs from
Use Your Illusion I: You Ain’t The First and
Dust N’ Bones (both originally sung by Izzy Stradlin), as well as an effervescent romp through Axl’s Dead Horse. Unlikely choices, perhaps, but they fit the musical landscape Duff is currently exploring. As with his new album,
Tenderness, most of the set feels like it’s been lifted from the second side of The Stones’ Sticky Fingers, the kind of loose, country-tinged blues’n’roll that provided the likes of Johnny Thunders and Nikki Sudden with a living. The kind of songs critics like to describe as ‘elegantly wasted’.
With backing from a band that includes Shooter ‘Son of Waylon’ Jennings (who, Duff tells us, has just finished producing the next Marilyn Manson album), it’s a nice mix of ragged and rowdy. It’s also surprisingly tender. Parkland, which is cloying on the album, packs added emotional punch as Duff adds two recent mass shootings – Dayton and El Paso – to the lyrics. And there’s love in the air; the day after the 20th anniversary of his marriage, Duff dedicates Wasted Heart to his wife (“I fuck it up every time you’re in the room,” he says, wistfully), and the pair slow-dance together onstage as tonight’s set teeters on the brink of soap opera. Guys, get a room.
Fraser LEWRY