Velvet Revolver @ HordernPavilion, 24/02/05

Wed 2nd Mar, 2005 in Gig Reviews

It’s all BIG at the Hordern Pavillion as Velvet Revolver take to the stage. Big lights, big sound, big solos and big grown up boys. As five world prominent rockers of the eighties and nineties stand before their instruments, there is something else that is big in the room -  the crowd’s expectations.

In the support slot are the Screaming Jets, who are still gigging, believe it or not. While they play to the small early crowd it feels like an odd choice. One that might have served a younger up and coming band a little better.

As the Jets finish up the Hordern starts to fill, it’s a smaller turn out than the previous nights sell out performance. But no one seems to care. Down in the mosh pit, East meets West in a remarkable reunion of the suburbs. Velvet Revolver has drawn all types of rock, metal and inde fans and a suprising collection of band t-shirts that you either thought you’d never see again or would have never have expected to see at this gig.

But sell out or not, the big guns take to the stage and they do not mess around. Sucker Train Blues, the opening track off their platinum plus debut album, Contraband, is the first track for the night. It’s a tidy taste of what is to come. Bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum are the silk of rock when it comes to the rhythm section. Years of gigging together has this crucial part of the band sounding tighter than tight and relaxed, all at the same time. And from this solid foundation the sound only gets bigger.

Think big red and gold lights, flashing VEL-VET-REV-OLVER letters, shirts off, guitar sweat everywhere, the big rig drum kit complete with a gong behind Sorums head. Add the mean looking Dave Kushner on second guitar winding up the crowd as he prepare’s each song for Slash’s attack, trading the riffs back and forth between them.

And that’s when it hits. This is Velvet Revolver. What a mad bunch, but are they real? Hopefully. Are they just posers? Possibly. Professionals? Definitely. There’s not a lot of time to think at this gig and it’s sure as hell too loud to think. With each song, a new frenzy whips up. The floor of the Hordern screams along to Superhuman and the catchy smug chorus words ‘Co-caine, Alco-hol…’ while Slash takes guitar solo lust to a new height. Stepping up to the mic he speaks for the first time, introducing the number Illegal Alien I and moments later it becomes obvious why. Midway through Illegal the song breaks into an extended version and great slabs of seventies guitar solos reign down from the stage. Slash is the wet dream of guitar love tonight.

And the rock rolls on, Scott Weiland prooves his worth as he steps into ‘Mr Sex on Rock Legs’ stage persona. Twisting, writhing, swaggering. Somewhere in between headbanging euphoria we meet the mesmirising and seductive number Dirty Little Thing.  “This song is for all you girls that like being sexy” drawls this skinny man of rock. Clad in tight flared synthetic black pants, a slim fitting white button shirt, purple vest, red tie and captains hat against his red died hair and pale chiselled features, Weiland has got David Bowie happening all over again.

What strikes most about his performance is his live vocal ability. It’s deliberately paced, arrogant and fitfully dark. Despite the constant media speculation about his vocals and endless comparisons to Axl Rose’s much larger range, Weilands voice is strong, smooth and in control of the stadium sound system. It’s the way he uses his voice that takes it from being good to something more sensational. Weiland’s that person at a party that doesn’t just talk to you, he leans all the way over into your space, to that personal place just above your shoulder near your jaw, and really talks to you. He melts you.

Halfway through the set, there’s a noticeable change of pace and Scott takes a moment to explain. This next song is ‘T H E band’ he says. Without this song there would be no Velvet Revolver and for a moment Scott Weiland looks incredibly fragile up in lights, his oversized bony shoulders hanging over his body like a teenage boys. Humbling and sad, Fall to Pieces launches spot fires all over the room as the crowd dig out their lighters and hold them in the air.

Earlier in the evening a punter in a beer line referred to Velvet Revolver as a covers band. The comment raises an interesting question. How do you define a song that you wrote a decade ago while you’re playing it in your new band? Is it a cover or just a trip down memory lane? Definitions aside, Velvet Revolver pull out a handful of old hits from Stone Temple Pilots – Cracker Man and Sex Type Thing - (Poison_Elf, I’ll take your word on the STP track names) and Guns’n’ Roses vaults (It’s So Easy, Used To Love Her and Mr Brownstone) and the mosh pit ramps up to eleven on the mental scale.

As the two successive encores roll out and other gems from the Contraband album are offered over – Loving The Alien and the much awaited hit single, Slither – Velvet Revolver haven’t finished with the stage antics yet. Slash arrives on stage with a double neck guitar and that famous top hat, Duff and Slash play back to back in what can only be descibed as guitar humping and Weiland takes to the edge of the drum riser like a gymnastic bench.

There aren’t many stars that have picked up the pieces of their past musical careers and managed to do something successfully new. Josh Holmes with Queens of the Stone Age and Dave Grohl with Foo Fighters are but a few exceptions to the rule. History is a bastard to beat. Will you ever be better than just your ‘old stuff’? Is there ever a fair way to watch a band that is most of Guns’n’Roses and the iconic badboy of Stone Temple Pilots’ Scott Weiland?

Looking back over their messy combined personal pasts, Velvet Revolver should have released a steaming turd burger when they set Contraband out in stores. But a long stint at the business school of rock, a good dose of age, attitude, Narcotics Anonymous and they’ve somehow found a light in the tunnel and a dozen good songs to boot.

Weiland sums things up when he tells off a punter holding a GNR sign: “Hey you. I want to break your face, get out of here. You are disrespecting the audience who are our friends. You cunt… get out of here”. And with that respect becomes the word that nails this gig. Most of the fans here tonight love the old stuff, respect the new and are enjoying the very sober and well executed music performance that is Velvet Revolver.

Which brings you to wonder what music would be like nowdays if some of the icons of the seventies, like the Hendrix’s and Jim Morrison’s, had lived through their drug shit. We might have heard some really interesting music on their second time around. Who knows it might have really sucked. But right now, Velvet Revolver have rocked the pants off a bunch of old fans and hopefully a bunch of new.