Slash, Download 2012

After being with the hugely successful rock band Guns n’ Roses, song writer and guitarist Slash appeared with his new band at the 2012 Download festival headlining the Zippo encore stage on the Friday night. He and Axl Rose both worked together throughout the 80’s and 90’s in Guns n’ Roses and collectively released hugely successful songs and albums the most well known and received album being the 1987 album titled “Appetite For Destruction” which featured hits such as ‘Night Train’ ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Paradise City’ all which have peaked in the top 100 and even got to number 1. After the band split up, and left front man Axl Rose on his own, he formed the ‘new’ Guns n’ Roses and Slash teamed up with various artists to bring out his first self tiled album “Slash” which was released in 2010 and which features artists such as Fergie, Lemmy and Iggy Pop. After this album went down well with critics and the fans slash joined up with Alter Bridge’s lead man Myles Kennedy to record a second album, just released a few months back. Slash and Myles started their musical relationship while recording the song ‘Starlight’ which was featured on the “Slash” album, said Myles at Download festival and they have taken it from there.

After having bands on the Zippo stage all day the crowd were getting restless and wanted to see what they had stood all day for... and in the rain! Bands that also featured on the Zippo stage were The Quire Boys, the reunited Little Angels, Nightwish and, if they had turned up on time Europe, but a delayed flight into Donington meant that their set got cut from the whole festival. The crowd had expectations from Slash and he certainly delivered to them playing all of his greatest hits and even putting in some new material from his latest album, as he should. He opened with ‘One Last Thrill’ and then proceeding onto the Guns n’ Roses song ‘Night Train’ to wish Myles had put his own mark on the vocals and which left Axl’s version in the dust! There was no comparison, Myles was just an overall better man for the job he even comes with the added bonus of actually turning up on time and sober! His voice has an edge to it that makes him perfect to sing the new material he has wrote with slash to singing some early Guns n’ Roses stuff that he didn’t sing on. 

I had never seen Slash live before but listen to him constantly on both my music player and his live stuff that shown on TV and I was really excited about hearing these flaming solos I have only ever heard but never witnessed. I have to hand it to him; he knows how to work that guitar! Every note he played had electric running through it and even while dancing around on stage like a headless chicken, still managed to pull off some amazing stuff on his famous Les Paul axe. All the other band members turned their instruments down when he was soloing which was good as we heard them clearly (which is what we were there for, after the entire act is called Slash). You could say that’s harder for him as with his guitar being the centre of attention he has NO room for error and there wasn’t any. All the solos were just how they sounded on the studio albums if not better as they had that input of some improve on Slashes part. 

After about an hour of pleasing the crowd with some fast hits and wild solos the band on stage slowed the pace down a bit and played the song that brought Myles and Slash together ‘Starlight’ to which lighters were brought out and hands were swung in the air. It was a magical moment to watch and even more to see the Download crowd sing their hearts out and to watch Slash play some soft riffs, a well needed break for the band... and the crowd for that matter!! After that they soared through more hits of both Slash’s and Guns n’ Roses including ‘Mr Brownstone’ and ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ before ending on a killer ‘Paradise City’. I never thought I would get to hear this played by Slash as I didn’t know that he still played this, and from the crowd’s reaction neither did they! The crowd were once again warmed up to go crazy and Myles had them under his control telling them to sing and they did. If you ever get to hear 20,000 people singing at the same time it is a wonderful moment. The final solo that Slash pulled off was crazy, I'm surprised that the band could keep up. He was on FIRE! He ripped through the solo going crazy all over the stage before finally thanking Donington for being there to support him and his band and finally walked off.

Every band that day played amazingly and pleased the crowd, the only downside was not to see Europe play put instead having to hear the fans in the crowd sing ‘The Final Countdown’ which I have to admit was pretty funny. Till next year Donington... 

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