US rock giants Guns N’ Roses produce British-tinged set at London’s Hyde Park
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uns N’ Roses introduced their LA perspective to Hyde Park as they rocked the capital with a three-hour British-tinged set.
The US 80s rock band, contemporary from their headline slot at Glastonbury Festival, rolled again the years to mild up a dreary Friday night time in London.
Kicking-off proceedings with a bang, they opened with the roar of It’s So Easy, considered one of many numbers scattered by means of the 27-song set that was taken from their seminal 1987 document Appetite For Destruction.
Not even a fast tumble on stage throughout second track Bad Obsession, off their Use Your Illusion double album, might upset proceedings for frontman Axl Rose.
Making mild of his fall on the British Summer Time (BST) gig, the 61-year-old stated: “I don’t want to jinx it but hopefully I’ve got all the slip and sliding out of the way.”
In a potential signal that his week-long keep within the UK had rubbed off on him, the American later advised the thronging crowd he was having a “bloody good time”.
In a nod to the group’s prolonged fallout following their mid-Nineties bust-up, the Californians performed Slither early on, a success by Velvet Revolver, the band guitar participant Slash and bassist Duff McKagan have been in throughout their exile from Guns, which ended seven years in the past.
The band — with the three authentic members padded out to a seven-piece by way of newer additions — supplied a British-tinged set, rustling up covers of Live And Let Die by Paul McCartney’s Wings and Down On The Farm by punk-outfit U.Ok. Subs.
Six songs in, Guns put the present into fifth gear with a colossal rendition of Welcome To The Jungle, sending the 60,000-strong crowd into overdrive.
Axl alluded to Slash’s British roots as he launched the “Englishman” — the 57-year-old, who appeared to relish improvising with The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Voodoo Child riff mid-set, was born in Hampstead, north London — forward of a charming solo piece.
The jean shirt-clad axeman’s fretwork proved a hypnotic build-up to the unmistakable opening chords of marriage ceremony dancefloor-favourite Sweet Child O’ Mine.
The June drizzle proved the right backdrop to the nine-minute ballad November Rain, with Axl donning a glowing leopard-print jacket for his stint on the piano — considered one of his many outfit adjustments through the night.
Following a slight lull in proceedings after an amped-up rendition of Bob Dylan’s Knocking On Heaven’s Door, the viewers’s endurance was rewarded with one of the pulsating songs in rock music.
Finale Paradise City sparked a sea of flailing our bodies as the group joined in with each phrase that Axl, who appeared to have gone native along with his Union-branded hat, belted out.
As guitar-shredding maestro Slash waved off the exiting crowd, even exhibiting off to his nation of beginning with a farewell handstand, the hordes left the Royal Park sated on the sounds of West Coast arduous rock.
Guns N’ Roses have been supported by The Pretenders, The Darkness and Larkin Poe.
Manchester-formed group Take That are attributable to play at BST on Saturday, with crowd-drawing Ok-pop outfit Blackpink headlining on Sunday.