Slash Concert Review – Toronto September 23 2012

Myles Kennedy and Slash in Toronto September 23 2012

Sep 24 2012 – A lineup stretches out the front of the Sound Academy and goes for as far as the eye can see. Almost everyone is wearing black and a disproportionate number of people have long hair. The occasion – guitar sorcerer Slash is in town. The official event name is Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators with opening act Foxy Shazam. Yes Foxy Shazam is cool, the Conspirators are fantastic, Myles Kennedy is wonderful, but the masses are here simply for the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist with the top hat.

Foxy Shazam in Toronto September 23 2012

Foxy Shazam opens the night at 8pm with what can only be described as the most antic filled rock performance since The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The 6 member band from Cincinnati rolled on stage declaring themselves the greatest rock band in the whole world. During their set we saw a keyboard player body surf the audience – with his synth in hand; we saw a trumpet playing back up singer, we saw the lead singer ask anyone in the audience if they had a cigarette – after 4 smokes were tossed on stage he proceeded to smoke them all at the same time. And then eat them.

Foxy Shazam – Toronto Sep 23 2012

Musically Foxy Shazam is very good but unfortunately it felt like they relied on their antics to connect to the crowd more than their music. If there ever was a bastard child of Spinal Tap and the Rocky Horror Picture Show cast – this is it. Almost as much comedy routine as rock band – these guys were very entertaining and their 40 minute set was a very good warmup for what was to come next.

Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators

The stage had a simple backdrop of a painted serpent wrapped around an electric guitar and two hot cartoon women  surrounding the guitar. One was a devil woman with horns and the the other one was the angel with a halo and wings. For the whole set Slash wore a cut off t-shirt proclaiming “I enjoy Vagina” in the familiar “Enjoy Coca-Cola” stylized logo but removed that for the two encores and played shirtless. He also let a blue bandanna hang out his jeans back pocket. Needless to say the top hat and the dark shades were on all night as well.  Kennedy had an unbuttoned dress shirt on for the first part of the show and then came back with a “Bowie” t-shirt.

Slash – Toronto September 2012

At 9:15pm Slash and gang take the stage and their night began with Halo a song from the new album entitled Apocalyptic Love. It wasn’t until the second song though that the crowd went nuts as the GNR hit Night Train rocked Toronto. The next four songs were a nice sampler of Slash’s solo work but the following two songs (yet again GNR songs) Civil War and Rocket Queen really let everyone on stage get wild. The guitar solo work on both those songs reminded everyone why this was a Slash show first and foremost. Civil War ended with some Jimi Hendrix licks to the crowd’s great appreciation. Kennedy was no slouch on vocals though and in many ways is a far superior singer than Axl Rose. Kennedy was also slated to take over Robert Plant’s duties as the new singer of “Led Zeppelin” during their failed attempt at a reunion in 2007. Can there truly be a bigger honor in rock than to have Jimmy Page want you as his Plant replacement?

Myles Kennedy – Toronto September 23 2012

The setlist consisted of about a dozen of Slash’s solo songs, 6 Guns N’ Roses tunes and 2 Velvet Revolver songs. The highlight of the night was not any one individual song but Slash’s killer guitar solos that were liberally interspersed throughout the nearly 2 hour show. It was very packed house with everyone crowding the front of the stage and with barely room to move most just nodded their heads to the rhythm. Lyrics for the night included “We’re all gonna die, so lets get high” and “You’re fucking crazy, oh child” but when a show ends with Velvet Revolver’s Slither and Fall to Pieces sandwiched by Guns N’ Roses’s Sweet Child O’ Mine and Paradise City there ain’t nobody in attendance that’s gonna complain.

Rounding out Slash and Kennedy on stage were the very capable Frank Sidoris on Rhythm Guitar, Brent Fitz (from Winnipeg) on Drums, and Todd Kerns (from Saskatchewan) on Bass.

Slash – notice even the Marshall logos in the background have a top hat

As an aside – kudos go out to the Sound Academy security staff that quickly acted to dispense of the occasional drunk dicks that thought they can push their way to the front. On more than one occasion the tools that cant handle a few drinks and had a misguided sense of entitlement started to bulldoze their way to the front steamrolling everyone in their way, but they did not get away with it. A quick shine of the flashlight from one security guard ensured that 4-5 big dudes would surround the dicks and show them out the door. Really good work guys!

Slash  – Toronto September 2012

Verdict: 4 out of 5 – I came to the realization tonight that Slash is the best active guitarist right now. Tonight’s gig provided hard rock of the highest caliber and the chance to see Myles Kennedy was a treat. I hope the combo of Slash and Kennedy get down to a serious partnership with a full time band and begin to sell out the big stadiums like they should be doing. Musically its hard to think of a guitarist/combo today that has a rock n roll punch like these 2 guys have in the tradition of Plant/Page, Daltrey/Townsend, Lennon/McCartney and Jagger/Richards.