Gig Review: Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators / Mammoth WVH – Resorts World Arena, Birmingham (30th March 2024)

It’s been over two years since the release of five years since the top hatted one and his solo band played on UK soil. Not only that, it’s almost a decade since the band played in Birmingham – the closest being slots in 2015 and 2019 (both of which were incredible). So needless to say, there’s a lot of excitement on this Saturday night, especially as Slash has been rather busy the last couple of years with some band called Guns N’ Roses, Myles Kennedy has been travelling the world with Alter Bridge and his own solo efforts, and Todd Kerns is in about a million bands at the last estimate.

Along for the ride is Mammoth WVH, the band powered by Wolfgang Van Halen and also features the talents of Conspirator Frank Sidoris so it’s the first of two shifts for him tonight. They hit the ground running with Mammoth II’s lead single “Another Celebration at the End of the World” and despite the advantage of having 20% of the headliners, they approach the set without that benefit and go on their own merit. Which they do with ease given Van Halen’s managed to create two excellent albums. Naturally, the focus of the set is on the most recent effort on their short but sweet half-hour set. With three guitars all winding around each other without tripping up and none of them buried, the groove-laden numbers have the receptive crowd on-side early on and the audience simply gets into it more over the duration.

Van Halen appears to be an affable guy during his brief introduction, instead relying on the music to do the talking for him. Whilst he does quite a bit of heavy lifting on the guitar with his own showpieces like the finger-tapping during the opening song, guitarists Sidoris and Jon Jourdan are more than capable of keeping up. Meanwhile the rhythm section of bassist Ronnie Ficarro and drummer Garrett Whitlock are solid together, working seamlessly together and whilst Whitlock is overpowering being a touch too high in the mix, Ficarro makes up for it by being a more than entertaining sight, constantly encouraging the crowd to clap along. Given the band’s mix of classic rock meets modern, it’s a great fit for tonight, it’s got plenty of swagger, each song has its own identity and it’s all performed by an incredibly disciplined band. The only issue – there’s a sense they’re literally only getting started and it would have been great to have another couple of songs. Hopefully, we’ll get them back sometime for a headline show rather than constantly opening for other acts.

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The ominous intro tape starts and this time around it’s the main theme from The Thing. Brent Fitz takes to his drum kit decked in a Duran Duran shirt (talk about playing to a home crowd) to some impressive cheers. But those cheers soon transform into a cacophonous roar as Todd Kerns and Frank Sidoris appear along with Myles Kennedy and a Les Paul-wielding guitarist climbs onto the drum riser. The high-energy gritty intro of “The River is Rising” starts and the crowd becomes positively unglued when the Les Paul roars into life. Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators are here. And for over two hours, they deliver a boisterous, bombastic rock and roll show.

It might have been five years since their last visit to UK soil and a couple of years since they last played together but they play with such intensity and camaraderie as if they do this for eighteen months at time in-between recording albums. With much of 4 getting a look-in and its long-overdue UK debut, there’s a healthy dose of the back catalogue from across the previous three Conspirators albums as well as a couple from other corners of Slash’s illustrious career.

What’s obvious from the first song is the band are loving being onstage together as they flash smiles to each other and the chemistry between them is palpable. And as a unit, they’re playing better than they ever have. The early inclusion of ”Driving Rain” is the sole representation of Living the Dream and if there has to be a knock against tonight’s show – it’s this. Personally, I would have loved to have heard a couple of more off what is arguably the Conspirators’ finest hour in favour of World on Fire’s “Too Far Gone” and 4’s “Whatever Gets You By”. Likewise, “Ghost” finally being dropped from the set after fourteen years is disappointing but honestly, the ideal Conspirators show would be at least three hours long and Slash probably doesn’t want to be doing that on both his own and Guns N’ Roses shows.

However, there’s a welcome roar as the opening chords of “Back From Cali” play and it’s a song which never gets old, especially as Kennedy flawlessly mentions Birmingham having so much heart (as he does for every city every night). “Bent to Fly” and the immortal “Starlight” cover the slower numbers of the evening and even those have the crowd moving. There’s also the opportunity taken to mix things up as the Flying V and talkbox replaces the Les Paul for “C’est la vie” and does contain a riff that you do want to vocalise yourself as Slash runs through it. But that’s not the only difference for tonight – enter, the man who is 6ft 4 and got a head like a warzone, bassist Todd Kerns. Usually taking a song or two (“Dr Alibi” and something else) at the mid-point, he instead gives Kennedy a couple of breaks throughout the set, first being at the mid-point with the co-write Slash had with Lenny Kravitz back in 1991. Again, the funky “Always on the Run” is a bit of a left-field choice and would have been more appropriate years back when they pulled from Guns N’ Roses, Slash’s Snakepit, Velvet Revolver et al. That said, it’s Todd Dammit Kerns and he owns the song as if he wrote it with Slash. He’s got a hell of a set of pipes of his own and a magnetic frontman to boot in his own right, a constant blur as he batters his bass into submission and throws his head about so much his hair covers him so he resembles Cousin It.

There’s another couple of chances for Kerns to wow the crowd with his singing on Guns N Roses’ “Bad Apples” (though if you were in Newcastle and Glasgow, you got my favourite Use Your Illusions I song “Don’t Damn Me” – which he nailed) and, of course, towards the end, they “call out the doctor”. It continues to be exhilarating live as one of the most effervescent numbers of the evening and it simply wouldn’t be a Conspirators show without it. Meanwhile, “Fill My World” is introduced by Kennedy as the anthem for pets, encouraging everyone to show pictures of “Your dog, your cat… your giraffe”. And as someone whose cat ed away that morning, I won’t lie, it hit hard but I did resist the urge to shout “Read the room, Myles!”

Elsewhere, the gritty and grinding “Wicked Stone” is back and if you caught them on the Living the Dream tour, you know exactly what happens here. Cue Slash taking a mammoth solo in the middle of it whilst Kennedy straps on a guitar to provide some grace notes and he, Kerns, Sidoris and Fitz keep the machine running while the man in the top hat does what he does best. If you’ve heard sly nod to what’s next for him.

The end is nigh with “You’re a Lie” and “World on Fire” marking the end of the main set. And with both of those following “Dr Alibi”, there’s a sense that Slash and the boys aren’t going to go quietly. Indeed, “World on Fire” allows for another extended solo from him but also gives room for the band to be introduced and show their fun side. It’s one of several moments where you can believe that these five men aren’t just colleagues – they’re friends. It also gives a moment for Brent Fitz to truly shine with a short but sweet drum solo. He hammers it out so quickly with panache and vigour, playing with the same sort of ion seen in people like The Virginmarys’ Danny Dolan, albeit in a far different style.

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The encore calls for something special and we get it. Fitz takes to the keyboard whilst Slash sits at a pedal steel for their rendition of “Rocket Man”. It’s more sedate than the version you can find on Stuntman and doesn’t have the ballsy riff packed into it. It’s a sombre moment and the mood lighting creates a beautiful moment and makes you wish there was a full version on the streaming apps. However, Kennedy, who has been nothing short of stellar tonight, commanding the crowd effortlessly and putting his pipes through their paces with ease then goes one step further. He batters through each and every one of those octaves on a belt much like he does on The Mayfield Four’s “Summergirl” and just like that, this one sends shivers down your spine.

Finally, it’s a song which never gets boring. The Conspirators’ power ballad is the perfect goodbye, showcasing everyone’s talents to the highest degree. From the finger-picked intro into the Godzilla-sized riff to Kennedy wringing every last bit from his vocal chords to Todd Kerns’ thundering bass with Frank Sidoris’ punchy licks and Brent Fitz’s effortless groove, it’s “Anastasia”. The staple is loaded with ion, Slash throwing every trick in his box into this one song and making it look easy into the bargain before he takes centre stage for one last blast whilst the rest of the band give him a rock-solid bed to work on.

While tonight may not have been the perfect setlist from a personal perspective, from a performance standpoint, it was flawless. It may have been a weird sight to not see Marshalls backing Slash since he’s now using Magnatones but he still sounded like Slash. His tone remains as distinctive as Kennedy’s voice and just as expressive – you don’t even need to know he’s on a song to know he’s playing, it’s iconic as his presence itself. But tonight, the entire band are simply playing better as individuals and as unit than they ever have and remain masters of no-frills hard rock and roll.

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Mammoth WVH: official | facebook | twitter | instagram | youtube