Guns N’ Roses brought their LA attitude to Hyde Park as they rocked the capital with a three-hour British-tinged set.
The US 80s rock band, fresh from their headline slot at Glastonbury Festival, rolled back the years to light up a dreary Friday night in London.
Kicking-off proceedings with a bang, they opened with the roar of It’s So Easy, one of many numbers scattered through the 27-song set that was taken from their seminal 1987 record Appetite For Destruction.
Not even a quick tumble on stage during second song Bad Obsession, off their Use Your Illusion double album, could upset proceedings for frontman Axl Rose.
Making light of his fall at the British Summer Time (BST) gig, the 61-year-old said: “I don’t want to jinx it but hopefully I’ve got all the slip and sliding out of the way.”
In a possible sign that his week-long stay in the UK had rubbed off on him, the American later told the thronging crowd he was having a “bloody good time”.
In a nod to the group’s lengthy fallout following their mid-1990s bust-up, the Californians played Slither early on, a hit by Velvet Revolver, the band guitar player Slash and bassist Duff McKagan were in during their exile from Guns, which ended seven years ago.
The band — with the three original members padded out to a seven-piece via newer additions — offered 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.K. Subs.
Six songs in, Guns put the show 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 introduced 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 — ahead of a captivating solo piece.
The jean shirt-clad axeman’s fretwork proved a hypnotic build-up to the unmistakable opening chords of wedding dancefloor-favourite Sweet Child O’ Mine.
The June drizzle proved the perfect backdrop to the nine-minute ballad November Rain, with Axl donning a sparkling leopard-print jacket for his stint at the piano — one of his many outfit changes during the evening.
Following a slight lull in proceedings after an amped-up rendition of Bob Dylan’s Knocking On Heaven’s Door, the audience’s patience was rewarded with one of the most pulsating songs in rock music.
Finale Paradise City sparked a sea of flailing bodies as the crowd joined in with every word that Axl, who appeared to have gone native with his Union-branded hat, belted out.
As guitar-shredding maestro Slash waved off the exiting crowd, even showing off to his country of birth with a farewell handstand, the hordes left the Royal Park sated on the sounds of West Coast hard rock.
Guns N’ Roses were supported by The Pretenders, The Darkness and Larkin Poe.
Manchester-formed group Take That are due to play at BST on Saturday, with crowd-drawing K-pop outfit Blackpink headlining on Sunday.
