Let's be honest with ourselves, in a band as cool as Guns n’ Roses (and there was a good chunk of time in the late 80’s when they were as cool as fuck) Duff McKagan was the really cool one. When we were miming in the mirror to our bootlegged copy of “Appetite for Destruction” he was the one we wanted to be. Whilst the others came from the lineage of glam metal, Duff with his short hair and snarl was 100% punk. He brought the aggro, he brought the attitude, he was the linchpin that stopped Guns n’ Roses from being yet another Los Angeles vanity project.

He had also gone on to be rather a renaissance man. He has taken it upon himself to support other artists to fight the good fight against the excesses of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. He's been to the bottom, and he now sees his life work to help others avoid the pitfalls he succumbed to. He also formed a wealth management firm designed specifically to aid young musicians to keep tabs on their newfound prosperity. He also writes and occasionally acts. Hell, Duff beer in The Simpsons is even meant to be named after him. However alongside all this extracurricular activity he has never taken a hiatus from his lifelong love of music. The rollcall of acts he has been part of is highly impressive with both the juggernaut that is Guns n’ Roses and Loaded being active to this day. But tonight is all about Duff McKagan the solo artist and we get stripped back, vulnerable man in his early 60’s intent on re-evaluating the life that he has lived.

It goes without saying that the appearance of a rock legend of Duff status in a venue as small as the Academy 2 means that the place is packed from the get-go. The front rows are in situ from the moment the doors open, reserving their slots to be within a hair's breadth of their hero. Opening up to such a partisan crowd would usually be a challenge, however youngsters James and the Cold Gun handle it admirably. They look young enough to not even remember Velvet Revolver's heyday let alone Guns n’ Roses’s and lead singer James Joseph does shout out that this is a night to tell his dad about.

They may all be incredibly young, but the music that they ply is as old as the hills. Dress it up as you want, this is the blues, and they partake in it really well. James Joseph has a smooth velveteen voice that washes over the listener. His bandmates proved to be surprisingly adept at breathing new life into a genre that we have all heard thousands of times before. The blues is about passion, is about pain and it is about desire. They manage to wring out all three of those emotions and the audience response immediately points to the fact that they’re onto a good thing. It is inconceivable that anybody in the room will come across these Cardiff chancers before, but James with an honest quiver in his voice states that this is simply the best show they played this tour and you know for a fact that they have won over a whole new battalion of fans.

During his 45 year career Duff has recorded a hell of a lot of music. A full career retrospective would take days and that's before we even get onto his cameo appearances with people like Ozzy and Iggy. However for this trot around Europe and the UK he has decided to major specifically on his recent solo meanderings. Over the course of an hour and half we get the entirety of last year's “Lighthouse” as well as a good chunk of the pre-pandemic “Tenderness”. There are also visits to other aspects of both his career and his influences but more about that later.

He has been performing since he was 15 so he knows exactly how to titillate and to command an audience. Tonight he starts slow with the haunting acoustic numbers from the last two solo albums. They major on self-aware pathos, unveiling the tales of his debauched life and the redemption that he has found. He is an extraordinary storyteller, and the hall stands in hushed reverence. There is something extraordinarily genuine about the way he bares his soul in these early tracks. There is no ego here, instead, this is a man who has made many detours in his life and is now at one with himself. He makes certain to call out his better half Susan Holmes and to exalt her role in his journey, there is sincere emotion in the way that he states that he could write a million songs about her.

But as stated, Duff will always at heart be a punk. Punk as a musical form was all about taking music back to its basic functions. It was all about stripping away the overinflated grandiose flourishes of Prog and reaffirming the simplicity of voice, guitar, bass and drum. As the volume and ferocity ratchets up, Duff sticks close to that simplicity (with Ryan Burns on keys adding a honky-tonk vibe). An early outing of the Stooges classic (and punk template) ‘I Wanna be Your Dog’ sees the vibe change from redemption to party. That good time ambience continues as he slides in ‘Wasted Heart’ from his other other other band Loaded.

By now the audience is in raptures of ecstasy and he proceeds to take them over the edge with an astonishing one-two of ‘I Fought the Law’ and ‘You’re Crazy’ (the only nod this evening to the band that made his name). Even his voice screams punk, harsh and jagged but full of emotional resonation. For all the enormodomes and stadiums that he has conquered over the years, you get the distinct impression that this is where he is happiest, on a small platform in a relatively small room. He absolutely bosses the stage, exuding kinetic energy in a frenzied and frenetic way. He feeds off the audience, continually labelling us as badass. 

It all reaches a crescendo with two more covers. The Johnny Thunder anthem ‘You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory’ is now as synonymous with Guns n’ Roses as it is with the former New York Dolls member. It has been a mainstay of Duff’s primary band since the "Use Your Illusion tour and this evening it unfurls wonderfully with its tale of loss and regret. Bowie’s majestic ‘Heroes’ tops the whole thing off in a tumultuous version that has been recently released all good streaming platforms. Bowie was always the mainstream artist that he was okay for punks to like, and Duff gives this behemoth of a song a real DIY aesthetic. And then that's it, heartfelt thank you’s, screams of adorations and he walks back out of our life’s. Punk, entrepreneur, father, husband but most of all just a brilliant person to spend 90 minutes with.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Duff McKagan + James and the Cold Gun