At the very end of his recent vitriolic, expletive-laced rant on a Guns N’ Roses message board, Axl Rose added the words “For the rest of you… Surprise gigs comin’!!” almost unnecessarily. However, it seems he wasn’t just blowing smoke. As it turns out, in the wee hours last night, the band played an extremely intimate surprise concert at John Varvatos’ clothing store on the Bowery in New York City.

You see, Fashion Week just kicked off here in the Big Apple, and it seems Axl, eager to follow in the footsteps of Velvet Revolver, aligned with the man who turned a punk rock landmark into a high-end boutique. The good folks at BrooklynVegan report that attendees waited for hours for Guns N’ Roses to perform (shocker!). Yet we have to give credit to Axl for putting on a full 90-minute show instead of a truncated mini-set for an audience that included Sebastian Bach and Kevin Bacon. Though I have mixed feelings about the whole Varvatos/CBGB’s thing (as someone who spent quite a bit of time in that venue in his teens), I’m pretty fucking bummed that I wasn’t there for this.

Below you’ll find some (very) amateur video footage of the performance, as well as the full setlist.

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Given all the shit Velvet Revolver has pulled over the last few years, and the fact that most post-GN’R projects by that band’s original line-up are pretty lackluster, you couldn’t exactly blame someone for thinking that Duff McKagan’s Loaded would suck ass for sure. But McKagan seems to have learned from his past mistakes; after Geffen dumped not one but two of his solo albums, he’s now signed to Century, a considerably smaller label than you’d expect given his connections and squillions of dollars, which would suggest he’s not in it for the money, a nice change of pace from the usual greedy bullshit we see these kind of rock tars pull these days.

Of course, putting his ego aside and saying “Y’know, I think I actually have enough cash, thanks” would mean nothing if Loaded was terrible, but they’re not; they make the kind of catchy hard rock that fewer and fewer bands seem to indulge in these days (Even Queens of the Stone Age seem to have pretty much given up.). And they’re not afraid to come across as genuinely messy: McKagan obviously isn’t the best singer in the world, but you’ll never hear the guy use auto-tune, not even for a second, God love ‘im.

So Loaded far exceeds expectations, and almost – almost – redeems McKagan for those terrible John Varvatos ads he did with the rest of VR a year or so ago.

Here’s Loaded’s video for “No More.”

-AR

When LA transplant Scott Ian recently declared that “I come from a New York that doesn’t exist any more so there’s not much for me to miss,” you could hardly blame the guy; this city is rapidly dying and will soon be one big strip mall. Case in point: John Varvatos’ take-over of the space that was once CBGB. Even though we’ve known this was coming for a while, the press release Varvatos’ “peeps” put out yesterday made me foam at the mouth with rage all over again – mostly because it’s indicative of what a truly self-centered, disingenuous poseur Varvatos is. After the jump, the press release – with our comments in bold, natch.

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