This certainly has been an eventful tour for VR. Last week Scott Weiland announced that this was going to the last VR tour, which came as news to his band-mates, and since them it would have appeared that they have been pretty busy with the media denying the rumour of a split! I first saw VR in 2004 and
was pretty impressed with their live performance. However the impression that I got was this was a holding band, and inevitably in time the various GNR and STP camps would resolve their differences and get back together. 4 years and 2 albums later I think it’s more likely than ever that the various groups will reform especially if Weidland decides to move on. OK I can’t see Izzy Stadlin ever sitting in the same room as Axl Rose however I doubt it would be a dealbreaker for the millions of fans who’d want to see them. Even though STP had much less commercial success than GNR I don’t think Weidland’s stage presence or personality could be replicated with a replacement singer. In may ways Weidland is VR and without him the band would fail to operate.
Regardless of the “issues” the gig at Brixton was excellent and the band made a huge effort to put on a memorable show. The songs from the new album “Libertad” are pretty good and very much in the same vien as their multi platinum selling debut-album “Contraband”.
The support was from a LA outfit called Pearl, fronted by the daughter of Meatloaf Pearl Aday. The band also featured Scott Ian from Anthrax and despite being much harder than what I tend to go for (music that it) were pretty good. Despite looking like Bonnie Tyler’s lovechild Pearl is actually very good singer with an impressive vocal range. she has loads of stage presence and her musical influences seem pretty diverse. Being the daughter of such a famous rock star can’t be easy however she plays it down. If you are interested in backcombed poodle power rock this could be your thing!
Written by John Rahim