It's a wig!
The missus and I went to see Slash at the end of last month.
It was excellent, although AsiaWorld isn't really a good venue. It's miles out of town, costs a bomb to get to, has no atmosphere, isn't organised very well (if you're going to have a 20 minute break between the support act and the headliners, tell us - we promise to spend cash on beer and souvenirs) etc etc.
But the concert was great. I actually found the new stuff more fun than the classics. Slash knows his audience well, the 'play it like on the album!' crowd, and so while it's still very cool to see the Original Guy doing the solos from Nightrain, Paradise City, Rocket Queen and so forth (and that wah solo on Civil War really is very good), there's none of the enjoyment you get from the unexpected - a creative phrasing, something innovative in a tune, just new songs, I suppose.
As an aside, Slash's singer for the tour was Myles Kennedy, whom I had never heard of before. He is top notch and I don't know why he isn't more famous.
More interesting than my pedestrian opinions on his gig, though, is what Slash did the night before the gig. He went out. Specifically, he went to the Wanch, a music venue in Wanchai I've played at a few times and which is managed by John Prymmer, a very cool guy without whom live music in HK would be a fraction of its current shadow of a self. John met Slash. John did not believe he was really Slash.
Or so I read via the Dark Side:
"Much to Slash’s surprise however, Prymmer was somehow unconvinced that the performer was who he claimed to be. “Slash? Sure you’re Slash,” he noted, with a rye (sic) smile on his face. “Just not in this lifetime.”
Despite the mosaic of Slash posters covering the bar’s outer façade, Prymmer’s mistake was perhaps forgivable, given the uncharacteristic beard and ponytail the artist was sporting that night."
I caught up with John last Friday after the Transnoodle gig at Rockschool down the road. I mentioned that I heard he'd met a celebrity recently.
"Oh man," he said. "That dude's hair is as grey as mine! That black hair you see on stage? It's a wig, it's gotta be a wig."
The whole episode just proves my claim to my wife that Slash would be hard to recognise on the street without the trademark gear. It also provides a tiny amount more evidence to back up my suspicion that the Hat, Glasses and Hair are all joined together as a unified, removable piece of I Am Slash apparel.
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