Guns N' Roses @ SECC

This was thought of as a thing of the past; W. Axl Rose descending on a stage laden with pyrotechnic paraphernalia (albeit sans Slash and Duff) yet somehow, here he is. Welcome to the Jungle instantly sells the house to something so much stronger than a belated nostalgia trip and it'll take more than cheesy background videos of drag race crashes to repress the undeniable might of Mr Brownstone or You Could Be Mine. As Axl momentarily stops changing shirts and sprinting laps around the stage to float his arm across his skyline of fans - the jaded, the committed, the old and the new, screeching out a familiar "nyanna-nyanna-nyanna-nyeeeeeeeaaawwh" during Nightrain - it's a serving of inimitable crowd controlling prowess which recalls the very fact that, when it's all said and done, this crazy recluse has written some outstanding songs amid the pantomimic chaos of his career. "Ready to crash and burn, I never learn" he reminds us - would you really want it any other way? [Dave Kerr]