On Friday night, after a long day of sightseeing and recovering from a night out at the House of Blues with the Marvelous 3 and Lit, we got a ride to Outset, a new live music venue located on the outskirts of Lincoln Yards in Chicago, which offered an intimate (750 person capacity) with the acoustics and lighting you’d expect from larger-scale venues.
As we waited for the show to begin we met other fans young and old who also traveled to catch Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan on this solo tour. Around 8pm, American guitarist, singer, and actor Lee Ving from the hardcore punk band Fear took the stage with a few harmonicas and his Fear and Range War bandmate Frank Meyer accompanying him on the acoustic guitar.
The duo performed material off the new and old Range War albums, along with some covers and classic Fear material like “I Don’t Care Without You” and “I Love Livin’ in the City” in a stripped down fashion with the ‘Beethoven of Beer’ telling stories of his youth in Pennsylvania. Had it not been for my research on the punk icon and his mentions of our home state, I doubt I would have realized that this grey-haired frontman behind the harmonica was the same slick, black haired actor that played the club owner in the movie Flashdance which was set in our little steel town of Pittsburgh.
And this was just the start to a special evening as Duff McKagan later invited Lee to share the stage with him and perform “All Turning Loose” with Lee. The new song is one of three new tracks released this year. The second is entitled “My Name is Bob,” which features Joey “Shithead” Keithley of D.O.A. and the third is a live version of Duff’s cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” live from Islington Assembly Hall which features Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols.
Given his roots in Seattle, I’ve only had the opportunity to catch Duff McKagan live on stage with Guns N’ Roses in my home town of Pittsburgh.I can still remember loading way too many friends into my little red hatchback Chevette and heading to Three Rivers Stadium for their show with Metallica as a teenager. And while GNR had circled back to perform at both of our new stadiums, Heinz Field, and most recently PNC Park, this evening was promising to be something very different than the Duff performances I’ve seen on the big screens in the distance.
Joined by Jeff Fielder (Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age) on guitar and keyboards, bassist Mike Quires (Loaded, Ugly Kid Joe), Tim DiJulio (Flight to Mars) on lead guitar, and Michael Musburger (The Posies, Fastbacks, Supersuckers) on drums, Duff McKagan was performing in an intimate club for just a few hundred fans! The set list was an eclectic mix of originals new and old, and covers that highlighted his roots.
We felt the significance of the evening from the moment this tall rock icon graced the stage and leaned into the crowd with his acoustic guitar and simply said ‘hello’ before kicking off his set with “Forgiveness” from his latest solo album Lighthouse. It was almost as if we were being invited in … and in some ways I think we were.
Duff continued to make personal connections with the crowd pointing out one woman’s Price t-shirt, a twelve year old boy holding down the front row, and offering thanks when we sang his words back to him. But what really hit me hard was how he lifted us up and reminded us that each an every person has a story and their own struggles. His words were heartfelt and he he was expressing genuine gratitude, which made me very proud to be part of his ‘tribe’.
The evening focused heavily on the Lighthouse album, with a few songs from Duff’s second solo album Tenderness and a “Wasted Heart” from his band Loaded tossed into the mix along with some fun cover tunes going from acoustic to electric and hitting hard on vocal harmonies and full guitar sounds that showcased the chops of his bandmates with Duff leading the charge.
Highlights from the evening included the only Guns N’ Roses cover of the night,”You’re Crazy,” which of course is from the legendary Appetite for Destruction album, a new song can be found on the flip side of the “Heroes” cover entitled “True to Death Rock N’ Roll” that had the crowd fully engaged, and a cover of The Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”
There was no encore, the night ended with a visit from Duff who jumped down from the stage and reached out to as many fans as he could from the pit before calling it a night and “Don’t Look Behind You” from the Tenderness album before the final bow.
The Lighthouse Tour ’24 will continue with stops in Denver, Los Angeles, and Portland before closing the run out in Seattle on November 20th, and for those who can’t catch the show in person, Veeps will be streaming a recording of the London show on November 23rd along with a live Q&A.
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Live Photos by Editor and founder Kara Marie Uhrlen for The Pure Rock Shop. Posted on 11/9/2024.
