WHAT: Slash featuring Myles Kennedy Asia Tour 2010
WHERE: Fort Canning Park
WHEN: Monday night (August 2)
ATTENDANCE: 7,000

It must be tough to hold your own while performing beside one of the biggest guitar icons in the world.

So it must be said that American singer Myles Kennedy stepped up to the task quite admirably at rock ’n’ roll stalwart Slash’s first Singapore concert here on Monday.

After all, the guy, 40, oozed swagger and hit all the right notes without any difficulty. No doubt, those who attended the concert would attest to that fact.

But try as he might, there was no way he could have outshone the star of the show and the person the 6,000-strong crowd had come to see.

Indeed, the former Guns N’ Roses axeman gave his diverse following a riveting, high-octane performance.

He came on at 9.30pm after sets from supporting acts Australian rockers Twenty Two Hundred and American prog-rock quartet Coheed And Cambria.

The 45-year-old, who was dressed in a black sleeveless T-shirt and black leather pants (with signature black leather top hat and aviator sunglasses), did not say much apart from “What’s up f***ing Singapore!”

But it was his music that spoke for him, a balanced set list that comprised numbers from his new self-titled solo album, his side project Slash’s Snakepit, Kennedy’s other band, Alter Bridge, and his own former band, Velvet Revolver, as well as a couple of GnR hits.

The guy (real name Saul Hudson) was a ball of energy, doing 360-degree spins and hopping around on one leg while rocking out with his stable of Gibson Les Paul guitars on songs like Dirty Little Thing (from Velvet Revolver’s 2004 album Contraband) and Mean Bone (from 2000’s Ain’t Life Grand by Slash’s Snakepit).

He even launched into a searing extended version of the Godfather theme towards the end of the two-hour set, much to the delight of his hardcore fans.

Predictably, though, it was the GnR hits – like Sweet Child O’ Mine and show closer Paradise City – that sparked the loudest,
most frenzied singalongs.

Perhaps it was this that caused the man to tweet just minutes after the concert: “What’s in the water in Singapore? They f***in’ rock!”