December 31, 2004 - Las Vegas, NV - Hard Rock Hotel

[ back to Concert Chronology 2004 ]

General Information

Date: December 31, 2004
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Venue: Hard Rock Hotel; 4455 Paradise RD, Las Vegas, NV 89109 [ Venue website ]
Box Office Number: (702) 693-5066
Additional Info: Thanks to Brandon for the setlist!

Set List

• Sucker Train Blues
• Do It for The Kids
• Crackerman
• Superhuman
• Headspace
• Fall to Pieces
• Big Machine
• It's So Easy
• Sex Type Thing
• Used to Love Her
• No More No More
• Set Me Free
• Mr. Brownstone
• Slither

Reviews (8) [ send in your own review/pictures of the Las Vegas show ]

Thanks to Isabella: Absolutely amazing. I paid top price twice but still didn't get to sit upclose. I don't understand. I enjoyed Vegas more though (smaller). Slash is a super guitarist but I guess he already knows this. Thanking you for an amazing experience. Hope to see you guys soon.
PS. If I may say without insulting anyone. Just sing normally, with a microphone, you have a great voice.(just an opinion) Love you all. xxoo especially to Slash. Awesome band.

Thanks to Amy Vala: Omg New Years Eve sucked royal ass! I was so disappointed when I left the show. All the chairs were zip tied together and it was nothing of what I expected- having seen them at VOODOO in New Orleans right in front- there was no thrashing no crowd involvement. I left the New Years Eve bash in awe as to how the sound kept ringing in the speakers like they were testing the mics or something. Not to mention all the idiots who dressed up. I mean the whole prom look and all. Not to mention the 80's bimbos who came out from under the hairspray - just the smell of the Aussie hairspray and glittering dresses made we want to throw up all over - losing faith I headed back to my room to shower and change and wait for the after party. Came in right behind Slash and his ontourage...thought he was quite short- the guards wanted to frisk me and my husband for we were just wearing jeans and hoodie sweatshirts. Gave us the nod and we were off - he met up after his Moe show. Not a Velvet Revolver fan. Go figure. But after a couple drinks we left after getting tired of watching all the dry humping going on on the dance floor. Disappointed no Scott seeing. Just as my faith was slipping the New year started. No zip tie chairs- no chairs at all. Rock on I made it to the front and was the only one who had true dancing hypnotic groove going on. I saw Anna Nicole and her boobs as she flashed the crowd unknowingly and being opinionated I yelled at her not knowing it was her to get a fucking life. If you haven't seen Anna Nicole's boobs by now - you were just born. But anyways - having gone to STP concerts all the time and just being there in the front of this musical eclipse on the first day of the year renewed my soul from trecherous years of before. It was the most awesome experience in comparison to child birth. I felt like I was holding a new born after this show- but in shock it was a guitar pick that I luckily caught before the nights ends. I wish everyone was as loud as me - I in my green hat and my dancing days. Rock on Velvet Revolver and come to Springfield, Illinois and play on our 40 acres... what a festival that would be. I can dream and if I never hear Surrender again - it will be all right- 26 and still rockin in the mini van with the kids.

Thanks to Doug Elfman from the Las Vegas Review-Journal: In row triple-D in the concert hall, a brunette and a blonde let their bosoms fall out of billowy blouses. All four of their nipples glimmered in glued-on glitter. One of the women flashed a dude. "It's New Year's Eve!" she said. The brunette turned to her man -- a human tattoo with long hair -- and she laid a tongue into his mouth, mwah.

It wasn't even midnight, yet. The concert hadn't started. So the rock band, Velvet Revolver, hadn't even begun to suck.

And even if Velvet Revolver was boring-blah, the evening was still a celebration. There in the far back of the concert hall, an elated tourist from Maine, who might as well have been nicknamed Screamy, turned to the dude to her left and shouted, "Are you a reporter? This is the best concert I've ever been to!"

It was not the best concert the reporter had ever been to. It wasn't even the best rock concert he'd experienced in the 21st century. That honor so far goes to a 2001 show in the same Hard Rock by the Beatlesque and punk band Stone Temple Pilots, which was fronted by Scott Weiland, the very same singer of this new band, Velvet Revolver.

The weird thing is that by joining Velvet Revolver, Weiland has gone into business with three ex-members of Guns N' Roses, the glam-metal band that he and other alternative-rock musicians displaced on the radio in the 1990s.

While I would like to report that the ex-Guns players are now creatively ferocious, I can't do that. Slash, the guitar slinger with one name, stood onstage with his mop of brown hair covering his face, a cigarette sticking out where the mouth might have been and thrilled the crowd with one-note theatrics.

Slash would hold his guitar outward and play one note, and the crowd would roar. After the notesustain crested a bit, he would play that same note over and over -- bing, bing, bing, bing, bing -- and the crowd would roar some more, because he was Slash from Guns N' Roses.

Only Weiland was worth noticing, curving at the bare waist, waving a bullhorn under strobe lights, and stomping a spectacle. He had just one catchy new song to sing, a ballad, "Fall to Pieces." And "Illegal I Song" had a great noise-rock fray to it, but it devolved into a simple Slash lead.

Velvet Revolver also performed "Mr. Brownstone," the Guns N' Roses song about drug abuse. ("I used to do a little, but a little wouldn't do.") The highlight was when the band covered a screaming Stone Temple Pilots song, "Sex Type Thing."

Some fans sang along to Stone Temple Pilots songs. Others sang along to old Guns songs. Few sang to both. That would be like drinking Coke and Pepsi at the same time.

The sound system was muddy. That was the band's fault, not the venue's. It was impossible to make out lyrics or even a lot of instrumentations in the cheap-ticket area in the back of the room. (Cheap tickets cost $128; top tickets went for $253.)

It would have been nice to have heard with clarity Weiland's bizarre "Sucker Train Blues" -- "Somebody raped my tapeworm abortion. Come on ... and deliver the cow."

I also couldn't understand Weiland, who is off heroin and drank orange Gatorade all night, when he sang the "Headspace" conclusion, "Dying with your face on a T-shirt isn't all that original."

Oh, and if anyone was a fan of doing countdowns on New Year's Eve, they were out of luck. At 11:57 p.m., the band launched into a forgotten Aerosmith tune from 1975 called "No More, No More." Slash got Weiland's attention at the last few seconds. Weiland responded with the only sentence I could make out all concert, "Ladies and gentlemen, it's a new year!" The band members made out with women who walked out from backstage.

At that point, on the TV monitors in the room, there was an inexplicable flash of a faded number, "4," then a blank screen, followed by "1" and "Happy New Year." But the glitter lady in row triple-D was already getting licked by her tattoo. And Screamy was onto something else: "I smell the ganja! Oh my God. This is the experience of my life!"

Thanks to Eric: Having attended both shows in Vegas and seen the band 3 other times in venues as varied as the Atlantic City show outdoors, Roseland in NY, + the big Wachovia Center in Phili. I can honestly say that the group could not have been better (and maybe never will be better than Saturday nite in Vegas on 01/01). They sounded great, played an extended set (adding Dirty Little Thing and an awesome version of You Got No Right - which the whole audience sang along with to the whole bands utter shock) the crowd was into every song to the 10th degre, and Scott was at his best-never ever standing still and gyrating all over the place, I've seen STP 10x and his antics were equal with his best shows ever. The show was a 10.

Thanks to David G. Munn: Now as for the show it was one of the best I have ever seen, I am so happy that you all stayed together. And after all you went through to find Scott, I think you all saved his life and formed one of the best bands around. Slash was right when he said the people are longing for a good rock band not just good the best! My wife and I saw you for the first time at the Arizona State Fair and had to see you again because you are all very talented and rocked the mad house on Mcdowell like no one else ever has, so please let me know if I can help make those guitars sing for another 20 albums I love your music. Scott keep up the good work, we're all slaves to the big machine but you have too much talent and too big a future to be a slave to that shit! Keep up the good work and ROCK-ON!

Thanks to Chris Johnson: As always, simply amazing show. Played their asses off, the Joint was really cool and the place was packed! Scott stopped the show at 11:59 and their girlfrieds/wives came out, gave them a quick hug then they fired it back up again. This was my 3rd time seeing them and they get better every time.

Thanks to Christine: This show rocked! I didn't keep track of the entire set list, but a few of the songs from the main set were Headspace, Do It For The Kids, Fall To Pieces, Set Me Free, Illegal i Song, Used To Love Her (gnr), Superhuman, Crackerman (STP). They then left the stage about 11:45 and came back on about 5 minutes later for an encore.

They stopped midsong at midnight and had all their wives and Matt's girlfriend come out on stage for a New Year's kiss. It was pretty cool.

Songs in the encore were, Used To Love Her (GNR), Slither and I think an Aerosmith cover - it was the only song I didn't know.

Well worth the airplane ticket and $150 concert ticket fee. Every one of the guys is so amazing - watching them play you become awestruck, plus the joint is such a small venue it was insane to see the guys that close! Can't wait for them to come back to the states in the spring!

Thanks to Nichole: I was there on New Years Eve and just to let every one know it was the best concert I have ever been to. It was great so I am just saying that if you can get tickets and go!!!!