“Two legends right there”: Slash joins Michael Schenker on stage to cover a UFO classic
Slash has made a surprise appearance during Michael Schenker’s Wacken Open Air set, with the pair joining forces for a UFO classic.
Last year, the former UFO guitarist put out a new album, My Years with UFO, which saw him revisiting his biggest hits with the band alongside an impressive cast, including Axl Rose and Adrian Vandenberg. But it was his retake of Mother Mary with Slash that stole the show, and the German festival was treated to a special rendition of the song.
Both guitarists donned their signature axes for the occasion: Slash, a Gibson Les Paul, and Schenker, an Olympic White Gibson Flying V. Together, they produced a thick wall of sound.
All eyes and ears are understandably on the guitar solos, and it’s Slash who takes the lead with some warm, pentatonic blues that, if you were listening with your eyes closed, would be clear who is playing without any context. And of course, there’s some wah pedal abuse to top it off.
The German, meanwhile, takes a backseat, watching on with a gleeful look on his face, a wall of Marshall amps behind him.
“Two fucking legends right there,” says vocalist Erik Grönwall after the performance. “Make some noise.”
Though blessed with a little German sunshine, the show was thankfully not as hot as GNR’s recent Saudi Arabia show that was so punishing it melted Richard Fortus’ pickups.
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Last year, Schenker revealed that he has a Gibson signature guitar in the works. He’s since recalled how he fell in love with the flying V shape, and stated that he sees it as fate that he was “meant” to play that body shape.
It’s not the first time Slash has joined another classic rock icon this year, having linked up with former Hanoi Rocks vocalist Michael Monroe at the Whisky a Go Go in April, and he traded licks across a fiery Purple Haze cover with Eric Gales last year, too.
The top-hatted shredder has also said he became “disillusioned” by Marshall Amps, which prompted his shock switch to Magnatone. And the B.C. Rich Warlock, with which he started his Guns N’ Roses career, has returned to auction, nine years after it was last sold.
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