People may scoff at the thought of Adler's Appetite. Steven Adler was booted out of Guns N' Roses over 20 years ago now and many may wonder what he has to offer these days. How much material has he released in the last 20 years? Just a few days ago someone posted on Facebook "how the mighty have fallen", but that's unfair, this guy played the drums on one of the most important and influential rock 'n' roll albums of all time and, yes, he's had his problems, as have the other band members. I guess some have had more luck than others, but as far as I am concerned he is a legend. He has as much right to play those songs as Axl, Slash, Duff or Izzy. He was part of the writing process, he laid down the beat and 'Appetite For Destruction' surely wouldn't have sounded the same without him. If you forget what a fine drummer he was just watch the Ritz '88 gig, a band at the top of their game, Adler never missing a beat, grinning and singing along to every word and loving it. But that was a long time ago...

Arriving later than planned I only catch the last couple of songs from York's own theFALLEN and wish I had caught more, they are like a breath of fresh air; tight, heavy and full of energy.The singer knows how to work a crowd and their mix of Avenged Sevenfold and Motley Crue modern sleazy metal goes down well. I hope to catch these guys properly when they play here again soon, they definitely have potential to do good things.

Which is more than can be said for Knock Out Kaine. Opening with probably the worst version of Queen's 'We Will Rock You' ever played was not a good start. Imagine all the clichés of 80s rock mixed together, but where Steel Panther are a tongue-in-cheek very clever parody, Knock Out Kaine really mean it, especially the Bobby Dall lookalike singer who really wishes this was an arena and not a 400 capacity venue. Someone needs to tell him that strapping his acoustic on for the big ballad should be left until they make it on the second album.

So to Adler's Appetite. I saw this guy play with Guns N' Roses as a wide-eyed teenager at Hammersmith Odeon in 1987 and we all know how good they were back then. Is it possible for him and his band to recapture even a glimpse of that energy GnR had? What songs will they play? Are they just going to sound like a poor tribute band living off past glories? These were the questions I wanted answering.Well questions were soon answered as the band came on to a huge cheer and launched straight into 'Reckless Life' - how bloody good it was to hear that song I can't tell you. I had full intentions of standing back and just watching this gig but, with songs like 'Outta Get Me', 'Nightrain' and 'Mr Brownstone' in quick succession, there was no chance, I was in there like a shot. It was pretty full-on down the front, there was even crowd surfing from a tattooed blonde bird who was kicked out and later seen fighting with the bouncer as I left!

The band were on fine form, tight and professional as you would expect from a band consisting of well known LA scene veterans - the ever cool Chip Z'Nuff on bass, Michael Thomas and Rick Stitch (Faster Pussycat and Ladyjack respectively) on guitars and Alex Grossi (Quiet Riot) on vocals - all know their stuff and looked to be enjoying themselves. Things were soon hot and sweaty and the packed Duchess crowd were singing every word back to them as Alex worked them up. Between songs there was shouts of "Steven, Steven" and the man himself was happy to acknowledge the crowd - the years have treated him remarkably well, he still has the trademark fluffy blonde barnet and he can still hit them drums.

There was only going to be one song from 'Use Your Illusion','Civil War', the only one I believe he actually played on and in this club setting it sounded great, as did all the songs. Of course they threw in some of their own tunes which fitted in well with the GnR material, but it was always gonna be the Guns stuff that stood out. For a lot of people this will be the closest they will get to seeing that magic line up and this five piece rock 'n' roll band are a far superior version than Axl's bloated band of three guitarists,two drummers, keyboard players etc...these songs were written to be played in small sweaty clubs not stadiums and this sort of intimate setting is the best way to see them.

The classic opening riff to 'Sweet Child O' Mine' is played on a telecaster! Surely it should only be played on a sunburst Les Paul? But this one niggling point can be forgiven. 'Rocket Queen' sounds fantastic and there are only two songs left we want to hear at encore time; 'Paradise City' and 'Welcome To The Jungle' finish off a fantastic set - how could they fail with such classic songs?

You may think they are just going through the motions, these guys have day jobs in other bands, and I'm not sure how permanent this line up is. Is it just nostalgia? Maybe, but at the end of the day there is a whole audience of young rock fans who want to hear these songs live and Adler and co deliver.