An intimate private concert headlined by Slash and a rock supergroup Thursday night featured an impressive list of surprise-guest rock stars including Bruno Mars, Eddie Vedder, Anthony Kiedis, Brandi Carlile, and Yungblud.
The gig, the holiday party for Todd Boehly’s holding company Eldridge Industries, was held at Garcia’s, a 250-capacity space within the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY. The core band for the evening was the Dirty Bats — Slash plus his Guns N’ Roses bandmate Duff McKagan on bass, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and producer/aging rock star whisperer Andrew Watt. Leonardo DiCaprio was reportedly in the audience.
According to setlist.fm, the night featured a bunch of classic covers, as well as a few old favorites sung by the original artist. Things kicked off with Yungblud singing the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” Faces’ “Stay With Me,” and Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” (reprising his VMAs tribute to Ozzy Osbourne). Then Carlile came out to sing Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog,” her own “The Story,” and Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down.” Then it was Kiedis’ turn to perform Motörhead’s “Ace Of Spades,” Iggy And The Stooges’ “Search And Destroy,” Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown,” Sly & The Family Stone’s “If You Want Me To Stay,” and the Allman Brothers Band’s “Whipping Post.”
Vedder then took the stage to do three Pearl Jam songs — “Corduroy,” “Better Man,” and “Wishlist” — plus covers of the Rolling Stones’ “Waiting On A Friend,” Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer,” and Elvis Costello’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding.” The final big name to appear was Mars, who fronted the Dirty Bats for Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” the Police’s “Roxanne,” the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Fire,” Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana,” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Mars had mashed up “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with Jackson’s “Billie Jean” a few times over the years, but apparently never did a proper version until Thursday night.
The evening ended with full-group singalongs of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World.” Seems like it must have been pretty fun. Check out footage from the show below.
Fun fact: Back in the 2010s, before our founder Scott Lapatine bought back the site, Stereogum was owned by the Billboard-Hollywood Reporter Media Group, which was owned by Prometheus Global Media, which was owned by Eldridge Industries. So this company that threw this party once owned Stereogum — it was honestly hard to keep track of these things in the ’10s.
