When, in the fullness of time the annals of rock are finally written you can be sure that the name Duff McKagan will be up there with the very best. As a member of Guns N' Roses he stood, at least for a brief period, astride the world, pictures on every magazine cover from the USA to Uzbekistan and a record playing on every radio station almost by the minute. However with that incarnation of Guns a thing of the past and current high profile outfit Velvet Revolver on hiatus McKagan has resurrected his Loaded project and headed out on the road in, at least for someone of his stature, a whimper rather than a roar. However before McKagan took Inverness by the throat there was the small matter of the Loyalties to deal with.

No strangers themselves to touring all around the country having been involved with the The Yo Yo's and Deadline amongst others The Loyalties are purveyors of a brand of punkish pop that, whilst resembling the Wildhearts in places equally  takes in influences from godfathers of the punk movement like The Clash and The Ramones. Even with a punk edge to much of the music the melodic feel, especially in the choruses, provided the perfect blend of catchiness and raw energy to draw the Inverness crowd into the set and with songs such as Sugarcoat and the 12th Bar Blues culled from recent album So Much For Soho they have the material that should serve well and see them return again, hopefully as headliner.

It's hard to credit that the tattooed man standing on stage at the Inverness Ironworks, Les Paul slung low, is the same man that has stood on stage at Wembley, Donington and countless other enormo domes worldwide, perhaps the only giveaway being the number of T-Shirts proudly worn in the crowd displaying the legends Guns N' Roses or Velvet Revolver. Somehow, despite the fact that one of the world's great rock stars was in town, the opening few songs of the Loaded set were slightly off the pace but as the show progressed and the band warmed to the task at hand the atmosphere and level of performance grew and grew. The set was very much an overview of McKagan's career culling songs from Guns, Neurotic Outsiders, Loaded and even a few well chosen covers.

Loaded actually walk a pretty fine line between being simply a backing band for a larger than life frontman and being a band in their own right, but they stay just the right line and if songs from the new EP Wasted Heart are anything to go by they have the ability to carve their own niche in the rock world without needing to play heavily on the McKagan name. Sleaze factor is just that whilst the EP's title track is pretty damn good. However despite  the quality of material from Loaded, Neurotic Outsiders and solo McKagan titles it is the Guns N' Roses stuff people want to hear. Unlike in Velvert Revolver McKagan here hasn't distanced himself from his past and carefully chosen Guns tracks such as Dust N' Bones, it's So Easy & So Fine take the roof off the Ironworks. Closing out with covers of I Wanna Be Your Dog and a medley of TNT & Long Live Rock N' Roll brough the show to an end and Loaded, in the end, hit all of the right notes. Whatever the future holds for McKagan you wouldn't bet against Loaded being in there somewhere.