IT IS one thing being an heroically disorganised rock’n’roll outlaw. It is quite another treating your audience consistently with cynical and unconcealed contempt.

In what has become an entirely predictable pattern, the singer Axl Rose led the seven-man backing band currently masquerading as Guns N’ Roses on stage almost two hours later than scheduled. He then proceeded to put on a show that was memorable as much for its many long stretches of self-indulgent musical waffling as for its intermittent flashes of brilliance and thunderous pyrotechnics.

Apart from the keyboard player Dizzy Reed, Rose is the only member of the current line-up to have any connection with the golden era of the group, which ended in 1993, at about the time that work began on Chinese Democracy. That album — ludicrously — has still not been completed, although several tracks from it have become staples in the band’s live set, including The Blues, a fairly mainstream, Elton John-type song prefaced by a long, unaccompanied piano recital by Reed, and IRS, a more typically hefty rocker’s tale of bitter betrayal and sweet revenge.

While it was intriguing to hear such new material — some of it very good indeed — the core of the show was a nostalgic recreation of past glories. Welcome to the Jungle kicked off with a bloodcurdling shriek from Rose and an explosion so deafening that it rendered the band virtually inaudible for the next few bars.

Rose, now 44, has turned into a Hollywood medallion man. With both his face and his ginger corn-row hair severely scraped back, he looked like Mick Hucknall in a wind tunnel. While his physique has filled out, his voice sounded eviscerated. The unbelievable range was still there, but the timbre seemed to have lost all its middle and bottom end, leaving him hitting notes that sounded as musical as wood splitting during You Could Be Mine, while the rest of the band lurched around throwing cartoon rock star shapes.

They certainly knew what they were doing and there were some great performances of old favourites, including Live and Let Die, Knocking on Heaven’s Door, Sweet Child O’ Mine and a delirious encore of Paradise City, accompanied by the most spectacular indoor fireworks display I can remember. But what with the three guitarists, all taking a succession of long, unaccompanied solo and duet spots throughout the show, there was a gathering sense of weariness among the thinning crowd well before the performance ended at about 1am and the search for a night bus began.

Guns N’ Roses play RDS Arena, Dublin, tonight; Download Festival, Donington Park, Derbyshire, Saturday.