Way back in 1996, Slash, aka Saul Hudson, came to India for a “jam” with Indian rock veterans Indus Creed for MTV India’s launch party. Together they covered The Beatles and Alice Cooper.

Then in 2013, Delhi-based Mooz Entertainment had ambitious plans to get him back for an Indian tour. That didn’t work and a multitude of Indian hearts was broken.

The guitar hero will perform here on Saturday, the first of his two Indian shows, the other being in Bengaluru. The India leg of the tour is Viacom 18’s effort to marry adventure sports and rock music through the MTV XTREME festival, the same one that got Megadeth down earlier this year. It’s taken a decade, but not because Slash did not try. Growing up in the 1960s at the height of the West’s obsession with everything Indian, it surely rubbed on the guitarist. In fact, he still occasionally plucks the strings of the sitar he was gifted during his first Indian visit.

“I’ve always been excited to come here. As a little kid, I’ve heard great stories and there was a lot of great literature about India. I’ve been trying to get here for a while now, but it’s just been logistically difficult,” says the musician. “It’s taken some time, but we’re finally here.”

The two concerts are in light of Slash’s third solo album, and the second one with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. The whopping 17-track effort is a heady mix of pumping anthems, lilting ballads and impassioned tunes with several tracks potentially becoming pesky earworms. Myles Kennedy (lead vocalist of rock band Alter Bridge) has plenty of opportunities to stretch his vocal skills on the record (check out Avalon and 30 years to Life. And of course, plenty of shredding to satisfy the guitar fiend in you.

We have seen him sweat swagger on stage, but the guitarist is surprisingly unassuming in his approach to his stardom and even his music. “I have a hard time accepting the fact that I influence anybody else,” he says. “So it’s always very surreal for me to accept that somebody is sitting around and trying to learn my guitar parts.”

His stripped-down personality has perhaps lent itself to his music and even performances which lack an air of affectation, if you minus the 1980s glam hair, tattoos and OTT stage presence. But hey, that’s what you pay for and are happy about it.

“My definition of success is when we play a concert and people turn up.” If you’re planning on catching the gig, know that you’ll definitely receive a dose of some good ol’ rock without fanfare.