Ronnie Wood joined Hollywood Vampires at O2 Arena in London for the first two songs of a three-track encore. The appearance came as the band opened its European tour and gave the London crowd a guest slot built around two blues-rock standards.
Wood opens the encore at O2 Arena
Wood used his left-of-center signature guitar, the Duesenberg Starplayer TV Ronnie Wood, while he steered the encore through The Train Kept A-Rollin' and Brown Sugar. Imelda May also featured on vocals, while Hollywood Vampires — Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, Tommy Henriksen and Johnny Depp — kept the set moving behind him.
The Train Kept A-Rollin' carries its own long circuit through rock history: Tiny Bradshaw cut it as a blues classic, and The Yardbirds pushed it into the British blues boom of the 1960s. In London, that lineage gave the encore a tighter frame than a usual guest spot, with Wood handling the early lift before the band moved on.
Jeff Beck on the final song
Wood disappeared before the final track, which turned into a cover of Jeff Beck's instrumental classic Hi Ho Silver Lining. That shift mattered because the encore moved from two songs anchored by one familiar guest to a closing number tied to another British player, leaving the set with a harder edge than a simple cameo would have delivered.
Hollywood Vampires already had a guest-appearance pattern in London: Tony Iommi showed up in 2023 to play a Sabbath classic, and Wood's turn fit that same habit of treating the city as a place where the band can pull in outside names. The difference this time was timing. The show landed on August 14, the day At Montreux Jazz Festival went out, so the encore doubled as a launch-night statement for a band that is still selling the live version of itself.
Łódź ends the run
The European dates run on for the next few months and finish in Łódź, Poland, on September 10. For anyone tracking the tour rather than just the cameo, the practical takeaway is simple: this London set was not a one-off detour but the opening proof that Hollywood Vampires are using the European tour to stretch the lineup around their best-known friends while the new live album is fresh.
