They’re fresh and fierce

Velvet Revolver looked like a train rolling toward a rickety bridge when it loaded up four years ago. Supergroups aren’t built to last, and fate offered few promises to the combination: three burnouts from a destructive/destroyed rock band (Guns N’ Roses), plus the lead stoner of Stone Temple Pilots.

At the Avalon on Thursday, though, V.R. warmed up for a tour promoting an imminent second album, “Libertad,” and the omens were favorable. Emotionally bruised singer Scott Weiland didn’t look like he was doing us a favor anymore. The new songs sounded different and good. And the band rocked.

When Slash drags his top hat and guitar to any band, it burns. Not only do the dude’s riffs pack more crunch than a truck full of pretzels, but he’s also an old-school showman who will stick his ax into the floorboards, into the air, behind his neck or anywhere but where the sun doesn’t shine to get some sweat popping.

Bolstered by the leathery resiliency of old GNR bandmates Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums), plus old pal Dave Kushner (second guitar), Slash stabbed like a knifepoint, delivering minimum notes for maximum damage.

The emaciated Weiland, meanwhile, sporting his customary Nazi officer’s cap and new teeth, was quickly out of his shirt and into his sexy-prisoner belly dance. Weiland’s rangy but foggy voice, which in 2003 seemed a bad fit for this noisy gang, cut through pretty well thanks to practiced diction and judicious soundboard equalization.

Though he posed with a star’s un-self-conscious naturalness, there was something newly haunted about him, which he explained in a rambling tribute to his addict brother, who died during the making of “Libertad.” (Weiland also nodded to Sorum, whose brother died during the same period. This night’s proceeds benefited an addiction charity.)

The five new songs were a major draw. “She Builds Quick Machines,” the introductory single from “Libertad,” was a straight rocker with a gripping, half-tempo bridge, in the mode of Velvet Revolver’s first album, “Contraband.” The main ear-opener was “The Last Fight,” which mixed a Creedence-like country sway with nasty midrange jangle and a soaring chorus.

The set leaned, of course, on “Contraband” material -- the big ballad “Fall to Pieces”; the chiming “Superhuman”; the sleazy, dynamic hit “Slither” -- and the band tore through it with fierce authority and a Sex Pistols-like groove. It also pulled out a rocked-up version of Guns N’ Roses’ acoustic “Used to Love Her (But I Had to Kill Her),” a shrouded take on Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” (in brotherly memorial), and an overtly evil revision of Talking Heads’ nerdy “Psycho Killer,” with Slash on smoking slide. The mostly 30-ish audience, though attentive, remained surprisingly unfrenzied except when booing the hourlong delay between sets. (Learn that from Axl, gents?)

The Actual, four nice young men signed to Weiland’s label, opened with a springy set of pop-punk that recalled a grungier Green Day or a preppier Replacements. The few devil horns the public offered were of the sarcastic variety.