"It's been a crazy fuckin' week," L.A. Guns vocalist Phil Lewis told the Oct. 26 crowd at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana, Calif., just a few miles from Edison Field.

At that baseball stadium earlier in the night, the Anaheim Angels staged an improbable comeback in Game 6 of the World Series to salvage their season from the brink of extinction. That theme continued in Santa Ana, for after a soap opera-like week - As The Glam World Turns? - L.A Guns faced odds that at first appeared to be similarly insurmountable. In the end, though, the band proved they'll live to play another day.

With whom is the only question. Lewis and founding guitarist Tracii Guns recently engaged in an internet rendition of "he said, she said" after Lewis posted that the group would not serve as the opening act on Alice Cooper's European tour, as previously announced. He blamed Guns, saying that the guitarist's top priority was not L.A. Guns but Nikki Sixx's new Brides Of Destruction project, and that accordingly, the band's tour support had been pulled and its support slot revoked. Guns responded that he had already told all parties concerned that he would be available for only a three-week tour - about half the length of the Cooper stint - and that he had given the group his blessings to tour without him (a possibility he said he was asked to keep quiet about). He also opined that it was time for L.A. Guns to "take a break for a while and let the horse rest before we beat it to death," in part because the band's record label "can't sell dick in a women's prison."

The end result? Tracii Guns is out; former W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes is in. Although a Tracii-less L.A. Guns isn't quite as unthinkable as Van Halen without Eddie or Alex, it's still a less-than-ideal scenario, especially considering the recent reunion of Guns, Lewis and drummer Steve Riley. After all, Waking The Dead - the second L.A. Guns album spawned since the three buried the hatchet - was possibly the most pleasant surprise of 2002, released in near obscurity yet unexpectedly holding up as one of the year's strongest rock recordings.

While it initially appeared Guns would participate in two L.A.-area concerts - the second of which was slated to be filmed for a live DVD - booked prior to the fallout, the guitar case labeled "W.A.S.P. guitar coffin" lying backstage at the Galaxy Theatre indicated otherwise. But even though Holmes looked as if his apparel was provided by a local homeless shelter and pranced foolishly around the stage like a cartoon character, he proved to be a capable last-minute replacement.

Because of Holmes' unfamiliarity with much of L.A. Guns' catalog, the band's Santa Ana set was kept understandably brief, as just 12 songs, including four Waking The Dead standouts, were performed. Former member Brent Muscat stood in for rhythm guitarist Keff Ratcliffe on a handful of tracks, including the band's biggest hit, 'The Ballad Of Jayne' (before which Lewis humorously asked the crowd to hold up cell phones in lieu of lighters). And although no one onstage bore the last name Guns - indeed, Lewis reminded the crowd as he introduced today's line-up that "we go through people like Kleenex" - the band again proved its merit as one of the most overlooked and underrated acts in its genre.

Of course, some would argue that the genre is indeed as disposable as tissue, but anyone who left the Galaxy Theatre would have claimed that these Guns are still a potent weapon.