Guns N’ Roses will continue the long-running, partial reunion of their classic-era line-up — singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan — at the 2019 Louder Than Life festival. The hard rock band are the first act announced for the event, which runs between September 27th and 29th at the Highland Festival Grounds at KY Expo Center in Louisville, Kentucky.
Louder Than Life will be the band’s first concert since their December performance in Hawaii benefitting the Andy Irons Foundation. Rose, Slash and McKagan first reunited for the “Not in This Lifetime… Tour,” marking their first live shows since their 1993 Use Your Illusion dates; running from April 2016 through December 2018, it became one of the highest-grossing treks in history.
“There are only a handful of bands through the years whose music not only resonates with fans, but changes the entire face of rock ‘n’ roll. Guns N’ Roses is one of those true icons,” Louder Than Life producer Danny Wimmer said in a statement. “Every year we want to come back bigger and better, and we can’t wait to welcome Axl, Slash, Duff and the rest of GN’R to the Louder Than Life stage.”
The festival will announce its full lineup on Monday, April 8th, and tickets will go on sale at 9:00 a.m. ET the same day.
McKagan recently promised that Guns N’ Roses are (slowly) also working on a new album, the band’s follow-up to 2008’s Chinese Democracy and their first since 1993’s The Spaghetti Incident? to feature both McKagan and Slash.
“It’s never been that band that there’s a direct schedule of how we do things,” the bassist said in a February interview with Trunk Nation. “I’ve heard some magnificent stuff that Axl has, really cool stuff he’s been working on. So I’m excited about the possibilities with that, of course. I don’t mean to get anybody rabid. Our day will happen when it happens, that’s for sure.”