What to know
- Guns N’ Roses played a three-hour-and-20-minute, 28-song set for roughly 25,000 fans at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium on Aug. 5.
- Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan powered through a career-spanning set featuring “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” “November Rain” and “Paradise City.”
- The band changed up its usual set with deep cuts and covers, including Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and Wings’ “Live and Let Die.”
- Chris Stapleton made a surprise appearance for “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” before Slash and McKagan returned the favour at Stapleton’s Toronto show the following night.
- Nearly four decades after Guns N’ Roses first played Toronto, the reunited core lineup showed it can still command a stadium-sized crowd.
Guns N’ Roses concerts are as epic as their songs, blowing past the 90-minute-to-two-hour shows that most artists give audiences each night.
The legendary LA rock band with members of its classic lineup — Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan — now in their 60s, routinely plays well over three hours, as it did last week at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium, a decade after reuniting.
Toronto has maintained a strong love for GNR. The band first played here in 1987, opening for The Cult at the since-demolished CNE Grandstand, when their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, was catapulting them to eternal rock stardom, selling over 30 million albums.
When the lineup that went on to sell an estimated 80 million albums fell apart, it would be 20 years before those three shared a stage again.
That reunion came on April Fool’s Day in 2016 at LA’s Troubadour, followed that month by high-profile Coachella appearances. The resulting Not in This Lifetime… Tour brought the reunited trio — supplemented by other musicians — back to Toronto that summer to Rogers Centre, a pair of shows at Air Canada Centre in 2017, then Rogers Centre again in 2023.
Last week (Aug. 5), starting at 7:20 p.m. while it was still light outside, they were back, but this time at the suburban Rogers Stadium, where about 25,000 people took in a three-hour-and-20-minute, 28-song set that was as good as they’ve ever been over the past four decades.
At 64, Axl looked trim and energetic in a sparkly Satoshi Nakamoto plaid flannel shirt (he changed later into a fitted black tee, and then again to another plaid shirt), running across the massive stage — not doing his once trademark sway but still skipping backwards on occasion — as he powered through the band’s catalogue, mainly singing in his upper register.
Duff, 62, wore a black vest with “1964” on it, while 61-year-old Slash, beneath his trademark top hat and cascade of curls, rocked a cool white 1973 Alice Cooper T-shirt while delivering one scorching guitar part after another.
Rose didn’t have a lot to say between songs beyond asking how we were all doin’, but there were a few memorable comments. Past 9 p.m., with it now dark outside, he addressed the crowd about “this whole fucked-up tariff bullshit,” amusingly adding, “I want my Canadian booze. I am being governmentally denied.”
Mostly, though, he let the music do the talking over a more-than-your-money’s-worth, three-plus hour show.
Unlike many bands on a long tour that deliver the same setlist every night, Guns N’ Roses continue to change their setlist night to night. Toronto got a satisfying mix of megahits, deep cuts and covers, opening with “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Mr. Brownstone” before moving into “Bad Obsession” and “It’s So Easy.” Early in the set, Rose also sang “Slither,” from Slash and McKagan’s post-GNR band Velvet Revolver.
Genuine fans were rewarded with “Shadow of Your Love,” “Think About You,” “Dead Horse,” “Nothin’,” “Rocket Queen” and “All My Love,” the latter introduced by Rose as “new,” although it actually dates to the band’s 2008 album Chinese Democracy, alongside staples such as “You Could Be Mine,” “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” “Nightrain” and “Paradise City.”
Highlights were their hit take on Wings’ “Live and Let Die,” “Civil War,” and one of rock’s most perfect power ballads, “November Rain,” — but, alas, no “Patience.”
The rest of the lineup — with Richard Fortus on guitar, Isaac Carpenter on drums and Dizzy Reed on keyboards — supplied the muscle required to keep a three-hour-plus show moving. Rose took his place at the piano for “November Rain,” while Slash got his own extended guitar spotlight before “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and Duff handled lead vocals on the Sex Pistols’ “Black Leather.”
The production included videos featuring a recurring robot theme, with the cute little machines repeatedly getting smashed. The content made one think Guns N’ Roses could play Vegas’ futuristic Sphere.
The covers also included Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” but the biggest surprise came when Chris Stapleton joined the band for “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” Stapleton, who was playing Rogers Stadium the following night and opened for them in Nashville in 2016, joined the band on the classic, although Rose handled most of the lead vocals on the song Guns recorded for 1991’s Use Your Illusion II.
[The favour was returned the next night. As seen on social media clips, Stapleton started playing GNR’s ballad “Patience,” calling it one of his favourite songs, then stopped and said something was missing. Out walked Slash and McKagan]/
The main marathon set ended with the epic “Civil War,” before the band returned for the encore of “November Rain,” “Nightrain,” and, finally, the anticipated “Paradise City.”
After nearly four decades, Guns N’ Roses might not be the dangerous young band that tore through Toronto in the ’80s and 90s, but watching Rose, Slash and Duff still command a massive stage into their 60s, for three hours and 20 minutes, it was clear that what’s most important about Guns N’ Roses hasn’t changed at all.
