UPDATE, April 1: In timing that seems really unfair considering this band’s recent history, Guns N’ Roses unveiled the specific dates and locations of its “Not in This Lifetime” tour on April Fools’ Day. The band will stop at FedEx Field on Sunday, June 26. Tickets go on sale to the general public at 10 AM next Friday, but members of the Nightrain fan club can buy tickets on Saturday.
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The only concert tour that matters in 2016 will supposedly stop in Washington this summer. The partially reunited seminal hair-metal band Guns N’ Roses announced March 25 that they will embark on a 21-city US tour, stoking the anticipation of every fan who has been waiting since 1993 for a legitimate G N’ R show.
A video teaser released by the band—set to the G N’ R Lies track “Patience”—only shows the cities where they intend to play; no actual dates, venues, or ticket prices have been published.
Patience… #GnFnR pic.twitter.com/Jk91zm9E0C
— Guns N’ Roses (@gunsnroses) March 25, 2016
Previously, the band’s only confirmed dates this year were headlining sets at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, a music festival in Mexico City, and a two-night stand in Las Vegas. The band is notoriously combustible, but the reunion of Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan—three members of the classic lineup—has fans ready to wait through any storm. (Rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin has said he will not participate, while drummer Steven Adler has not said anything at all.)
A band calling itself Guns N’ Roses last played in the Washington area in 2012, when Rose and a bunch of random session musicians played a mostly disappointing three-hour set that didn’t begin until midnight at the Fillmore Silver Spring.
The real Guns N’ Roses last played in Washington in 1992, when the Use Your Illusion tour stopped at RFK Stadium. The 21-song set opened with “It’s So Easy” and closed with “Paradise City.”
Whatever Washington venue Guns N’ Roses plays this summer, we should all be prepared to wait for hours because the band hasn’t left the previous city or for Axl to send the rest of the band offstage so he can do some solos from Chinese Democracy. But maybe Axl will bring back the stars-and-stripes jacket he wore when the band did “Civil War” at the Capital Centre in 1991.
Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.
