Guns N’ Roses will play Slane Castle on 27th May 2017 in what will be the american rock band’s first Irish gig in 25 years, promoters MCD announced on Monday.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees will visit the Co Meath venue as part of their Not In This Lifetime tour almost exactly a quarter of a century since their May 16th 1992 concert in Slane.
It had been strongly rumoured for some time that Guns N’ Roses would perform in Ireland next year, with Croke Park mooted as a possible venue.
However, in a statement on Monday, Slane owner Lord Henry Mountcharles put to rest all speculation and described the rock band’s previous Slane set as one of the best he has ever witnessed.
“We are really thrilled to have one of the most exciting rock n’ roll bands in the world coming back to Slane 25 years after they first played, the same month in 1992 which was critically considered to be one of the best Slanes ever,” he said.
Tickets will go on sale on www.ticketmaster.ie on Friday, 9th December at 9am and prices start from €89.50 including booking fee. No other support acts have yet been announced.
Following an extended hiatus due to personal differences between singer Axl Rose and guitarist Slash, the band’s original line-up returned to play a series of stadium concerts throughout 2016 for the first time since 1993.
Guns N’ Roses sold over two million tickets for the first part of its Not In This Lifetime tour which took in North and South America over the course of 2016, grossing an estimated $200 million (€190 million) in the process.
The Slane gig will kick off the tour’s European leg which will take in London, Paris, Madrid and 15 other cities before returning to North America for another series of concerts in late 2017.
The act was officially unveiled at an event in Dublin by Lord Mountcharles’ son Alex who, flanked by his sister Tamara, reminisced on the 1992 occasion.
“I remember last time being at the front of the crowd, and Axl came out in his tight white lycra shorts and the crowd just went bananas.
“I wore a Guns N’ Roses t-shirt to a gig recently and a number of people stopped me in the crowd and said ‘that was one of the great ones’, so it’s going to be brilliant to have them back,” he said.
The infamously badly-behaved rockers left their fans waiting for almost two hours during their last appearance at Slane, an event which is still nonetheless remembered in folklore as one of the great concerts in the history of the venue.
