Billboard reports that not only will Guns N’ Roses headline the 2016 edition of Coachella Music & Arts Festival, but that the lineup will include founding members William Bruce Rose Jr. and Saul Hudson, better known as Axl Rose and Slash.
The festival is scheduled for two weekends in April, the 15-17 and 22-24. According to Billboard’s sources, the band is also negotiating a stadium tour of the U.S., asking as much as $3m per show. The reunion has been a spectre in stadium rock for years, but never materializing; it would seem that both Rose and Hudson are finally broke enough—and at the same time—to bury the hatchet. Guns N’ Roses has featured Rose with various lineups over the years, and while the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, Rose did not attend. In a lawsuit with his former manager Irving Azoff over unpaid fees from a 2011 tour, Rose accused Azoff of conspiring to get Rose to reunite with GnR’s original lineup.
For such a nostalgia tour, it’s likely they’ll mostly stick to the hits, but we may still be subjected to cuts from 2008’s Chinese Democracy. And while they might have suppressed their egos long enough to agree to a tour, expecting them to keep it together on the road is quite a tall order. Here’s to the green room meltdown to end all meltdowns, and hope someone backstage is filming.