Confirmed: Slash buries hatchet with Axl Rose for Guns N’ Roses reunion gig at Coachella festival

American hard rockers’ original line-up to take stage for first time in 23 years in California in April. Festival will also feature LCD Soundsystem, Calvin Harris, Ice Cube, Ellie Goulding, and Sufjan Stevens among others

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Guitarist Slash (second from left) and Axl Rose (third from left) will share a stage for the first time in 23 years when the original Guns N’Roses line-up returns for two concerts at the Coachella festival in California.

Published: 2:39pm, 5 Jan 2016Updated: 2:39pm, 5 Jan 2016

Influential American hard rock band Guns N’ Roses will be re-forming for two performances at the Coachella music festival in April.

It will be the first time the original line-up of Guns N’ Roses – including singer Axl Rose and guitarist Slash – perform together since July 1993 in Buenos Aires. Coachella will take place over two weekends, April 15-17 and April 22-24, in Indio, California, and Guns N’ Roses are scheduled to perform on April 16 and April 23.

The Los Angeles-based hard rockers confirmed the dates on their website with a video of a giant concert reminiscent of the band’s heyday. Rose is heard – with a profanity added – singing one of the most famous lines from the band’s repertoire: “You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby.”

Guns N’ Roses have kept playing in name in recent years but without Slash, who has long said it was too difficult to work with Rose.

The singer, who rarely gives interviews, had been scheduled to speak today on the late-night US talk show of Jimmy Kimmel. But Rose’s name inexplicably disappeared on Monday from Kimmel’s list of guests on the show’s website.

Appetite for Destruction is the top-selling debut album by a US group.

With Rose’s sweeping vocal range and raw anger coupled with Slash’s intricate metal guitar, Guns N’ Roses became an instant sensation. Appetite for Destruction from 1987 remains the top-selling debut album by a group in the United States, where it has been certified as selling 18 million copies.

But Guns N’ Roses have released just one album in the past two decades – Chinese Democracy, which came out in 2008 after persistent delays and without Slash.