By the time you read this we’ll be only six weeks away from W Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan reuniting as Guns N’ Roses and playing shows in Las Vegas before they headline the Coachella festival.
It’s a reunion that has divided opinion.
When it was first announced officially (amid speculation and rumour that had been rife for months, if not years), our Facebook page erupted with warring factions squabbling about how it was a sell-out, how it wasn’t_ really_ GN’R, how it was going to be a disaster, how much they were daring to charge for tickets… On and on and on it went. Conversely, there were folk who couldn’t wait for it to happen – the chance to see if the old magic could be reignited, to hear those songs played by those who wrote them. For some, it’s the chance to see a band they never got to see the first time round…
But how on earth did it come to be? How did the band who have been trading serious barbs in the press for God-knows how long finally agree to get together (well, three of them, at least!) and give it another go? And will we hear new music from them? Who’s going to play the drums? This month we dispatched Jon Hotten to don his best investigator hat and answer these questions and more…
Siân Llewellyn, Editor