Slash shares doubt on Guns N’ Roses playing Las Vegas Sphere: “It’s not really rock and roll friendly”

Slash has cast doubts on Guns N’ Roses ever playing the Las Vegas Sphere, saying: “It’s not really rock and roll friendly.”

• READ MORE: Guns N’ Roses live at Glastonbury: a solid performance… to the wrong crowd

The futuristic state-of-the-art venue opened in 2023 and has since hosted residencies from the likes of U2, Phish, Eagles and the Backstreet Boys. It was also recently confirmed that a new Sphere venue will be constructed in Abu Dhabi.

Speaking on Eddie Trunk’s Trunk Nation SiriusXM show, Slash spoke about if Guns N’ Roses could ever take on a residency. Despite describing the venue in positive terms, he went on to say he wasn’t sure about it’s suitability for a rock show.

He explained: “Everything that I’ve seen, or most everything that I’ve seen of it, looks amazing. I’m real trepidatious about playing there, because…it’s a great visual show. I think that in almost every case for a band, it becomes a visual show as opposed to seeing a rock and roll show. So there’s that.”

He also went on to reveal that he’d spoken to Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh – who has played the venue – about his experiences. He added: “[My concern] is that it’s not really sort of rock and roll friendly, the way that it’s set up. So it’s just one of those things where it seems like a really cool thing and conceptually there’s probably a lot of cool things that you could do, but I don’t think it would be the right environment for a proper rock and roll show.”

He also added that he could see Metallica playing the venue. “I could see them doing it because I can imagine them…because you have to prepare your mind to put on not just a band performance, but 50 per cent of what you’re doing is going to be the projection, or whatever you call that — the outer wall…what you’re putting on as content.

“And so that is something that’s gonna be the main focus of your show and the main focus of what everybody’s gonna be looking at. And so you have to sort of getting to that mindset and I think that’s hard for us to go that far into it. But we’ll see. Maybe down the road.”

No Doubt recently announced their 2026 Las Vegas Sphere residency – their first run of shows in 14 years. 

Gwen Stefani and co are slated to perform on six nights next year – on May 6, 8, 9, 13, 15 and 16. The announcement coincides with the 30th anniversary of their third album ‘Tragic Kingdom’, whose songs ‘Just A Girl’ and ‘Don’t Speak’ remain beloved hits.

Speaking about their upcoming residency, Stefani said: “The opportunity to create a show at Sphere excites me in a new way. The venue is unique and modern and it opens up a whole new visual palette for us to be creative. Doing it with No Doubt feels like going back in time to relive our history, while also creating something new in a way we never could have imagined.” You can sign up for tickets here.

Meanwhile, Slash recently hinted at new Guns N’ Roses music, saying that “everybody [in the band] is thinking about it”. The band’s last album was 2008’s much-delayed ‘Chinese Democracy’, while the last LP that either Slash or McKagan appeared on was the 1993 covers album ‘The Spaghetti Incident?’.

“There’s so much material at this point – it’s a matter of having the discipline to sit down and fucking get into it,” he said. “But the thing with Guns is, in my experience, you can never plan ahead. You can never sit down and go, ‘We’re going to take this time, and we’re going to do this.’ Every time we’ve done that, it falls apart.”

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