Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Not In This Lifetime Tour’ is fourth highest grossing tour ever topping $475 million

Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Not In This Lifetime Tour’ is fourth highest grossing tour ever topping $475 million

The reunion of classic Guns N’ Roses line-up members — singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan — has to be deemed a total success from a financial standpoint as the group’s Not In This Lifetime Tour has reportedly grossed over $475 million making it the fourth highest grossing tour of all-time.

The following are excerpts from a Billboard article:

“Guns N’ Roses’ Not In This Lifetime… Tour topped the $475 million mark in gross sales with the wrap of the band’s 2017 touring schedule on Nov. 29. The tour – set to resume in Europe on June 3 – has played to more than 4.3 million fans worldwide at 123 headlining performances on five continents – and that does not include the crowds at various festival appearances during the first two years of the run.

The ongoing tour now ranks as the fourth-highest grossing tour of all time, based on Billboard’s Boxscore archives, surpassing Roger Waters’ The Wall Live tour that earned $459 million from 2010 through 2013. U2 heads up the all-time list with $736 million from its 360° stadium tour (2009-2011) followed by The Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang at $558 million (2005-2007). Coldplay is third with its recently completed A Head Full of Dreams trek that grossed $523 million (2016-2017).”

You can read the rest of the article at Billboard.

Sleaze Roxx attended two of Guns N’ Roses‘ tour stops on their Not In This Lifetime Tour.

In its review of Guns N’ Roses‘ concert at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in July 2016, Sleaze Roxx stated: “What Guns N’ Roses should have been able to do — and certainly what I had seen at my last Steel Panther show — was to only deliver stellar songs that people know and love. Instead, what Guns N’ Roses did was self-indulge playing songs that just about no one wants to hear. I am thinking in particular of “Attitude,” “This I Love” and “Sorry.” What Guns N’ Roses did was charge everyone an arm and a leg for tickets without playing all of the songs that people most likely wanted to hear. Songs that were omitted that would have been amazing to hear live include “My Michelle,” “Used To Love Her,” “14 Years,” “Yesterdays,” “Dust N’ Bones” and anything from the Live ?!*@ Like A Suicide EP. What Guns N’ Roses did was play four songs from their disappointing album Chinese Democracy. What Guns N’ Roses did was self-indulge in long jams, solos and snippets of songs from other artists. And by the way, why was McKagan handling lead vocals on one track?

By the time that Guns N’ Roses were playing “Attitude” and “This I Love,” you could see many people walking the aisles presumably going to the washroom or going to buy a drink. By the time “Sorry” was played, you could see people seated in their seat while in the floor section of the Rogers Centre. Clearly, this type of non-engagement is not what any band wants to see but Guns N’ Roses were masters at playing one great song before killing the show’s momentum with an unwanted unpopular track.”

In its review of one of Guns N’ Roses‘ concerts at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in October 2017, Sleaze Roxx stated: “More than three and a half hours on stage! Yes, that is the longest concert by one band that I have ever attended. Guns N’ Roses played, and played, and played at the Air Canada Centre to the tune of about 30 songs. While some may say that they got more than their money’s worth due to the length of Guns N’ Roses‘ set, I left disappointed once again after seeing the “reunited” version of the kings of sleaze rock featuring singer Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan. Luckily, this time around, I had a free concert ticket courtesy of my long-time friend Chris (thank you Chris!) so at least I didn’t feel ripped off in the process.

I have two main issues with Guns N’ Roses‘ set during their second of two nights in a row at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. My first issue is the setlist. Unless you’re The Beatles or KISS, and have released so many great albums that you have a lot of material to pull from, there are bound to be some slower or even dull moments in a set since most bands don’t have enough great songs to fill three and a half hours. While there’s no doubt that at least half of Guns N’ Roses‘ studio albums are good (G N’ R Lies, Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II) with one absolutely stellar album (Appetite For Destruction), the band has also released a couple of duds (The Spaghetti Incident? and Chinese Democracy). Someone close to the Guns N’ Roses camp (or more particularly Axl Rose) needs to tell them that the great majority of their fans (I am making an assumption here) do not want to hear much if anything from Chinese Democracy. I don’t even consider Chinese Democracy as a Guns N’ Roses album! Let’s face it. It was an Axl Rose solo album.”

Sleaze Roxx also stated: “…that leads me to my second other main issue with Guns N’ Roses‘ concert on this night. Three and a half hours of music with almost zero interaction between Rose and the audience. Rose barely spoke to the Toronto crowd. It was only well into the the show that he first spoke about “something interesting” he had recently heard or something like that. That turned out to be an attempt at a joke as the singer asked the crowd, who wins between a fight between Canadian icons Celine Dion and Shania Twain? The answer was… everybody. The joke didn’t exactly spark that much laughter which prompted Rose to kind of mumble that he’ll stick to his day job. And that prompted more silence from the singer towards the crowd until he introduced his band members during the track “Coma.”

Aside from a few other very short comments to the audience such as there was going to be an interlude (when McKagan sang lead vocals on the Misfits cover “Attitude”), Rose stated pretty much nothing to the Toronto audience. Nothing about Chris Cornell dying which presumably prompted Guns N’ Roses to cover Soundgarden‘s “Black Hole Sun.” I get that the enigmatic singer is seemingly kind of shy and stuff but the lack of interaction between Rose and the crowd was a huge missed opportunity. All Rose had to do was raise his arms and he could get a huge pop from the audience yet he failed to engage / connect with the audience over and over again.”