Slash apparently isn’t sold on the idea of Guns N’ Roses ever taking on a residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, an immersive venue in the heart of the world’s entertainment capital.
Since opening in 2023, the $2.3 billion, state-of-the-art venue has hosted residencies from U2, Phish, the Eagles, and even the Backstreet Boys. A second Sphere venue has also been confirmed for Abu Dhabi.
Speaking on a recent episode of SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Slash says that while the Sphere “looks amazing”, he’s skeptical about whether the experience fits the raw spirit of a rock gig. Asked if Guns N’ Roses could ever take on a residency at the venue, the guitarist’s answer was less than enthusiastic.
“Everything that I’ve seen, or most everything that I’ve seen of it, looks amazing,” he says [via NME]. “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 adds that after speaking with Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh – whose band performed at the Sphere – his doubts only grew stronger.
“[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.”
Still, the guitarist admits there’s at least one band that could make it work: Metallica.
“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,” Slash says.
“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 get into that mindset, and I think that’s hard for us to go that far into it. But we’ll see. Maybe down the road.”
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