Guns N’ Roses set for Israel’s biggest ever concert
With unprecedented 61,900 tickets sold to hard rock band’s July 15 concert at TLV’s Yarkon Park, promoter warns of fake tickets
The Guns N’ Roses concert in Tel Aviv later this month will be the largest ever concert in the country, the promoter claimed Wednesday, warning the public to be wary of fake tickets for the sold out performance.
The hard rock band, which formed in 1985, sold 61,900 tickets, more tickets for an Israel show than any other band, said promoter, Guy Beser, of Bluestone group. Britney Spears had 55,000 fans at her show on Sunday night at the same venue, Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park.
But Beser cautioned anyone still trying to get a ticket, and said there were reports of fake tickets being sold. Only tickets that were purchased from Ticketmaster will get people into the show, Beser told Channel 2. “Don’t buy from any of the international sites,” he said, adding that Facebook tickets were also no good.
Guns N’ Roses has sold over 100 million records, making it one of the best-selling bands of all time.
The Tel Aviv show is the final concert of the European leg of the band’s “Not in This Lifetime” tour, a reunion for vocalist Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan, who haven’t played together for the last 23 years.
The band, which was founded in 1985, with its first studio album, 1987’s “Appetite for Destruction,” featuring the number-one single “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” was known for a new brand of hard rock and for hedonism reminiscent of the early Rolling Stones.
Their May 1993 concert in Tel Aviv was part of a major, two-year world tour following their 1991 twin albums, “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II,” which sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide.
It was that tour which led to tremendous tensions in the band, following significant drug and alcohol abuse by members of the group. The band was last in Israel during the 1993 tour, although Axl Rose performed in Israel in 2012 with a different mix of band members.
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As guitarist Slash told Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer’s radio show in Boston, and as reported in Rolling Stone Magazine, “Everybody’s getting along, everybody’s playing great. We were all pretty positive that that would never happen, so it’s still sort of blowing our minds,” the guitarist added. “It seems so surreal to me, but everybody’s really getting along great and I think everybody’s come a long way and it’s all cool.”
The band last visited Israel in 2012, but the only original band members that time around were Rose and keyboardist Dizzy Reed, who had been a member of the lineup since 1990.
Gates open at 6:30 p.m. Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown, from Nashville, Tennessee, will open for the band. Guns N’ Roses will take the stage at 8:30 p.m. and, according to Beser, the show will last over two hours.
Jessica Steinberg contributed to this report.
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