2010.10.15 - AOL Music - Duff McKagan Reunites With Guns N' Roses

Duff McKagan Reunites With Guns 'n' Roses

By Amanda Hensel

After a seventeen year separation, Duff McKagan reunited with Guns 'n' Roses at their London gig last night to play bass on four songs, following a noisy run-in with Axl Rose. Rose let on that the reunion was by chance -- he and McKagan just happened to be staying in the same London hotel: "There was this guy at the end of my hallway playing all this loud music and s---," Rose said to the crowd. "What the f---? Oh - it's Duff!"

Duff McKagan joined Axl Rose on stage at London's O2 arena to perform four Guns 'n' Roses hits: 'You Could Be Mine,' 'Nice Boys,' 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door,' and 'Patience.'

As for the fate of Guns 'n' Roses, McKagan is not expected to return for a permanent reunion -- he's got plans to play bass in a reinvented Velvet Revolver, Slash revealed on his website. Rose echoed that in 2009, when he very poignantly told Billboard: "What's clear is that one of us will die before a reunion, and however sad, ugly or unfortunate anyone views it, it is how it is. Those decisions were made a long time ago and reiterated year after year by one man."

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Related article in Noisecreep, Oct. 21, 2010:
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Duff McKagan Joins Guns N' Roses Onstage

Those Europeans have all the luck. Last Thursday in London, lanky blond bassist Duff McKagan shared with stage with Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose for the first time in 17 long years. McKagan played with Rose on a spate of GN'R tunes, among them 'You Could Be Mine,' 'Nice Boys,' 'Patience' and 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door.'

The impromptu reunion was a complete accident, according to Rose. Apparently, McKagan was playing music in the same hotel as Rose, who famously owns the GNR name, and they reconnected.

Given that Rose told Billboard a few years ago that either he or Slash would die before he would ever step foot on stage with his top-hatted former guitarist, this might just have been a one-off treat for London rockers and not the precursor to a reunion.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110102011841/http://www.noisecreep.com/2010/10/21/guns-n-roses-duff-mckagan-axl-rose-london/