NEW YORK • Living up to its tradition as the premier forum for rock 'n' roll reunions, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will host Guns N' Roses this year.
The music world has been buzzing for months about a possible reunion for Guns N' Roses, after Slash, the band's original lead guitarist, suggested in interviews that he had finally reconciled with Axl Rose, its singer, ending a two-decade feud.
After the original band fell apart in the mid-1990s, Rose maintained the Guns N' Roses name, releasing Chinese Democracy, one of rock's longest-gestating albums, in 2008 - after more than 12 years of work and untold millions of dollars in production expenses - and he has toured with various new members over the years.
Now, some version of the classic Guns N' Roses will headline the next Coachella, which will return to Indio, California, on April 15 to 17 and April 22 to 24, according to a person with direct knowledge of the festival's plans.
Besides Slash and Rose, it is unclear who else will participate. The band's classic line-up, which played on the 1987 debut album, Appetite For Destruction, also included guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler, who was kicked out in 1990.
News of Guns N' Roses' return was first reported by Billboard, which said the band decided on the reunion as they stand to earn as much as US$3 million ($4.2 million) a show. It also said the band are looking to play at as many as 25 stadiums around North America this year.
Rose is expected to make an announcement about the future of Guns N' Roses on talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! next week.
The next Coachella will also feature the return of LCD Soundsystem, the dance-rock band led by James Murphy, which last performed in a farewell show at Madison Square Garden in 2011. Rumours of an LCD comeback surfaced last Thursday, after the group released a new song, Christmas Will Break Your Heart, on its website.
A spokesman for LCD Soundsystem declined to comment. Representatives of Guns N' Roses and Coachella did not return requests for comment.
Coachella's high-profile reunions over the years have included Rage Against the Machine in 2007 and Outkast in 2014. For its 2015 edition, which featured AC/DC, Drake, The Weeknd and Jack White, the festival collected US$84 million in ticket sales, according to Billboard, making it by far the most lucrative festival in the country.
NEW YORK TIMES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
