Duff McKagan Shares Why Guns N’ Roses Have 3 and a Half Hours Concerts

Duff McKagan justified the three-and-a-half-hour sets of the Guns N’ Roses.

Duff McKagan, the long-time bassist of Guns N’ Roses‘, recently justified the band’s three-and-a-half-hour sets during their live shows. With 24 songs on their setlist, it usually takes 3-4 hours before the band can finally call it a night. It is an hour longer compared to the running time of most of the bands performing live.

Here’s what McKagan has to say:

“Man, Axl [Rose] loves – you know, I think it’s – goddammit, it’s like, what songs do you take out, you know, if you wanted to play shorter?
“Don’t get me wrong – my body would love it if we only played two-and-a-half hours. Most bands, like, play two hours. Two hours and 10 minutes or something, and we’re playing three [hours and] thirty [minutes]. I’d love to play shorter because, just, I’d be in less pain the next day. But, there’s just too many songs, and people stay for the whole thing. Nobody leaves, so it’s like, “Okay, they must be enjoying this.” We’ll whip out ‘Coma’ or ‘Locomotive’.”

He continued:

“We’re whipping out other songs. I really love playing ‘Bad Obsession’, you know? ‘Pretty Tied Up’. It’s so great. . . . We’ll play it all. ‘Reckless [Life]’ and ‘Shadow [of Your Love]’. I’m looking at Axl, and I’m, like, “Yeah, you sure, man? ‘Cause we’ve gotta play again in a couple nights.”

On the other hand, McKagan did not forget to mention how much he admired Axl Rose’s longevity when it came to being on stage for that long. He even called him a “monster” and bragged that they only had to cancel one show in the past even though they are doing the same setlist consistently. The bassist said that it was when Rose’s vocal cords got swollen:

“He’ll still wanna play the show, and the doctor will be, like, ‘You could ruin your voice forever’. We canceled one [show] in Glasgow a couple of years ago. We made it up.”

In some other news, the band recently released “The General,” also known as the B-side of the band’s limited-edition seven-inch vinyl single “Perhaps.” Guns N’ Roses also topped the UK’s favorite guitar riff list for their “Sweet Child O’ Mine” according to the documentary series, Greatest Guitar Riffs.

In contrary to that, the band’s last June performance at Glastonbury was only rated with a three-star review. NME debunked the review and described the performance as “one of their strongest sets in recent years.” They pointed out that it was because it was delivered to the “wrong crowd,” thus, a negative review.