It didn’t take long for Guns N’ Roses to burst onto the scene: the band’s debut album in 1987, Appetite For Destruction, ultimately vaulted them to rock royalty and spent 261 weeks on the Billboard 200. So when the band hit the stage at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida for their first show of their 2026 tour on Thursday night (April 30), they opened the concert the way they know best: by ripping straight into “Welcome to the Jungle,” the first track off that first album and a continuous thesis statement for the band across its somewhat sporadic 40-year history.
Kicking off shortly after 8 p.m., the first iconic riffs of the song immediately got the 7,000-capacity crowd to its feet, and heralded what was to come: a nonstop, three-hour show that ran through some of their biggest hits — “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Don’t Cry,” “November Rain” and the show-closer “Paradise City” — as well as a smattering of new songs released in the past three years, including “Atlas,” “Nothin’” and “Better.” The band has always had a knack for covering songs and making them their own, and they duly did that at the Hard Rock, running through their iconic versions of Wings’ “Live and Let Die,” Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and Velvet Revolver’s “Slither.”
With the iconic group led by singer Axl Rose, bassist Duff McKagan and guitarist Slash back up on stage together in North America for the first time in a few years, here are six of the best moments from their opening night show.
