Axl Rose Takes Nasty Spill During Guns N’ Roses Performance in Vegas

Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose took a nasty fall during the group’s Las Vegas concert on Friday night. While singing “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” the 57-year-old rocker slipped before getting right back up to perform the rest of the song. Guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan continued performing without skipping a beat.

TMZ published video from the performance at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Rose tripped as he was moving backwards during the song, falling flat on his back.

Rose then got right up as if nothing was wrong, and picked up a towel to wipe down the area near the stage where fell. It looks like there was just some liquid on the floor that caused the slip.

Guns N’ Roses is now at the end of their Not In This Lifetime… Tour, which has featured Rose, Slash and McKagan as the only original members on the tour. Melissa Reese and Dizzy Reed joined the tour as their keyboardists, with Frank Ferrer on drums and Richard Fortus on rhythm guitar. The massive tour kicked off in April 2016, and comes to an end on Saturday night with a second show in Las Vegas.

Guns N’ Roses joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. They released their first album, the now iconic Appetite for Destruction, in 1987, along with their hits “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Paradise City” and “Welcome to the Jungle.” Their other hits include covers of “Live and Let Die” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” “Patience,” “Nightrain,” “You Could Be Mine” and “Don’t Cry.” They continue to be one of the most popular touring acts in the world, even though they haven’t released a new album since 2008’s Chinese Democracy.

Although Slash was not on Chinese Democracy, he has been playing songs from the album on the road. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2018, the legendary guitarist said there was nothing strange about it.

“It’s fun playing them. There’s nothing weird about it,” he said at the time. “It’s not like I’m playing something out of my comfort zone. I’m very conscious of maintaining the integrity of the recording, but still doing it the way that I would approach it.”

When asked about the process of getting back to work with Rose, Slash decided not to really get into the details of their dynamic.

“I know everybody wants to ask me stuff like that, but in the Guns N’ Roses world, I’ve found that . . . I’d just rather not even get into it. Because at this point, it’s like, Guns N’ Roses is, and that’s basically all that really needs to be said,” Slash said. “I don’t like to get into the dynamics of how . . . ’cause it always gets misconstrued. And the superficial stuff that people want to look into, it always seems to rise to the surface; and it’s hard to get away from that after years and years and years of being that band that had, uh, that kind of media dynamic going on. So, I just sort of avoid it.”

Slash released his own solo album, Living The Dream, featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, in 2018. McKagen also released a solo album, Tenderness, in May 2019.

Photo credit: Gary Miller/Getty Images