Three hours and ten minutes. Thirty-one songs. Over 40,000 fans. Countless guitars that have passed through the hands of Slash. A tireless Axl Rose. A world-class light and multimedia show. These are the facts from the return of Guns N’ Roses to Sofia – on July 21, at the national stadium “Vasil Levski“, at the invitation of Fest Team.
The American hard rock band took the stage shortly before 7:20 p.m., in broad daylight and under the still scorching rays of the July sun, a BTA reporter saw. Welcome to the Jungle from 1987 was the opening track, followed by Mr. Brownstone, Bad Obsession, Live and Let Die, Chinese Democracy, It's So Easy, Yesterdays, Estranged, You Could Be Mine, The General, Civil War, Shadow of Your Love, Used to Love Her, Hard Skool, Double Talkin' Jive, Absurd. After Sorry - eighteen songs shorter, Axl Rose handed over the microphone to Duff McKagan for Thunder and Lightning, a 1983 Thin Lizzy cover.
The original vocalist's return to the stage was for Knockin' on Heaven's Door, complete with a singing stadium and thousands of lit flashlights on phones. Somewhere here were the words of Axl Rose: “Thank you for making us feel at home“, as well as the confession “I love you too“.
Slash, who changed over ten guitars during the show, also performed two solos. One of them was entirely guitar, and the other in Coma (1991) with the so-called talkbox - a device that allows musicians to change the sound of an instrument by shaping the frequency content and applying speech sounds - as when singing.
The peculiar third part of the concert began with the superhit Sweet Child o' Mine, Rocket Queen, Perhaps, November Rain, This I Love, Never Say Die, Don't Cry and at the end - the dynamic song Nightrain. As in 2012, the show ended with an encore by Paradise City.
Before the headliners, the audience was warmed up with a 40-minute set by Public Enemy. The American hip-hop formation took the stage at exactly 6:00 p.m. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Public Enemy at number 44 on its list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time“.
Guns N’ Roses' first visit to Bulgaria was in July 2012 at the Sofia Rocks festival. The event was held at the now defunct “Bulgarian Army“ stadium. The concert on July 21, 2025 is part of a tour of Europe and the Middle East. The tour began on May 23 and includes 24 dates, some of which are brand new locations for the group – such as Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Lithuania and Luxembourg. The tour also passes through Serbia, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Austria.