The once-impossible reunion tour that saw Guns N’ Roses icons Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan play together again is the third biggest grossing road trip of all time, Billboard reported.

Titled Not in This Lifetime after an answer Rose once gave to a question about working with Slash again – and opening with Rose breaking his foot at the first show – the tour began in 2016 and ended on Nov. 3. In that period the band sold 5,371,891 tickets and grossed $584.2 million from 158 concerts. Ed Sheeran holds the top spot with $775 million grossed during his Divide tour of 2017-2019, and U2 remain in second place with their 360º tour, which took in $736 million between 2009-2011.

“The tour was rooted in North America, with 87 of 158 shows (55%) taking place in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico,” Billboard noted. “But there were also multiple visits to Europe (31 shows), Asia (16) and South America (15), plus eight dates in Australia and one in Johannesburg, South Africa. “With more time in North America, the band was able to play a more even mix of stadiums and arenas, as opposed to quicker runs of only stadiums internationally. Their home-continent touring amounted to $258.5 million and 2.3 million tickets sold, still far ahead of Europe’s $166.1 million.”

Guns N’ Roses made more than $10 million at a single engagement five times, and sold more than 100,000 tickets for a single engagement on four occasions. The most successful of those was their two-night stop at London Stadium, U.K. in June 2017, where they grossed $17.7 million and sold 140,877 tickets.

The band are expected to turn their attention to their first album since 2008’s Chinese Democracy. “[T]here's been so much talk about this Guns N’ Roses record, which we haven't actually done anything with,” guitarist Slash said in April. “So we're gonna sort of focus on that.”

 

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