Guns N’ Roses to play gigs at House of Blues, Wiltern, Palladium

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Despite vocal protestations late last year about the notion of playing the Hollywood Palladium, Axl Rose and his band Guns N’ Roses announced this morning a three-night March ‘L.A. Takeover’ that will feature gigs at the landmark Palladium and Wiltern theaters, along with a return to the Sunset Strip that birthed the original lineup with a stop at the House of Blues.

The band, which will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, currently features Rose as its sole original member along with longtime players Richard Fortus, Tommy Stinson, Bumblefoot and others. The band will do the three gigs during the week of March 9. They did a similar run of dates at smaller venues in New York last month after undertaking a mid-sized stadium tour in the late fall that brought them to the Forum in Inglewood.

During a post-concert interview in his dressing room after the Seattle kickoff date of that last tour, Rose told me that he wanted to do some club shows in L.A., but that certain unnamed business entities were standing in the way. In fact, he said that one of the band’s agents at LiveNation, which is promoting the three-night run, tried to convince him to book GNR at the Palladium in lieu of that Forum date — but that Rose guffawed at the notion then. ‘The industry was trying to force us into a smaller show,’ he said during a two-hour interview. ‘’Just one, then make it two.’ But the real thing about it is that the sound’s not that good at the Palladium, and why are we going down when we can draw more?’

Later in the conversation, though, Rose expressed sincere hope that he and the band could find a way to bring the club vibe to Los Angeles. ‘There’s places I want to play. I want to play some of the nightclubs — different places for fun, and I want to play different venues like we’ve done in New York. And I know we can do it in L.A., but what happens is that people are really good at saying what you want to hear. So you go, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes,’ and then they do something completely different.’

The announcement of the shows seems a confirmation that Rose and his people have figured out a solution — and that Rose’s audio engineers can somehow fix the sound issues at the Palladium. (Good luck with that.) Presale ticketing will begin on Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific, and public onsale is slated for Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific.

‘L.A. Takeover’ dates below:

March 9, Hollywood Palladium
March 11, The Wiltern
March 12 , House of Blues Sunset Strip

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— Randall Roberts