The show opened up with “Welcome to the Jungle” for the first time since 2012, and was the public’s first look at new band member Isaac Carpenter
Guns N’ Roses kicked off their 2025 Because What You Want & What You Get Are Two Completely Different Things Tour Thursday evening at Songdo Moonlight Festival Park in Incheon, South Korea. The setlist will be similar to anyone who has seen GN’R during the reunion era, but it was the first time they’d opened a show with “Welcome to the Jungle” since Slash and Duff McKagan re-joined the band in 2016.
More importantly, it was also their first appearance with new drummer Isaac Carpenter. He replaced longtime drummer Frank Ferrer earlier this year for reasons that were never publicly explained. “The outpouring of love I have felt from the incredible fans of Guns N’ Roses and my peers over the past 24 hours has been tremendous,” Ferrer wrote to fans in March. “I will have immense gratitude and love always for Axl and the band, while at the same time, disappointment that this chapter came to an end.”
Carpenter, 45, played in a Guns N’ Roses cover band in high school called .22s and Tulips. In 2009, he joined McKagan’s side project Loaded, placing him in a position to live out his high school dreams once Guns parted ways with Ferrer. This is the first change in the Guns N’ Roses touring band lineup since the start of the reunion period in 2016. Carpenter is the band’s sixth drummer following Steven Adler, Matt Sorum, John Freese, Bryan “Brain” Mantia, and Ferrer.
The tour continues May 5 at the K Arena in Yokohama, Japan. Unless more dates are added, it wraps up July 31 at the Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany. They’ll be joined along the way by Public Enemy, Rival Songs, and the Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter.
Guns N’ Roses have released a series of singles over the past few years, including “Absurd, “Hard Skull,” Perhaps,” and “The General,” but they all date back to the Chinese Democracy sessions about two decades back. They have yet to release any songs written since Slash and McKagan came back. There has been talk of a new album, but no solid evidence that one is in the works.
