Guns N’ Roses + Chris Stapleton Performed at Each Other’s Shows

Guns N’ Roses and country superstar Chris Stapleton performed at each other’s shows in Toronto, Canada this week.

The artists had back-to-back shows at the city’s Rogers Stadium, with Guns N’ Roses playing Wednesday night (Aug. 5) and Stapleton the following evening. During Guns’ show, Stapleton came onstage to join the band during their rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and sing a duet with Axl Rose.

The next night, Stapleton told the crowd about his performance with GN’R about halfway through his set and said that he wanted to play one of their songs to honor it. He introduced the GN’R Lies track “Patience” as one of his favorite Guns songs, started to play it and then said it didn’t feel right.

Slash and Duff McKagan walked out onstage to play the acoustic song with Stapleton and he said, “This feels better.”

See fan-filmed videos of both performances below.

Guns N’ Roses + Chris Stapleton, ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ (Live 2026)

Chris Stapleton + Guns N’ Roses, ‘Patience’ (Live 2026)

What Is the History Between Guns N’ Roses and Chris Stapleton?

Guns and Stapleton do have a bit of a working history together, as the country artist was one of several acts that opened for GN’R during their reunion tour in 2016. Stapleton told Rolling Stone how “cool” it was when he got to meet Rose backstage.

“He was great. Very polite and gracious and we got to say hi for a few minutes. I’m sure he was tired and had to go get cleaned up before the buses or planes rolled out, but he was a gentleman and we had a brief conversation about music and both went on our way. It was a good night,” Stapleton said.

“I asked him how many nights in a row he can possibly scream like that and do all the high, high rock ‘n’ roll singing that he does. Because I know for myself I have limits and how many nights in a row I can actually sing. Then we discussed him doing stuff with AC/DC a little bit. It was conversations you don’t think you’re ever going to have.”

Several years later, Slash called Stapleton out of the blue to ask him to sing on his solo blues covers album Orgy of the Damned, which came out in 2024.

READ MORE: 12 Rock + Country Artist Collaborations That Go Hard

Stapleton sang a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” with the guitarist for the album.

“His singing cadence and that drawl that he has for this particular song, in my mind’s eye, it sounded perfect,” Slash told Rolling Stone of the collaboration. “I had to get his number and cold-call him and he was really gracious about it and really bent over backwards to help me get it done… I think it was one of the best ideas I’ve had in recent memory, was to have him sing that song.”

See which other rock and metal artists are touring the rest of 2026 in the tour guide below.