Watch Guns N' Roses debut "new" song Absurd in Boston

Guns N' Roses onstage in Mexico City, March 2020 (Image credit: Alejandro Melendez/Getty Images)

Guns N' Roses have played a "new" song during the second show of their We're F'N Back! tour at Boston's Fenway Park. The tour kicked off with a performance at the Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

After a Duff McKagan-led cover of The Stooges classic I Wanna Be Your Dog, Guns N' Roses played Absurd, a track Axl Rose back-announced by saying, "you heard it here first... a new Guns N' Roses song."

Alert fans immediately confirmed that Absurd is an update of Silkworms, a song originally written during the sessions for Chinese Democracy by keyboardists Chris Pitman and Dizzy Reed. The song was first performed by the band two decades ago during a New Year show at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, and reprised a couple of weeks later at the Rock In Rio festival.

Fan-shot footage of the band playing the song can be seen below.

Last week it was announced that Slash feat. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators are to release their next album via guitar makers Gibson. And last December, Slash told Cleveland.com about that album, before going on to talk about new recordings from Guns N' Roses.

"I spent a lot of time writing and demoing that stuff," said Slash. "And prior to that Duff (McKagan) and I did some jamming and we also worked on the Guns record, and I’ve had a couple of ancillary recordings and jams on top of that, so there’s been a lot of stuff going on. I’m really not good at slowing down and just sitting around.

"I would like to think that we’d have some new stuff out next year -- from both camps, I guess. It’s hard to say, but I would like to think we’ll have stuff out next year, yeah."

Guns N' Roses Fenway Park setlist

It's So Easy
Mr. Brownstone
Chinese Democracy
Welcome To The Jungle
Slither
Double Talkin' Jive
Estranged
Live And Let Die
You're Crazy
Better
Rocket Queen
You Could Be Mine
I Wanna Be Your Dog
Absurd
Civil War
Dead Horse
Slash Guitar Solo
Sweet Child O' Mine
November Rain
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Nightrain

Encore
Paradise City

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.