Guns N' Roses' 4 warm up shows at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom have sold out in less than 3 minutes.

The 4 shows on the 12, 14, 15 and 17 of May are warm ups for the European leg of the band's forthcoming tour which starts on the 25th of May in Madrid at Juan Carlos Arena.

Axl Rose commented, "New York has always been so great to Guns and myself. The response to our last show at Madison Square Garden was nothing short of amazing. I've spent the last couple of months here in New York. I've had a great time, met a lot of great people and the band and I are excited that we get to play New York City and play for the friends - both old and new - that we've made before we head to Europe."

The band are playing a mixture of headline Festival appearances including Rock In Rio in Portugal, Download at the UK's famed Castle Donington, Rock Am Ring in Germany, Gods Of Metal in Italy, Novarock in Austria, Graspop in Belgium, Roskilde in Denmark, and A Heavy Day In The Park in Holland as well as their own headlining indoor shows in Madrid, Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, Paris, Zurich, Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki, most of which have been instant sellouts.

Following their strongest ticket sales for the event ever Download promoter Stuart Galbraith of Live Nation enthused, "The comeback of GN'R into the UK live market place has been quite phenomenal. GN'R along with Metallica and Tool will be headlining the biggest Download festival ever at Donington that for the first time in its history will sell out and in addition will also play to a sell out audience at Download Dublin - it's been a very long wait but it's certainly been worth it - GN'R are back!"

Guns N' Roses have sold over 65,000 tickets in Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki in just a couple of hours. Promoter Thomas Johannson of Live Nation commented, "Guns N' Roses, the cornerstones of Rock, will forever and ever do sell outs."

New York promoter Randi Henner at Live Nation commented, "GN'R is as hot a ticket in NYC as anything I have seen in recent memory. It blew out in 3 minutes."

As part of the European tour, Guns N' Roses will also be reunited with the Rolling Stones for two special shows in Germany. Guns N' Roses will be the Stones' special guests on the 10th of July in Nurnburg and the 12th of July in Leipzig. They last played together in 1989 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Additional dates will be announced in due course.