Chinese Democracy Tour of Europe was announced in December 2000 as a New Year's Day performance at the House of Blues in Las Vegas. It was also rumoured that the long-awaited "Chinese Democracy" would be released in June 2001, for which the scheduled European Tour would be promotional. Guns N' Roses – then composed of vocalist Axl Rose, lead guitarists Buckethead and Robin Finck, rhythm guitarist Paul Tobias (who joined in 1994 to replace Gilby Clarke), bassist Tommy Stinson, drummer Brain and keyboardists Dizzy Reed (still with the band since joining in 1990) and Chris Pitman (who joined between 1998 and 2000) –
Chinese Democracy Tour completed the band's first performance in seven years, which was praised as "a triumphant return" by music magazine "Rolling Stone". The band performed a number of new songs, including "Oh My God" (released as a single in 1999), "Riad N' The Bedouins", "Chinese Democracy", "Street of Dreams" (all later released on "Chinese Democracy") and "Silkworms" (which remains unreleased as of April 2016), including a bulk of original songs and 'classics' such as "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City", "November Rain" and "You Could Be Mine". The Las Vegas show was followed two weeks later by the performance at Rock in