Keith Richards has morbidly said The Rolling Stones will tour next year as long as he, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood are still alive.
The Stones previously planned to hit the road in 2023 but instead chose to take a summer off ahead of the release of Hackney Diamonds on October 20th. However, unlike other ageing rockers, they have no plans to retire from touring, and according to Richards, they will be taking their new album to stadiums across the world in 2024.
While the shows are yet to be officially announced, Richards told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the concerts will take place “if everybody’s still standing”. Richards was also asked when he foresees the band coming to an end, to which he jokingly replied, “My answer to that is: ‘I’m not Nostradamus’.”
The guitarist added: “Of course, it’s going to end, sometime. Everybody’s in good fettle – there’s no particular rush. We’re having great fun doing this, and this is what we do.”
On the subject of Rolling Stones tours, Jagger recently weighed up the possibility of a future hologram tour by the band once they are no longer able to play.
“You can have a posthumous business now, can’t you? You can have a posthumous tour,” he said in an interview. “The technology has really moved on since the ABBA thing [the pop group’s recent “Voyage” virtual show], which I was supposed to go to, but I missed it,” the frontman added.
Meanwhile, in the same interview with the Today programme, Richards explained how his guitar playing has been forced to adapt due to his arthritis.
Funnily enough, I’ve no doubt it has, but I don’t have any pain: it’s a sort of benign version. I think if I’ve slowed down a little bit it’s probably due more to age.”
The guitarist continued: “And also, I found that interesting, when I’m like, ‘I can’t quite do that any more,’ the guitar will show me there’s another way of doing this. Some finger will go one space different and there’s a whole new door just opened here. And so you’re always learning. You never finish school, man.”
