Stones say they don’t plan to stop rolling
“It’s almost like Hari Kari. I intend to live to 100 and go down in history,” said the 61-year-old ex-junkie.
Speculation that the band’s current tour would be their last was played down by the Stones, now into their 43rd year playing together. Only frontman Mick Jagger was a touch ambivalent.
“I don’t know - this is a long tour, I don’t know what happens after this tour,” Jagger said.
But Richards was steadfast: “The way these guys are going at the moment it’s a pretty remote chance that this is the last one, quite honestly.”
And this despite the fact that three of the four Stones are now into their 60s, and are in the early stages of a world tour set to last more than a year, with over 100 dates, among them a provisional gig in Croke Park next June.
Already stirring up a fair share of positive reviews and controversy Stateside, the Bigger Bang tour boasts a 500-tonne stage and sees tickets flying out the door at $100 (€78) a pop. With the band having grossed a staggering $750 million on their last four world tours, this looks set to be a profitable outing also.
However, anyone expecting to hear Jagger’s stinging attack on the American right will, it seems, be disappointed. Sweet Neo-Con, from the Stones’ new album out Monday (see review below) has been interpreted as an attack on George W Bush, but has so far been left off the tour set-list.
Jagger defended the song on Newsnight last night. “You’ve got to speak up,” he said, “I think social comment is very much part of what the Rolling Stones have always done.”
Richards, who has often had public spats with Jagger, is of a different opinion, however.
“I didn’t want it to become a distraction, a political storm in a tea cup,” he said.
And although he remains supportive of Jagger and the track itself, Richards made it clear it was his distrust of politics that also kept the band out of Live 8 this summer.
“I just thought the connection between Geldof and the Labour Party was... just too tight, and I don’t see that debt reduction is going to feed the babes down there,” Richards said.
“Who is this gratifying and where were the Africans?”
Reportedly, the spats between the Stones’ two frontmen continue, with Richards having recently threatened to refuse to perform if 25 sexy dancers hired by Jagger for the current tour weren’t scrapped.
By all accounts Richards got his way. The dancers went home with $100,000 having been wasted on the ditched exercise.
But the sparks between Richards and Jagger are all in good humour, if last night’s interview is anything to go by.
And despite their denials, this tour might just be your last chance to see them.
“There used to be atmospheres that you could cut with a knife but those days are over, everyone’s a lot more jocular, more professional, and the music’s getting better. Maybe Mick’s a bit happier now he’s been knighted.”
“I just thought the connection between Geldof and the Labour party policy was just too tight. It’s not going to feed the babes down there ...”
“I was a junkie for 10 years ... and I used to carry a gun. My friend carries the gun now ... In those days that was the way it was. I’ve recently retired from military combat and I don’t want no more to do with fighting.”
“You get cleared for X amount of time so that’s what I’ve been told but the horrible thing about having anything like that is you can never be 100%.”
All quotations courtesy of BBC2 Newsnight.
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