The Rolling Stones will now NOT be playing surprise, as-yet-unannounced gigs in the UK in 2025.
That’s the official word from Stones insiders (via The Times) as plans for the increasingly clock-watching megastars to enjoy another (last?) payday have ultimately come to naught.
The Stones last (last?) tour – promoting the band’s 2024 Hackey Diamonds album – was purely an American affair and the band last played the UK in 2022 as part of their Sixty tour, celebrating their 60 years in the business.
But with multiple global obligations to meet and the rest of Europe and the US to keep satisfied, the band’s three UK dates (at Liverpool’s Anfield ground and London’s Hyde Park) were a fleeting visit for a band that could have sold out twice as many UK seats.
The hope had been, therefore, to give UK fans a bigger bite of the Stone’s cherry with multiple machinations going on behind the scenes to secure some summer 2025 slots, most specifically an extended residence at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
In addition, multiple European gigs were on the cards with Paris, Barcelona, and Rome (the latter two being passed over on their last Euro jaunt) being proposed, but similarly recently scrapped.
Insiders have cited “complications with venues and travel as well as existing commitments” as the reasons why the 2025 mini Euro tour is off.
The band – now sadly without original drummer Charlie Watts, who died in 2021 aged 80 – remains one of music’s hottest tickets with last year’s 20-date US-only Hackney Diamonds tour being attended by 880,000 fans, generating $235 million.
With Euro dates out of the picture, attention now turns as to whether the band are sufficiently free for a return to Glastonbury in 2025? It wouldn’t be out of the question given their triumphant first appearance at the festival back in 2013.
Watch this space.
