Rolling Stones Tour News

According to inside sources, the Rolling Stones are set to play four shows in November -- with Billboard.biz reporting the band will play two shows at London's O2 Arena and two additional concerts at Brooklyn, New York's new Barclays Center. Richard Branson and Australian promoter Paul Dainty will promote the shows, with the band's rumored take to be a cool $25 million for the four concerts.

The Stones last performed in public on October 6th, 2006 when they wrapped their massive A Bigger Bang Tour in Regina, Saskatchewan's Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field. The band has been in and out of the studio in Paris, presumably to film scenes for their 50th anniversary documentary, which will air on HBO this fall.

Mick Jagger explained that at this stage of the game, the stakes for a new Stones tour are incredibly high, and said that timing and pre-production play a crucial part in any tour's success: "It requires a certain, y'know. . . tactics. It's like being a football player, or something. Y'know, if you're going to be -- if you're going to last, you've got to play a bit clever. When you're young, you can just rush everything, and then once you get a bit older, you've got to be a bit more. . . Y'know, if you're gonna to do a tour, or something, that's a lot of work. You have to pay attention to the big picture, the big picture has to be right, the overall has to be right, and also the details have to be right."

The Stones' A Bigger Bang world tour grossed the band over half-a-billion dollars, and chances are that the band's 50th anniversary trek could easily surpass those figures. Keith Richards told us that it's not so unthinkable that the Stones will keep performing until they die: "That has always been my point. Ain't nobody that complained that Duke Ellington or Count Basie and said, 'Why are you still doing it?' They did it all their lives. What is it -- because I'm white and I play rock n' roll? Y'know what I mean? Otherwise, I'm just doing what all other guys who I follow -- y'know Muddy (Waters), Howlin' Wolf. You do what you do until you drop. Y'know, you rock 'til you drop."