Mick Jagger has expressed his hope that the Rolling Stones will be back out on the road next year, in support of their forthcoming album, Foreign Tongues.
The legendary rock band are releasing their 25th studio album on 10 July, having shared the lead single “In the Stars” last month.
In an appearance on Sunday TODAY in the US, Jagger hinted at the possibility of live shows while suggesting that this year was off the cards.
“I’d love to,” he said, “I really want to. “And, I’m ready to go. I don’t think we’re gonna do shows this year, but hopefully we’ll do shows next year.”
Sixty years since they first formed, the Stones remain one of the world’s most popular live acts, with their latest North America tour grossing almost a quarter of a billion dollars and selling 880,000 tickets.
They last toured in the summer of 2024 to promote Hackney Diamonds, their first album of original material in almost two decades and their first since the 2021 death of drummer Charlie Watts.
Jagger, 82, said the new record has “a lot of styles in it” and that this was intentional: “You hope that every track has got something for everyone. That’s why you’ve got, you know, 14 tracks”.
He revealed that four of the songs from Foreign Tongues were created during sessions for earlier albums, but the remaining 10 were written and recorded in the span of just four weeks.
Jagger credited this process to the fact that the Stones all write songs on their own, meaning they can get together and make music more quickly.
Despite being more than six decades into a career, and with his status as one of the most iconic rock’n’roll frontmen in history, Jagger said he still feels nervous about releasing new music.
“You spend a lot of time [on the album] and it’s your baby,” he said. “You want [people] to take notice of what you’ve done.”
While fans might have to wait a little longer before seeing the Stones live again, lucky punters in Oxford were treated to a Jagger solo gig when he turned up to the Half Moon pub in St Clements for its weekly folk night.
The frontman was filmed singing the traditional bluegrass song “Handsome Molly”, which he covered on his 1993 solo album Wandering Spirit, after stopping for a pint following an event at Oriel College on Sunday 7 June.
