Since forming in 1962, the English rock band the Rolling Stones have performed more than two thousand concerts around the world, [1] becoming one of the world's most popular live music attractions in the process. The Stones' first tour in their home country was in September 1963 and their first American tour began in June 1964. In their early years of performing, the band would undertake numerous short tours of the United Kingdom and North America, playing in small- and medium-size venues to audiences composed largely of screaming girls. As time moved on, their audience base expanded (in terms of both size and diversity) and they would increasingly favour larger arenas and stadiums. For many years, the group would choose to play North America, Continental Europe, and the United Kingdom on a three-year rotating cycle.[ citation needed ]
Many audio recordings exist of Rolling Stones concerts, both official and unofficial. Seventeen official concert albums (eighteen in the US) have been released by the band, 6 of which were previously unreleased concert recordings released from 2011–2012, including the highly bootlegged Brussels Affair . Several of their concerts have also been filmed and released under a variety of titles, such as The Stones in the Park which records the band's performance at Hyde Park in 1969 on the festival of the same name.[ citation needed ]
The most famous and heavily documented of all the band's concerts was the Altamont Free Concert at the Altamont Speedway in 1969, the final show of their American Tour 1969. For this concert, the biker gang Hells Angels provided security, which resulted in a fan, Meredith Hunter, being stabbed and beaten to death by the Angels after he drew a firearm. [2] Part of the tour and the Altamont concert were documented in Albert and David Maysles' film Gimme Shelter . As a response to the growing popularity of bootleg recordings, the album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! (UK 1; US 6) was released in 1970; it was declared by critic Lester Bangs to be the best live album ever. [3]
The biggest concert the band gave was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, part of the A Bigger Bang Tour, in 2006. The second largest was in 2016, when the band played for the first time in Cuba, during their América Latina Olé tour. An estimated 1.2 million fans, more than half of the population of Havana, saw the Rolling Stones whose music had been banned by the Cuban regime until only nine years before the concert. A live album and film, The Rolling Stones: Havana Moon , were released in 2016.
In bold, the tours which, when completed, became the highest-grossing of all time. [6]
Year | Title | Date | Associated album(s) | Continent(s) | Shows |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1963 | British Tour 1963 | 29 September 1963 – 3 November 1963 | — | Europe | 60 |
1964 | 1st British Tour 1964 | 6 January 1964 – 27 January 1964 | Europe | 28 | |
2nd British Tour 1964 | 8 February 1964 – 7 March 1964 | Europe | 58 | ||
1st American Tour 1964 | 5 June 1964 – 20 June 1964 | The Rolling Stones | North America | 11 | |
3rd British Tour 1964 | 1 August 1964 – 22 August 1964 | Europe | 11 | ||
4th British Tour 1964 | 5 September 1964 – 11 October 1964 | Europe | 64 | ||
2nd American Tour 1964 | 24 October 1964 – 11 November 1964 | 12 X 5 | North America | 11 | |
1965 | Irish Tour 1965 | 6 January 1965 – 8 January 1965 | The Rolling Stones No. 2 | Europe | 6 |
Far East Tour 1965 | 22 January 1965 – 16 February 1965 | Oceania Asia | 36 | ||
1st British Tour 1965 | 5 March 1965 – 18 March 1965 | Europe | 28 | ||
1st European Tour 1965 | 26 March 1965 – 2 April 1965 | Europe | 11 | ||
2nd European Tour 1965 | 16 April 1965 – 18 April 1965 | Europe | 3 | ||
1st American Tour 1965 | 23 April 1965 – 29 May 1965 | The Rolling Stones, Now! | North America | 22 | |
3rd European Tour 1965 | 15 June 1965 – 29 June 1965 | — | Europe | 15 | |
2nd Irish Tour 1965 | 3 September 1965 – 4 September 1965 | Europe | 2 | ||
4th European Tour 1965 | 11 September 1965 – 17 September 1965 | Europe | 11 | ||
2nd British Tour 1965 | 24 September 1965 – 17 October 1965 | Europe | 48 | ||
2nd American Tour 1965 | 29 October 1965 – 5 December 1965 | Out of Our Heads | Europe | 41 | |
1966 | Australasian Tour 1966 | 18 February 1966 – 1 March 1966 | — | Oceania | 18 |
European Tour 1966 | 26 March 1966 – 5 April 1966 | Europe | 12 | ||
American Tour 1966 | 24 June 1966 – 28 July 1966 | Aftermath | North America | 32 | |
British Tour 1966 | 23 September 1966 – 9 October 1966 | — | Europe | 23 | |
1967 | European Tour 1967 | 25 March 1967 – 17 April 1967 | Between the Buttons | Europe | 27 |
1969 | American Tour 1969 | 7 November 1969 – 6 December 1969 | Beggars Banquet | North America | 24 |
1970 | European Tour 1970 | 30 August 1970 – 9 October 1970 | Let It Bleed | Europe | 23 |
1971 | UK Tour 1971 | 4 March 1971 – 26 March 1971 | — | Europe | 18 |
1972 | American Tour 1972 | 3 June 1972 – 26 July 1972 | Exile on Main St. | North America | 48 |
1973 | Pacific Tour 1973 | 18 January 1973 – 27 February 1973 | — | North America Oceania | 14 |
European Tour 1973 | 1 September 1973 – 19 October 1973 | Goats Head Soup | Europe | 42 | |
1975 | Tour of the Americas '75 | 1 June 1975 – 8 August 1975 | Made in the Shade | North America | 46 |
1976 | Tour of Europe '76 | 28 April 1976 – 23 June 1976 | Black and Blue | Europe | 41 |
1978 | US Tour 1978 | 10 June 1978 – 26 July 1978 | Some Girls | North America | 25 |
1981 | American Tour 1981 | 25 September 1981 – 19 December 1981 | Tattoo You | North America | 50 |
1982 | European Tour 1982 | 26 May 1982 – 25 July 1982 | Europe | 36 | |
1989 | Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour | 31 August 1989 – 25 August 1990 | Steel Wheels | North America Asia Europe | 115 |
1990 | |||||
1994 | Voodoo Lounge Tour | 1 August 1994 – 30 August 1995 | Voodoo Lounge | North America South America Africa Asia Oceania Europe | 129 |
1995 | |||||
1997 | Bridges to Babylon Tour | 23 September 1997 – 19 September 1998 | Bridges to Babylon | North America Asia South America Europe | 97 |
1998 | |||||
1999 | No Security Tour | 25 January 1999 – 20 June 1999 | No Security | North America Europe | 43 |
2002 | Licks Tour | 3 September 2002 – 9 November 2003 | Forty Licks | North America Oceania Asia Europe | 117 |
2003 | |||||
2005 | A Bigger Bang Tour | 21 August 2005 – 26 August 2007 | A Bigger Bang | North America South America Asia Oceania Europe | 147 |
2006 | |||||
2007 | |||||
2012 | 50 & Counting | 25 October 2012 – 13 July 2013 | GRRR! | Europe North America | 30 |
2013 | |||||
2014 | 14 On Fire | 21 February 2014 – 22 November 2014 | — | Asia Europe Oceania | 29 |
2015 | Zip Code | 20 May 2015 – 15 July 2015 | Sticky Fingers (Deluxe 2015 Edition) | North America | 17 |
2016 | América Latina Olé | 3 February 2016 – 25 March 2016 | — | South America | 14 |
2017 | No Filter Tour | 9 September 2017 – 23 November 2021 | Blue & Lonesome | Europe North America | 58 |
2018 | |||||
2019 | |||||
2021 | |||||
2022 | Sixty | 1 June 2022 – 3 August 2022 | — | Europe | 14 |
2024 | Hackney Diamonds Tour | 28 April 2024 - 17 July 2024 | Hackney Diamonds | North America | 19 |
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active across seven decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pioneered the gritty, rhythmically driven sound that came to define hard rock. Their first stable line-up consisted of vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts. During their early years, Jones was the primary leader of the band. After Andrew Loog Oldham became the group's manager in 1963, he encouraged them to write their own songs. The Jagger–Richards partnership became the band's primary songwriting and creative force.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive with songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958). Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that included guitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.
Mathis James Reed was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with a wide variety of audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), "Baby What You Want Me to Do" (1960), "Big Boss Man" (1961), and "Bright Lights, Big City" (1961) appeared on both Billboard magazine's R&B and Hot 100 singles charts.
"Jumpin' Jack Flash" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released as a non-album single in 1968. Called "supernatural Delta blues by way of Swinging London" by Rolling Stone magazine, the song was perceived by some as the band's return to their blues roots after the baroque pop and psychedelia heard on their preceding albums Aftermath (1966), Between the Buttons (1967) and especially Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967). One of the group's most popular and recognisable songs, it has been featured in films and covered by numerous performers, notably Thelma Houston, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Peter Frampton, Johnny Winter, Leon Russell and Alex Chilton. To date, it is the band's most-performed song; they have played it over 1,100 times in concert.
Michael Kevin Taylor is an English guitarist, best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1967–1969) and the Rolling Stones (1969–1974). As a member of the Stones, he appeared on Let It Bleed (1969), Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert (1970), Sticky Fingers (1971), Exile on Main St. (1972), Goats Head Soup (1973) and It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1974).
Sticky Fingers is a studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was released on 23 April 1971 on the Rolling Stones' new label, Rolling Stones Records. The Rolling Stones had been contracted by Decca Records and London Records in the UK and the US since 1963. On this album, Mick Taylor made his second full-length appearance on a Rolling Stones album. It was the first studio album without Brian Jones, who died two years earlier. The original cover artwork, conceived by Andy Warhol and photographed and designed by members of his art collective, the Factory, showed a picture of a man in tight jeans, and had a working zip that opened to reveal underwear fabric. The cover was expensive to produce and damaged the vinyl record, so the size of the zipper adjustment was made by John Kosh at ABKCO records. Later re-issues featured just the outer photograph of the jeans.
Stanley Booth is an American, Memphis, Tennessee-based music journalist. Characterized by Richie Unterberger as a "fine, if not extremely prolific, writer who generally speaking specializes in portraits of roots musicians, most of whom did their best work in the '60s and '50s," Booth has written extensively about Keith Richards, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, James Brown, Elvis Presley, Gram Parsons, B.B. King, and Al Green. He chronicled his travels with the Rolling Stones in several of his works.
Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!: The Rolling Stones in Concert is the second live album by the Rolling Stones, released on 4 September 1970 on Decca Records in the UK and on London Records in the United States. It was recorded in New York City and Baltimore in November 1969 prior to the release of Let It Bleed. It is the first live album to reach number 1 in the UK. It was reported to have been issued in response to the well-known bootleg Live'r Than You'll Ever Be. This was also the band's final release under the Decca record label and not under its own label Rolling Stones Records.
"Honky Tonk Women" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was released as a non-album single on 4 July 1969 in the United Kingdom, and a week later in the United States. It topped the charts in both nations. The song was on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Gimme Shelter is a 1970 American documentary film directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin chronicling the last weeks of The Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour which culminated in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert and the killing of Meredith Hunter. The film is named after "Gimme Shelter", the lead track from the group's 1969 album Let It Bleed. Gimme Shelter was screened out of competition as the opening film of the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
Charles Alfred Leavell is an American musician. A member of the Allman Brothers Band throughout their commercial zenith in the 1970s, he subsequently became a founding member of the band Sea Level. He has served as the principal touring keyboardist and musical director of the Rolling Stones since 1982. As a session musician, Leavell has performed on every Rolling Stones studio album released since 1983 with the exception of Bridges to Babylon (1997). He has also toured and recorded with Eric Clapton, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Gov't Mule and John Mayer.
The Rolling Stones American Tour 1972, also known as the "Stones Touring Party", shortened to S.T.P., was a much-publicized and much-written-about concert tour of the United States and Canada in June and July 1972 by the Rolling Stones. Constituting the band's first performances in the United States following the Altamont Free Concert in December 1969, critic Dave Marsh would later write that the tour was "part of rock and roll legend" and one of the "benchmarks of an era."
The Rolling Stones' 1969 Tour of the United States took place in November 1969. With Ike & Tina Turner, Terry Reid, and B.B. King as the supporting acts, rock critic Robert Christgau called it "history's first mythic rock and roll tour", while rock critic Dave Marsh wrote that the tour was "part of rock and roll legend" and one of the "benchmarks of an era." In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the tour among The 50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years.
The Rolling Stones' US Tour 1978 was a concert tour of the United States that took place during June and July 1978, immediately following the release of the group's 1978 album Some Girls. Like the 1972 and 1975 U.S. tours, Bill Graham was the tour promoter. One opening act was Peter Tosh, who was sometimes joined by Mick Jagger for their duet "Don't Look Back". The Outlaws backed up Peter Tosh. Another act opening that day was Etta James, famous for her classic song "At Last".
"Stray Cat Blues" is the eighth song on the Rolling Stones' album Beggars Banquet. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and produced by Jimmy Miller. Miller's production of the song is very representative of his style, featuring a very prominent hi hat beat, droning piano performed by Nicky Hopkins, a mellotron performed by Brian Jones, all electric guitars performed by Richards and vocals from Jagger kept even in the mix. According to Mick Jagger, the song was inspired by "Heroin" by the Velvet Underground, with the intros of both songs being particularly similar.
The Rolling Stones' 1971 UK Tour was a brief concert tour of England and Scotland that took place over three weeks in March 1971.
"Carol" is a song written and recorded by Chuck Berry, first released by Chess Records in 1958, with "Hey Pedro" as the B-side. The single reached number 18 on Billboard's Hot 100 and number 9 on the magazine's R&B chart. In 1959, it was included on his first compilation album, Chuck Berry Is on Top.
Live'r Than You'll Ever Be is a bootleg recording of the Rolling Stones' concert in Oakland, California, from 9 November 1969. It was one of the first live rock music bootlegs and was made notorious as a document of their 1969 tour of the United States. The popularity of the bootleg forced the Stones' labels Decca Records in the UK, and London Records in the US, to release the live album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert in 1970. Live'r is also one of the earliest commercial bootleg recordings in rock history, released in December 1969, just two months after the Beatles' Kum Back and five months after Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder. Like the two earlier records, Live'r's outer sleeve is plain white, with its name stamped on in ink.
"Little Queenie" is a song written and recorded by Chuck Berry. Released in March 1959 as a double A-side single with "Almost Grown", it was included on Chuck Berry Is on Top (1959), Berry's first compilation album. He performed the song in the movies Go, Johnny Go! (1959) and Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (1987). One year earlier, Berry had released "Run Rudolph Run", a Christmas song with the same melody.
Live from A&R Studios is an album by the Allman Brothers Band. It was recorded on August 26, 1971, at A&R Studios in New York City for a live radio broadcast. It was released on April 1, 2016.
Works cited