Yesterday’s news dug up speculation that The Rolling Stones may be drawing their historic era to a close, using a supposed headline slot at next year’s Glastonbury Festival as the band’s final farewell gig following a short Europe and America based tour.
Turns out those rumours were just that: unfounded.
The ‘tip-off’ began with UK Tabloid, The Sunday Mirror who quoted a “source close to the band” who indicated the Stones were planning a “handful of shows of shows in Britain and America in 2013” for a tour marking the group’s 50th anniversary, with their last ever show to be a headline slot at Glastonbury Festival
The band insider reportedly disclosed that, “all four members have agreed that next year is the right time to have one final hurrah and put on the gig of their lives. It’s a case of now or never, and obviously Glastonbury is the most important festival on the circuit. Everybody’s incredibly excited… it’s a final bow.”
Today however, representatives of the British rock institution have shot down the rumours beginning with a statement on the band’s twitter that reads: “Every year the Rolling Stones are asked to play this UK festival..but playing Glastonbury is not in our plans.”
Meanwhile UK’s The Guardian contacted Glastonbury’s press office, who this morning confirmed that rumours of the Stones playing the Worthy Farm music festival always crop up, “everybody in the year off thinks they’ve come up with the perfect Glastonbury lineup. But at the moment there isn’t anything to confirm or deny,” said a Glastonbury spokesperson.
In related news, London’s Somerset House are commemorating the band’s half-century with a free photo exhibition showcasing rare and previously unseen images across a display of live photography and studio documentation. A book collecting the images, simply entitled The Rolling Stones: 50 will be released to coincide with the exhibition.
While it’s unlikely that the Stones will let their 50th anniversary go by without cashing in on its touring potential, rumours of their retirement from the live scene or otherwise are at this stage, wholly untrue.
Besides, would the Rolling Stones really use a festival they’ve never played before as their first and last opportunity to wave goodbye to the live setting? Particularly when they can traipse the globe and earn a killing in the process.
The Stones last first extended trip, the massive “A Bigger Bang” tour, stretched for two years between August 2005 – August 2007 across 30 countries. Eventually becoming the second highest grossing tour of all-time, earning over $US 550 million, second only to U2′s “360″ tour. An official farewell tour of a similar scale would certainly generate a healthy retirement fund for messrs Jagger, Richards, Watss, Wood et al. No?
