The Rolling Stones recently announced that their summer tour dates would be postponed so Mick Jagger could undergo surgery on his heart. “I’m devastated for having to postpone the tour,” Jagger said in a statement, “but I will be working very hard to be back on stage as soon as I can.”
They were supposed to kick off the tour April 20th at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida and wrap to up June 29th at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro Medonte, Ontario. Fans are being urged to hold on to their tickets so they can use them at makeup dates, but its unclear when those makeup dates will occur. By mid- to late-summer, Jagger should theoretically be ready to return to the road as long as his surgery is a success. But football stadiums begin hosting exhibition games in early August and scheduling gets even tougher once the regular season begins in September. It’s still quite doable — and Taylor Swift played football stadiums through early October last year — but it’s also possible they may just decide to postpone the tour until next summer.
To take our minds off that news, here’s a look back to the fall of 1965 when the Stones weren’t looking to play anywhere bigger than theaters. They’d been gigging for three years at this point, but earlier in the year they released “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and suddenly their fame had grown exponentially. A professional camera crew trailed them on their tour of Ireland for the documentary Charlie Is My Darling, which didn’t actually get a legit release until 2012. As you can see from this frenetic rendition of “The Last Time,” what they captured was absolutely incredible.
Back then, few in the audience at those Irish shows could have imagined a band continuing once the members turned 30. The idea that the Rolling Stones would still be at it 54 years later when their darling Charlie was on the verge of turning 78 would have seemed like science fiction. But if the Rolling Stones have proved anything over the years, it’s that nothing can stop them from carrying forward. A little heart surgery for Mick is just a tiny setback and, within a few months, he’ll probably be back on stage belting out “The Last Time” once again.
