TLDR
Keith Richards is questioning whether he can handle Rolling Stones tours anymore, suggesting city residencies instead, while Mick Jagger still talks about another run on the road.
For a generation that measured time in stadium tickets and parking-lot tailgates, Keith Richards just cracked open a very different future for the Rolling Stones.
With the band gearing up to release “Foreign Tongues” in July, the 82-year-old guitarist told Uncut that he is no longer certain traditional tours are realistic for him. The problem is not the playing. It is everything around it.
“I don’t know if tours are possible,” Richards said. “It’s the travelling that takes it out of you. But I do see the possibility of us doing residency somewhere. Wherever it is, London, New York, Paris, anywhere. I’ll play Rome! But I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to throw some shows together in a new format.”
The word “residency” lands differently for a band whose legend was built on crisscrossing continents. Vegas, London, New York, Paris, Rome. The idea sounds less like a farewell and more like a controlled burn, a way to keep the music loud without the 3 a.m. airport calls.
Richards insists the spark is still there. Asked if he is still excited about the Stones, he answered, “Yeah, it’ll be exciting until something inside me says, ‘That’s that,'” adding, “I love working with the guys. I mean, what am I gonna do?”
The band last toured in 2024, playing North American dates behind “Hackney Diamonds.” At the time, Richards told the Associated Press they could “talk next year” about more shows. By late 2025, after British tabloid reports that he was unwilling to commit to a UK and European stadium run, a spokesperson confirmed those plans were shelved.
Mick Jagger, meanwhile, sounds eager to feel the roar again. “I absolutely would love to,” he told “Sunday Today” when asked about more touring, “so I hope to do it as soon as that’s possible.” It sets up a familiar dynamic. Jagger, the kinetic frontman still chasing the next crowd. Richards, the soul of the band, now weighing the physical cost of getting there.
Their compromise, at least for now, is work. “Foreign Tongues” runs 14 tracks, with guests including Paul McCartney, Winwood, Robert Smith, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The album features regular Stones collaborators Darryl Jones, Matt Clifford, and Steve Jordan, and folds in a cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good.”
The rollout has been quietly playful. The band slipped out “Rough and Twisted” as a limited vinyl single under the alias the Cockroaches. “In the Stars” followed with a video that pairs actress Odessa A’zion with digitally de-aged footage of the group, a literal split screen of youth and legacy. A third single, “Jealous Lover,” is set to arrive in late June.
They are also stepping into podcasting, in a way. A six-part series, “Speaking in Tongues,” chronicles the making of the new record, narrated by Norah Jones and built around fresh interviews with Jagger, Richards, and Ronnie Wood, plus studio outtakes and unreleased songs.
“Foreign Tongues” itself came together fast at Metropolis Studios in West London, a former power station. “It was a very intense few weeks,” Jagger said when the album was announced, crediting the small live room for helping the players feed off one another. Wood has said they often landed songs on the first take. The record also carries one more piece of the band’s past. There is a performance by the late Charlie Watts, drawn from one of his final studio sessions.
For fans who watched the Stones grow from radio static to stadium ritual, residencies would mark a different chapter. Not an ending, at least not yet. More of a decision to let the world come to them.
If the Stones trade stadium treks for long stays in a few cities, does that feel like a loss, an evolution, or the only way this story could keep going?
