Mick Jagger, Ronnie Woods and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones perform at the British Summer Time festival at Hyde Park
(Picture: REUTERS)The previews of the first Stones tour I ever bore witness to were not kind: the sneery consensus being that it was absurd for men of their age to still be playing rock‘n’roll music. That tour was 27 years ago. The album they were promoting – 1994’s Voodoo Lounge – is now as far in the rear view mirror as Jumpin’ Jack Flash was back then. Yet still they roll unstoppably on.
A lot has changed. The first time Mick and Keith played Hyde Park, in 1969, it was just two days after Brian Jones had become the first of the gang to die: his passing marked by Jagger’s reading of Shelley’s Adonais, followed by the release of several hundred white butterflies into the crowd. On Saturday night, it was the dearly departed Charlie Watts’ turn to be eulogised in more modern fashion. Prior to his bandmates’ arrival onstage, the giant screens displayed a montage of his smiling face through the ages.
