Credit: Dave HoganIn late 2018, The Rolling Stones announced plans to mount their first North American tour since 2015 in April of this year, but the 17-date trek hit a major speed bump before it even got started. On March 30, the band revealed that the tour had to be postponed because frontman Mick Jagger needed medical treatment.
As it turned out, the 75-year-old Jagger had to undergo a heart-valve procedure. Thankfully, the operation was successful and Mick came through in excellent health. The trek, dubbed the No Filter Tour, got back on track on June 21 at Chicago’s Soldier Field, about two months after it originally was supposed to launch.
All of the postponed concerts were rescheduled, although the dates of two of the trek’s shows had to be changed again because of bad weather. Among them was the tour’s closer in Miami Gardens, Florida, which was moved from August 31 to August 30 as a safety measure as Hurricane Dorian approached the state.
The No Filter Tour obviously brought loads of satisfaction to Rolling Stones fans across the continent, but it also brought in big bucks for the band. The trek was ranked the top-grossing North American tour of 2019, raking in $177.8 million.
In other 2019 Rolling Stones news, Keith Richards revealed in a March interview with The Sun that the band had started working on a new album of original songs and had plans to continue the project after the tour ended. Two months earlier, Jagger had posted a video on his social media accounts showing him working on what appeared to be a new Stones song. Accompanying the video was a note that reads, “2019 – all about writing, recording….and a tour!” In December, guitarist Ronnie Wood told The Sun that the band was back at work on the album, which they are hoping to release in 2020.
In April, to coincide with the originally announced start date of the No Filter Tour, The Stones released a new best-of compilation called Honk. The retrospective boasts at least one song from every studio album that the band released from 1971 through 2016, while the deluxe version includes 10 bonus live performances recorded during the band’s recent stadium tours. Among the concert performances were collaborations with four music stars: “Beast of Burden” with pop singer Ed Sheeran, “Wild Horses” with Florence Welch of alt-rock act Florence + the Machine, “Dead Flowers” with country star Brad Paisley, and “Bitch” with Foo Fighters‘ Dave Grohl.
Meanwhile, Wood released a solo concert album in November called Mad Lad: A Live Tribute to Chuck Berry. The record features performances from a November 2018 U.K. show at which he played a variety of Chuck Berry covers. In addition, a new, star-studded documentary about Wood titled Somebody Up There Likes Me opened in U.K. theaters in late November after premiering at the London Film Festival in October.
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