The Rolling Stones announce stadium tour with stops in Bay Area and LA

As they enter their sixth decade together, the Rolling Stones are coming back to California. The Stones announced a North American stadium tour on Tuesday, with shows set for the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.

Despite being in their 70s and 80s, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood are still considered the quintessential rock stars, as famous for their raucous lifestyles as for their generation-defining music. On a mournful note, this will be the Rolling Stones’ first trip to California without drummer Charlie Watts, who passed away in 2021. Watts’ passing should serve as a reminder to Stones fans that they may not get many more opportunities to see the rock legends in concert again. 

The tour announcement comes on the heels of the debut of “Hackney Diamonds,” the band’s 26th American studio album but its first without Watts in decades. 

“Angry,” the new record’s first single has been lauded as a return to form for the Stones, with the Telegraph’s Neil McCormick calling it their best single in 40 years. The song’s music video, which stars “Euphoria” actor Sydney Sweeney (who’s young enough to be Mick Jagger’s great-granddaughter), has already amassed over 22 million views. 

The Stones have a long, if not always pretty, relationship to the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1969, the band headlined the infamous Altamont Free Concert, which ended in catastrophe and death, and is considered by some to have ushered in the end of the Bay Area’s 1960s counterculture movement.

More recent Bay Area trips have been more pleasant. During a Santa Clara performance in 2019, Mick Jagger gave a shout out to the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. But even that gig was not without controversy. Following the show, the band’s site promoter John Morrison sent a strongly worded letter to Levi’s Stadium in response to the arena’s oft-ridiculed restrictions. 

“Do you not want touring shows anymore?” wrote Morrison. “The impression I and many others in the industry have, is your facility is getting so restrictive and dysfunctional, it’s no longer worth the effort to play there due to the myriad and random rule changes.”

Apparently, the band has decided the venue is worth the hassle. The band is set to conclude its tour at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on July 17, 2024, following a show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on July 10, 2024. More information about tickets can be found via the Stones’ official website.