Mick Jagger Says He 'Can't Wait' to Tour Again With the Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger wants to get back on the road, and he is not being subtle about it. In a recent appearance on BBC Radio 2 alongside guitarist Ronnie Wood, the Rolling Stones frontman confirmed that the band fully intends to tour again, and that his own enthusiasm for it is running well ahead of the logistics. "I'd love to go on tour," Jagger said simply. "I can't wait." He was careful to add, in the same breath, that fans should not expect anything imminent: "I don't think it's going to be this year. But hopefully it's going to be as soon as possible." It was the kind of statement that is simultaneously a confirmation and a hedge, the sort of answer a man gives when the desire is real but the calendar is still being worked out.
The comments land against a backdrop of a touring timeline that has already seen one significant delay. Last year, reports surfaced that the band had quietly shelved plans for a U.K. and European stadium tour that had been targeted for 2026. According to reporting at the time, the Stones were presented with a range of offers for summer shows but ultimately passed on them, citing logistical complications around venues and travel, as well as prior commitments.
Their most recent run of dates came in 2024, when the Stones toured North America in support of Hackney Diamonds, their first album of original material in eighteen years. That tour encompassed twenty concerts and was, by any measure, a serious undertaking. The band reportedly rehearsed more than sixty songs from across their catalog in preparation, a number that speaks both to the ambition of the production and to the sheer depth of a songbook that stretches back to 1963. The campaign had launched with considerable fanfare, including an album announcement event in London and a surprise pop-up concert in New York City that underscored just how much cultural weight the Stones still carry when they choose to move.
On July 10, the Rolling Stones will release Foreign Tongues, their follow-up to Hackney Diamonds, recorded at Metropolis Studios in West London with producer Andrew Watt, who also helmed the previous record. The core lineup of Jagger, Keith Richards, and Wood is joined on the album by a familiar supporting cast: bassist Darryl Jones, keyboardist Matt Clifford, and drummer Steve Jordan, all of whom have been part of the band's extended family for years. Among the album's most emotionally resonant details is the inclusion of material featuring Charlie Watts, the Stones' beloved drummer who died in August 2021. The recording was captured during one of his final sessions before his death, and his presence on the record gives a particular weight that no press release could fully articulate.
The guest roster on the album is, by any standard, remarkable. Paul McCartney appears on the record, as does Steve Winwood, Robert Smith of the Cure, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. During the BBC Radio 2 interview, Jagger offered some candid and characteristically entertaining backstory on how at least two of those collaborations came together. The Smith encounter, he explained, was entirely unplanned. "He was standing there with his back to me and this long gown on and when he turned around, he was covered in lipstick," Jagger recalled. "And I said, 'You're Robert Smith of The Cure.' He said, 'Yeah, we've never met.' And I said, 'While you're here, you better go and do something.'" He paused, then added with the timing of someone who has been telling stories in front of audiences for fifty years: "That's how collaborations work sometimes."
The McCartney collaboration, Jagger said, carried its own particular charge, largely because, despite the two men's long and intertwined history in rock and roll, a proper musical session had never actually happened before. "We'd never played with him before," Jagger said. "I'd sung with him before, but we'd never actually played a musical instrument."
Together, the album announcement and Jagger's touring comments sketch the outline of what the next chapter for the Rolling Stones looks like: a new record arriving this summer, a fresh wave of press and promotion, and, somewhere beyond the horizon of 2026, whenever the calendar cooperates, another run of shows for the band.
