Rolling Stones fans received pretty disappointing news earlier this week when word leaked out that tentative dates for a 2026 European tour had been scrapped. “It’s hard for their fans,” an unnamed spokesperson told The Sun, “but the Stones will get back onstage when they’re good and ready.”
No formal 2026 tour plans had been announced, but the trek had been in the works for quite some time. Stones fan site IORR reported that a May 25 show at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium had been penciled in along with stops in Lisbon, Rotterdam, and Munich. Excited fans were starting to contemplate travel arrangements when IORR founder Bjornulf Vik broke the bad news. “There is no drama, no serious matters reported,” he wrote, “it is just that they were not ready to commit to 3+ months of rehearsals and touring next summer in Europe.”
Multiple press outlets reported that Keith Richards ultimately made the decision to call off the tour. There’s no indication that he’s dealing with any sort of health matter, and he looked quite spry last month when he popped up at a Soho Sessions in New York to jam with Mavis Staples and Norah Jones, but he reportedly doesn’t feel like touring for reasons that he has yet to articulate publicly.
The news was especially devastating because a near-identical situation took place earlier this year when the Rolling Stones called off a 2025 European stadium tour just days before it was set to be announced. By that point, a detailed itinerary had already leaked.
This doesn’t mean the world’s greatest rock band has called it quits, however. It just means we’ve entered a new era where their future is murky. Here are some scenarios we can envision, but remember, “You can’t always get what you want.”
Scenario 1: The Stones shift entirely to new music.
It’s the worst-kept secret in rock that the Stones spent the year working with producer Andrew Watt on a follow-up to their 2023 LP Hackney Diamonds. Nothing has been announced, but it’s supposed to arrive sometime in 2026. Just a few years ago, even a single new Stones album was very difficult to imagine since their studio output turned to a trickle after 2005’s A Bigger Bang. Nobody guessed they’d spit out back-to-back albums at this point in their career. If their touring days are behind them, there’s no reason they can’t simply keep going in the studio. Hackney Diamonds was way better than anyone could have reasonably expected. Why not keep it up?
Upside: The completely unexpected treat of brand new songs from a band that formed prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis. And if they stick to the Hackney Diamonds formula, they’ll likely be excellent.
Downside: The Stones are arguably the greatest live band in rock history. An album will feel very incomplete if there’s no opportunity to hear the new songs live.
Scenario 2: They head to Sphere in Las Vegas.
We have no idea why Richards doesn’t feel like touring, but it’s possible he simply doesn’t want to schlep his body across Europe for months at a time. The Sphere in Las Vegas gives him the opportunity to stay in one place, relax between shows, and play at the most innovative concert venue on the planet.
Upside: A Rolling Stones Sphere residency would be a major cultural event that would attract fans from all over the world, no matter how much they charged for tickets. Many fans would take out a second mortgage on their homes just to see this show, especially if there were no others.
Downside: Let’s overlook the fact that Sphere is very tightly connected to Live Nation, and the Stones usually work with AEG. If both parties want this to work, it would happen. But the Stones have little reason to. Acts like U2, Dead and Co., Backstreet Boys, and the Eagles play back-to-back nights and agree to upwards of 40 shows each. That’s basically the only way the Sphere business model truly makes sense. But the Stones require about four days rest between shows, and recent tours have been just about 14 shows. They’re also not a band where the visuals are a big focus. Sphere is an amazing place, but it’s not meant for the Stones.
Scenario 3: The Stones take over for Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden.
Billy Joel walked away from his monthly MSG residency last year after a decade of sold-out shows. It was a stunning success that proved major residencies can work outside of Las Vegas. The Stones would be a perfect replacement on the MSG monthly calendar, and it wouldn’t require them to create all the visuals they’d need for Sphere.
Upside: Keith Richards spends much of his time in Connecticut, meaning his monthly commute to work would be pretty easy. He wouldn’t have to spend one minute in an airplane or even a hotel. He’d be in his own bed every night. In any give month, he’d have about 728 hours of leisure and two hours of work. And those two hours would be very, very lucrative.
Downside: A Billy Joel concert is very different from a Rolling Stones concert. He can take all sorts of time off, sit down at the piano, and effortlessly pound out those hits. He could do it in his sleep at this point. The Stones require weeks of intense rehearsal, and then it takes several shows before they fall into a tight groove. They can’t build that sort of momentum and muscle memory by playing just once a month. A MSG residency seems attractive, but it goes against their nature.
Scenario 4: Mick Jagger goes solo.
Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Stevie Nicks, and John Fogerty all do quite well on the road even though their iconic bands no longer exist. Mick Jagger is the voice of the Rolling Stones. He’s in remarkable shape for his age. He could easily tour simply as “Mick Jagger” and pack venues all across the planet. Yes, his attempt to do this in 1988 with Joe Satriani on guitar didn’t go over well with many fans. But that’s because the Stones were still viable at that point, and Keith Richards was openly dismissive of the entire effort. It would be very different if Richards has essentially retired, and it was this or nothing.
Upside: We still get to see Jagger sing “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Gimme Shelter,” and “Sympathy for the Devil” every night. Again, it wouldn’t be much different than McCartney playing “Helter Skelter” without the Beatles or Nicks trotting out “Rhiannon” on her own. If you have the singer of a famous band still playing the songs, fans happily show up. And this isn’t just any singer or any band. He’s the singer of the band.
Downside: It’s still not the Rolling Stones. It’s like eating real cheeseburgers for 63 years, and then moving over to Impossible beef. It just won’t go down the same.
Scenario 5: The Rolling Stones replace Keith Richards.
We know this sounds sacrilegious. But this isn’t exactly the original lineup of the Rolling Stones. Brian Jones was fired shortly before his death in 1969, Mick Taylor quit in 1974, Bill Wyman walked out in 1993, and Charlie Watts died in 2021. These were all pretty major losses, but the group carried on each time. If Richards no longer wants to tour and he approves a replacement member like Waddy Wachtel, the band could carry on playing stadiums. It wouldn’t be the same, and some fans might stay home in protest, but many would come.
Upside: The current lineup up of the band with a respectable ringer like Wachtel would put on a very powerful show. Steve Jordan is an incredible drummer, Ron Wood still has all his guitar chops, and Jagger is a force of nature who defies all medical science. The ideal version of the Rolling Stones hasn’t existed in a long, long time. We need to live in the world of the possible. And if this is the best Stones still possible, it’s better than having no Stones at all, right?
Downside: There has never been a Rolling Stones concert without Keith Richards. He’s the heart and soul of the entire operation. If reports are true that he’s the reason they called off this tour, they made the right decision. There’s no band without Richards. As a wise guitarist from another popular 1960s band once said, all things must pass. If Keith is done with the Stones, their era has passed.
[Editor’s note: To be clear, nobody knows what’s going to happen in the future. The Stones might release their new album next year, play some promo events, and wind up booking shows in the fall. They might stay dormant until 2027, and then tour the world. Nobody has ever made money betting against Keith Richards, and they shouldn’t start now.]
