The press conference for the very first Rolling Stones album, 49 years ago, as Mick Jagger recalls: “Keith and I were sitting in a pub on Denmark Street, there was a journalist from the ‘Melody Maker’ and one from the ‘ NME’ there. We said, ‘Here’s the album’ [macht eine Handbewegung, die die Übergabe einer Platte suggeriert, Anm. d. Red.] and then we had a beer together.” The reviews were mixed, he admits, “but it’s sold well.” Well, something has to change in half a century, so it’s perfectly legitimate that the video world premiere announcement of Hackney Diamonds, the first Stones album since blues-covers Blue & Lonesome (2016), their first full-length new song since A Bigger Bang (2005) or their first new release since the lockdown single “Living in a Ghost Town” (2020), in the form of a global webcast in front of the eyes, cameras and cell phones drawn by the world press, which was flown in especially for this half-hour media event.
Oh yeah, the announced release date is October 20th, by the way, in case there are any Stones fans out there who haven’t heard or read it anywhere else.
But back to London: Yesterday, before the big broadcast from the Hackney Empire, a typical Victorian brick-fronted theater in east London, the Stones’ social media channels posted a picture of Jimmy Fallon and Mick Jagger in a pub. Fallon half hidden behind the local newspaper Hackney Citizen, seated at the table behind him is unmistakably Mick Jagger, legs crossed, also reading the newspaper, one of the last of the first generation rock stars, apparently in the wild. It wasn’t even a few minutes before an acquaintance wrote on one of my timelines: “Mick Jagger at the Old Ship? Crazy.” So the location was easy to spot for those familiar with the area. And today at noon we journalists should pick up our passes for the event from the same place. No wonder, then, that the slightly panicked customer from the pick-up location, which had been changed for security reasons, got through in the morning. The Stones know how to lure and tease their mob, which is something they’ve been doing for six decades.
“We are a London band”
“We sat down, brainstormed a few ideas,” Keith Richards would later explain in an interview with Jimmy Fallon about the tribute to the neighborhood in the new album’s title, “and somewhere between ‘Hit and Run’ and ‘Smash and Grab’ we came up then ‘Hackney Diamonds’.” And really, the expression is Cockney slang for the shards of glass that glitter on a stolen cart in the parking lot as a souvenir after a car has been stolen. “And we,” as Keith noted with local patriotism to the audience’s applause, “are a London band too.” In fact, it means something when the Stones invite us here of all places. The band’s old London stomping grounds in the west of the city, Kensington & Chelsea, have long been a dead capital investment for the super-rich. Hackney, on the other hand, once the home of car thieves and the salt of the earth of London’s proletariat, is now a hipster hotspot, the epitome of a young, multi-ethnic definition of Britain, and Mick Jagger has always had a good nose for such details. As well as for the selection of his rope companions. “Fallon is a woke joke,” wrote a fight poster in the comment bar on the live feed on YouTube two hours before the start of the press conference. It’s 2023 and the culture wars are everywhere.
In any case, as planned, at 12:50 p.m. sharp, the cupcakes with the Stones logo that were served to the press in the Old Ship were eaten, photographed and distributed via social media (unfortunately no trace of Mick and Jimmy here), and the journals recorded there with their valuable bracelets are sent to the Guided Hackney Empire next door past the main entrance across the red carpet.
A bunch of a few hundred fans have already gathered behind the barrier in the plump late summer son. “You got the Diamonds” is written on one of their banners, “Happy 80th, Mick” on the other, and suddenly you’re struck by the thought that this event could be the last of its kind. Meanwhile, the Empire Hall, richly decorated in gold and velvet, fills up, the stage adorned with a glittering, splintered version of the Rolling Stones tongue (an update by graphic artist Paulina Almira). Two chandeliers between heavy curtains draped in a boudoir manner, a few stranded chandeliers on the stage floors as a slightly excessive touch. In the foreground of the stage are three red velvet chairs, each with a small table, a red lamp and a glass of water next to it, opposite them Fallon’s chair-table-lamp-glass combo. In a few minutes, this scenario will change from the backdrop of countless journalist selfies to the stage for the survivors of what was or still is the biggest rock band in this burning world, the “ultimate rock band”, beaming like a birthday boy bobbing onto the stage Jimmy Fallon calls them.
And then they come dancing in. Ronnie in suede Beatle Boots, tight black pants, black shirt and dark blue jacket, Keith in black jeans, a deep blue shimmering shirt, hat and dark sunglasses, Mick also in – what? – black: matt shiny trousers with sharp creases, shimmering shirt, crushed velvet jacket. These three men are probably the only people between the ages of 76 and 80 or outside of the pimping business who can credibly pull off this look.
“Maybe we were too lazy”
It’s “very early in Los Angeles,” says Jagger, the always-on-the-go man, jumping up like a pike when it comes to announcing the new album’s release date (it’s October 20!). As we learn how Hackney Diamonds was created in fast-forward fashion. Before Christmas, the band tweaked a few ideas, says Ronnie. Then, Mick continues, it came to the realization that a plan was needed: “Maybe we had been too lazy and we said, ‘Let’s set ourselves a deadline.'” It was supposed to be done by Valentine’s Day, and so it was then too.
23 tracks have been recorded (“actually two albums”, as Ronnie Wood throws in), a dozen of them will be released (one suspects there will be more to come). The work started with Keith in Jamaica with the first single “Angry” and other tracks, after that it went to New York. “We got a producer,” says Jagger, “Andy Watt. He kicked our ass.”
After a few more sessions in London, the Bahamas and New York, the album was released in LA. completed. However, two of the twelve songs (“Mess it Up” and “Live By The Sword”, if ROLLING STONE got that right) are from 2019 and were recorded with the actually irreplaceable Charlie Watts, who has since died, one of them even with Bill Wyman on bass (unfortunately not a word was said at the press conference about the much-rumored guest roles of Paul McCartney on bass and Elton John on keys).
“Everything is different without Charlie,” says Keith Richards, “The number four is missing, he’s up there,” he says, pointing skyward. But Watts instructed the rest of the band many years ago: “If anything happens to me, Steve Jordan is your man.”
“Keep everything moving!”
What else we learn: “If the singer wants to make a record, then you should record him immediately,” says Keith Richards, explaining the principles of the business. This is also new to Mick Jagger: “Oh, that’s how it works? Nobody told me that!” Also: Keith Richards doesn’t smoke anymore. Ronnie Wood plays with the likes of Van Morrison “because you have to keep your fingers moving. That’s important when you get to our age.” A meaningful twinkle in his eyes. “Keep everything moving!” And yes, when Rolling Stone said something like that, you can still hear women cheering in the hall today.
Other news: A number called “Sweet Sound Heaven,” says Mick Jagger, is a proper gospel song. “You’ve never been to church in your life,” Keith cuts him off. “That’s completely wrong!” Mick protests. And so it becomes very clear what he means when, in response to a question from the fan club, he says the secret to a long relationship (in this case between him and Keith) is: “Sometimes not talking that much.”
Appropriately, there’s a brief sense that Fallon is about to run out of material prepared on his conversation cards, and as he loses himself in his description of the band’s sheer amazingness, a quick-witted Jagger delivers the comedian’s punchline.
Fallon: Well, you guys did what nobody’s ever done before.
Jagger: What? Waiting 18 years to make a new album?”
And just like that, the Stones’ performance is over, they can go for a beer or probably something healthier, and it’s time for the promised video premiere. Jimmy Fallon explains that it’s an old Stones tradition to always have one of the “hottest actresses” of the era in their videos. He descends from the stage and points his mic at front row seated Sydney Sweeney (of The Handmaid’s Tale, Everything Sucks!, The White Lotus) who is featured in the new video for Angry traditional role fulfilled.
She finds the song very catchy, says Sydney, and introduces Fallon to her mother sitting in the row behind her. And already we see the clip on the screen: Sweeney in the open car driving through LA on the billboards playing the Stones in their various incarnations over the decades. Their message (“We’ll always be the same band”) is actually the same as it has always been, at least since the late 1960s.
ROLLING STONE sneaks a look at the actress’ mother. She shakes her head and smiles in embarrassment as her daughter shows lots of cleavage and bum on screen (she wears open-crotch pants made of leather stars loosely stitched together with plenty of space in between and doesn’t spend much time on the convertible’s seat). The seat neighbor congratulates the mother of the actress with a handshake. Well done!