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The
Stones, in their seventh decade as a rock 'n roll band, tore
through a half-dozen songs for a crowd of hundreds at the Racket
NYC club in support of the album "Hackney Diamonds," which has
garnered the band some of its best reviews in decades.
Lead singer Mick Jagger, 80, joked that doing another New York
launch was part of the motivation for getting back into the
studio for the record, whose title is a reference to British
slang for broken glass.
"We were missing the launches so much we had to go back and make
another album," he told the energized crowd in the middle of a
set that alternated new numbers and well-known tracks including
"Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Tumblin' Dice."
The band has kicked off previous albums in New York with great
fanfare, once rolling down Fifth Avenue on a flatbed truck and
on another occasion riding on a caboose into Grand Central
Terminal.
The Stones closed with an appearance by Lady Gaga for "Sweet
Sounds of Heaven," a slow, blues-infused number off the new
album that recalls the band's 70s classic "Moonlight Mile." Gaga
and Jagger mimicked each other's dance movies as they alternated
vocals, Gaga in a shimmering red-and-black one-sleeved jumpsuit,
Jagger wearing a customarily tight black shirt.
"Hackney Diamonds" is the band's first studio album of original
material since 2005's "A Bigger Bang" and first recording since
longtime drummer Charlie Watts died in 2021. The surviving core
consists of Jagger and guitarists Keith Richards, 79, and Ron
Wood, 76.
The latter has been a member of the band for nearly 50 years
despite joining in 1975, 13 years after the Stones were formed.
Besides Gaga, the new album features guests Stevie Wonder, Paul
McCartney and Elton John, and a return appearance by longtime
bassist Bill Wyman, who left the band in the 1990s, for the song
"Live by the Sword," which also features drumming by Watts
before he died.
The album closes with the song "Rolling Stone Blues," a Muddy
Waters song that was the origin of the band's name.
(Reporting by David Gaffen; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
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