THE ROLLING STONES marked 50 years in music by playing 50 songs in five days in the run up to the opening today (13.07.12) of a new free exhibition at Somerset House which features pictures from all through the band’s career.
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‘We had a good play in New York five days ago,” said Ronnie Wood (pictured), a relative newcomer to the Stones, having joined 37 years ago in 1975.
“We did 50 songs in five days. It was brilliant.”
But that practice looks to have come too late to get the Stones a gig at the opening or closing ceremony of the London Olympics.
“We haven’t played in a long time and we weren’t really stage ready, and it’s a very big gig and it’s very risk-taking,” said Mick Jagger.
“I didn’t think the band themselves felt they were really ready to do it at this point.”
The group played their first ever gig at the Marquee Club exactly 50 years ago yesterday – on 12 July, 1962 – and are expected to celebrate the anniversary with a celebratory tour next year, but have not said so officially.
”We’ve not made any plans for playing live yet, just rehearsing,” said drummer Charlie Watts.
The photo exhibition has material from the Stones’ early 1960s gigs and covers the band’s rise to superstardom and their subsequent long reign as the best rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.
Of all the phases the Stones have been through, long-time publicist Bernard Doherty, who curated the exhibition, chooses a snap from 2006 as his favourite.
“I was at the Super Bowl when they did the half-time show and there’s a photograph which is absolutely dynamic. I think it conjures up exactly what the Stones were about in just the scale of what they can do,” he said.
Rolling Stones 50, A Photographic Exhibition is free and opens today, 13 July, at Somerset House, running until 27 August.
