The Rolling Stones have been changing up the sets on their ’24 Hackney Diamonds tour, substituting a few songs here and there, but it sounds like there’s potential to shake things up even more.
Rolling Stone magazine interviewed the creative team behind the tour, revealing the band rehearsed between 60 and 70 songs for the trek.
“The real privilege is to see them in rehearsal,” lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe, who’s worked with The Stones since 1982, tells the mag. “It’s thrilling still, even after all this time.” He notes, “They’ve always had really high standards, particularly about rehearsing, even during some of the more chaotic periods of their career. I see them in rehearsal as a small group of players just wanting to make their music.”
The tour has the band performing on a massive stage featuring 2,300 square feet of high-resolution LED screens. The idea is to create what is described as a “virtual stage” for The Stones, changing up the look throughout the show.
“The stage is embellished by all of the digital media around them, and that, by default, makes it very contemporary,” shares Ray Winkler, CEO and design director at Stufish Entertainment Architects, the company that created the stage. “It’s not about the physical presence of a stage set but the continuing, evolving, and developing imagery that you see on the screens.”
“It’s a team effort,” he says of the production. “It’s a massive endeavor to get a project like this from an idea on paper into reality. There’s a lot of unsung heroes that contribute toward the success of it.”
The ’24 Hackney Diamonds tour hits Seattle, Washington, on May 15. A complete list of dates can be found at rollingstones.com.
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