Rolling Stones on life without Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger’s undercover beer, their bittersweet No Filter Tour and their next album
- The Stones are on the road for the first time without Charlie Watts, their founding drummer, on the No Filter tour
- They talk about the pandemic, their stripped down US tour, a new album in the works and going on without Charlie Watts
Tragically, the other Rolling Stones have not started referring to Mick Jagger as the Thirsty Beaver.
“At least not yet,” the 78-year-old frontman said the other day from Charlotte, North Carolina, where a couple of evenings before he’d enjoyed a beer at the historic dive bar of that name – then set the internet a flutter when he posted a photo of himself, baseball cap pulled low, surrounded by half a dozen North Carolinians evidently unaware they were drinking next to a rock ’n’ roll legend.
“It was a pretty quiet night,” Jagger said. “I don’t think a lot happens on Wednesday in that area. But, you know, when I go to these towns, I don’t want to just stay in. I like to see something.”
Indeed, not long before his moment at the Thirsty Beaver went viral, Jagger documented his visit to the Gateway Arch in St Louis with a delightful picture in which he looks like somebody’s grandpa on holiday.
These postcards from America are the latest demonstration of Jagger’s lifelong fascination with the country that created the blues.