February

Copacabana Beach

On Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Stones played to their largest-ever audience, a free concert held on 18 February 2006. The crowd was estimated at 1,500,000, and was one of the largest free concerts in history to date.

April

First Chinese Concert

On 8 April, the Stones played in Shanghai, the first time they would ever perform in China, after shows planned for 2003 were cancelled due to the breakout of SARS. With concern over their suggestive lyrics, the authorities ordered them not to play ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Honky Tonk Women’, ‘Beast Of Burden’ and ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’.

May

Richards’ Accident

Forcing a postponement of the A Bigger Bang tour, Keith Richards underwent brain surgery in May after falling out of a tree in late April. While on holiday in Fiji during a month’s break from the tour, Keith was reportedly climbing the tree with Ronnie when he fell out. After initially seeming OK, the fall became more serious than he thought when, in early May, he had to undergo surgery in a New Zealand hospital, in order to treat a blood clot on the brain.

July

European Leg Of A Bigger Bang Tour

After completely recovering from his brain operation, Keith and the band were ready to continue their A Bigger Bang tour in Europe, launching it with a press conference in Milan, where Keith assured the journalists that he was back to strength, saying ‘I feel totally normal, whatever that means…. If you saw the tree, you’d realize the joke.’

The whole event was strangely reminiscent of a defensive quote he’d given for some of the Voodoo Lounge shows 11 years before: ‘We’re the only band to take it this far. And if you see us trip and fall, you’ll know that’s how far it can go.’

The postponed European shows were rescheduled for 2007.

Personalities | Introducing The Rolling Stones