Rolling Stones set to make history at 2024 Jazz Fest in Louisiana – Don’t Miss Out!

Rolling Stone magazine’s July 6, 1972 cover story chronicled “The Heaviest Rock and Roll Tour Ever.” The instigators of that “heavy” tour? The Rolling Stones, at the height of their notoriety. The article’s lead photo depicted stone-faced guitarist Keith Richards, the poster boy for rock ‘n’ roll debauchery, slouched nonchalantly next to an airport customs sign requesting, “Patience Please….A Drug Free America Comes First!” Such was the band’s reputation during that ‘72 tour that Canadian authorities prohibited the Stones’ chartered plane from landing in Vancouver. The entourage rented limos and drove to Canada instead.

Richards and Mick Jagger will have a much easier time getting to the 2024 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Thursday, exactly five years to the day after they were initially scheduled to play the Fair Grounds.

The biggest controversy Thursday will likely involve blankets and chairs. The festival’s producers, AEG Presents and Quint Davis’s Festival Productions Inc.-New Orleans, are aiming for a very specific sweet spot: Sell enough tickets to make the unprecedented “Rolling Stones Thursday” financially viable while also not overcrowding it to the point where ticket-buyers are miserable. To maximize space and mobility at the main Festival Stage, Jazz Fest has prohibited blankets and tarps at the Fair Grounds on Thursday. The only chairs allowed are telescoping stools, Cliq chairs, and collapsible chairs with a footprint less than 19 inches. Additionally, the “no-chair zone” at the Festival Stage, as first-weekend attendees discovered, extends deeper into the field than usual.

And the festival management has asked volunteers, vendors, and staffers to avoid the Festival Stage and instead watch a simulcast of the Stones on screens at the Congo Square and Gentilly stages. If you’ve witnessed other British rock legends at Jazz Fest – Eric Clapton in 2014 or, especially, Elton John in 2015 – you know just how densely packed that field can get. Anyone who felt too pressed at Elton could always escape to one of the other dozen stages. But those other stages will all shut down by 3:45 p.m. Thursday. Everyone on the grounds Thursday at 5 p.m. will be trying to see Jagger, Richards, guitarist Ronnie Wood, and their ace backing band.

Thursday is the first time the festival has ever capped daily ticket sales. Those tickets sold out weeks ago (but can still be purchased on the secondary market, where prices fluctuate with demand). The festival has not disclosed the number of tickets sold. Two knowledgeable sources put the number in the 40,000 range. With an average ticket price of $200, that would add up to a gross of approximately $8 million, not counting additional revenue from VIP ticket packages. The Stones are likely being paid more than half of those millions. Being a surviving member of the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band is nice work if you can get it. Getting them to Jazz Fest was not a quick process. The courtship commenced more than six years ago, with Quint Davis flying off to Stones concerts around the world and meeting key members of the organization. It also helped that AEG, Jazz Fest’s powerful and deep-pocketed co-producer, has a history of promoting Stones tours.

Davis wanted the Stones to be the marquee act for Jazz Fest’s 50th anniversary in 2019. But the band canceled so Jagger could undergo heart surgery. He recovered in time for the Stones to play their first New Orleans concert in 25 years that July at the Caesars Superdome – a show that was delayed a day because of Hurricane Barry. But Davis still wanted to present the band at Jazz Fest. The Stones were rebooked in both 2020 and 2021, only for those Jazz Fests to be canceled because of the pandemic.

Since then, Rolling Stones co-founding drummer Charlie Watts, the jazz fan in the band, died. The drum chair is now occupied by Steve Jordan, who was a member of Keith Richards’ solo band, the X-Pensive Winos, alongside New Orleans keyboardist Ivan Neville. Neville’s current band, Dumpstaphunk, will precede the Stones on the Festival Stage on Thursday. It will be bittersweet: Nick Daniels III, one of Dumpstaphunk’s two bassists, died last week of complications from blood cancer. If the Rolling Stones were ever to play at Jazz Fest, now is the time. They’ve defied aging and the odds despite decades of living the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. But eventually, time won’t be on their side. Jagger and Richards are 80. Wood is 76.

Like so many young British musicians in the early 1960s, they were fans of New Orleans rhythm & blues. The Stones’ first Top 10 hit in America was their faithful copy of the Irma Thomas single “Time Is On My Side.” And now, barring any last-minute surprises, they will finally play New Orleans’ signature music festival.

To accommodate the Stones, the backstage area at the Festival Stage has been transformed into a heavily secured compound with a level of creature comfort not previously seen at Jazz Fest. Typically, even the biggest stars must make do with bare-bones trailers. To give the Stones more protection and privacy, those backstage trailers are covered now by huge tents, with air-conditioning pumped in. Jazz Fest is the only festival, and only daytime show, on the Rolling Stones’ 19-date Hackney Diamonds Tour, which is named for the band’s acclaimed 2023 album. The tour kicked off at Houston’s NRG Stadium on Sunday.

The musicians then reportedly traveled to New Orleans. They were slated to rehearse at the Fair Grounds on Wednesday. And then make Jazz Fest history on Thursday. If you have a ticket, prepare to be hot, cramped, patient and, hopefully, entertained. Try to keep your cool. Because in the end, it’s only rock ‘n’ roll. But we like it.