Keith Richards Says He'll Probably Keep Touring After He’s Dead

"It won’t be up to me, will it?"

Rock On

Having cheated death so many times already, the legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards says that there's a good chance he'll keep touring as a hologram after he does finally pass away.

In an interview with Matt Wilkinson, the host of a self-titled Apple Music 1 show, the hardest-partying of the Stones said that he "certainly wouldn’t" rule out a posthumous hologram tour after the aged rockers die.

"I’m pretty sure that is bound to happen," Richards told Wilkinson. "Do I want it? Now, that’s another thing. I don’t know if I want to hang around that long, man. But at the same time, it won’t be up to me, will it?"

That other Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger, suggested in a Wall Street Journal interview in September that he's not altogether opposed to the iconic group touring as holograms after they shimmy off this mortal coil.

"You can have a posthumous business now, can’t you?" Jagger told the WSJ. "You can have a posthumous tour."

The famous frontman went on to point out that "the technology has really moved on since the ABBA thing," referencing the late Swedish pop group's 2022 hologram tour, titled Voyage, that took place last summer.

 

Digital Getdown

Earlier this year, digital media researchers in New Zealand did a survey of fan reactions to the Voyage tour and its "ABBAtars," as they were called in press materials. The Kiwis discovered that although there naturally were mixed reviews of the unprecedented experience, fans ultimately felt glad to be able to "see" the band that had last played a show together in 1979 and split up a few years later.

It's unclear what aspects of the tech Jagger expects to be better than the ABBA Voyage tour, which by most accounts was absolutely stunning, but hologram and virtual concerts have indeed gotten significantly better since that much-memed Tupac hologram that "performed" alongside Snoop Dogg at Coachella in 2012.

And given that the Stones just last week performed a secret show in New York City alongside Lady Gaga and Questlove, there's no telling how advanced hologram tours will be by the time those old bastards are finally gone.

More on virtual resurrection: Robin Williams' Daughter Disgusted by Efforts to Bring Her Dad Back With AI