The Rolling Stones honoured with new collection of Royal Mail stamps
The set of 12 stamps arrive to celebrate the band's 60th anniversary
The Rolling Stones are set to be honoured with a special edition series of 12 stamps from the Royal Mail to celebrate their 60th anniversary.
The stamps feature photos of the legendary rock band performing at a handful of gigs from across their career.
The shows include the band’s huge Hyde Park gig in London in the summer of 1969, a show in Tokyo in 1995 and a recent gig in Düsseldorf, Germany from 2017.
Speaking of the new collection, Royal Mail Director of Public Affairs & Policy David Gold said: “Few bands in the history of rock have managed to carve out a career as rich and expansive as that of The Rolling Stones.
“They have created some of modern music’s most iconic and inspirational albums, with ground-breaking live performances to match.”
See the set of stamps below, which make The Rolling Stones only the fourth band to receive the honour, following The Beatles (2007), Pink Floyd (2016) and Queen (2020).
Elsewhere, The Rolling Stones were recently named as the highest-earning touring act of 2021.
The legendary band performed 14 stadium shows as part of their ‘No Filter’ US tour, which spanned a two-month period between September 26 and November 23, 2021.
According to figures from Pollstar, the Stones brought in $115.5million (£87.3m) from selling 516,000 tickets to the concerts. (Two of the 14 gigs fell outside of Pollstar’s chart year, its official website states.)
“It’s a testament to all of the people who were out on the road and on our team,” explained John Meglen, president and co-CEO of Concerts West, The Rolling Stones’ promoter.
The US Library of Congress has also released previously unseen footage of the notorious Altamont Speedway Free Festival in 1969.
The free concert, held at Altamont Raceway Park in northern California on December 6, 1969, was headlined by The Rolling Stones, with Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Tina Turner also on the bill.
Attended by over 300,000 people, the festival went down in rock infamy, marred by drug-fuelled violence that included the killing of Meredith Hunter, who was stabbed to death by a Hells Angel as he apparently headed for the stage with a gun in hand during the Stones’ set. The incident was captured on camera and extensively analysed in Albert and David Maysles’ seminal 1970 documentary, ‘Gimme Shelter’.