It was a gas, gas, gas in a club on Manhattan’s West Side late on Thursday, where the Rolling Stones held a private launch party for their first new album in 18 years.
The Stones, in their seventh decade as a rock ‘n’ roll band, tore through a half-dozen songs for a crowd of hundreds at the Racket NYC club in support of the album Hackney Diamonds, which has garnered the band some of its best reviews in decades.
Lead singer Mick Jagger, 80, joked that doing another New York launch was part of the motivation for getting back into the studio for the record, whose title is a reference to British slang for broken glass.
“We were missing the launches so much we had to go back and make another album,” he told the energised crowd in the middle of a set that alternated new numbers and well-known tracks including Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Tumblin’ Dice.