Speaking to The Washington Post recently, legendary musician and Rolling Stones frontman, Mick Jagger, discussed his recent foray into selfies, his new obsession with Instagram (he has about 2.5 million followers), and what it was like to be the famed musician in 2021 walking nonchalantly from pub to pub.
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The 78-year-old Jagger, who was one of our winners of 2021, told The Washington Post that his selfie habit began because he didn’t want to stay stuck in a hotel during his band’s most recent tour.
“I’m not just doing it to do Instagram pictures,” Jagger said. “I’m doing it to go out, because I don’t want to be stuck in a hotel room watching TV. But, I mean, it gives you a bit of a funny thing. Oh, that’ll make a good picture, that’s hilarious. I don’t publish them all. Some of them are just too weird. But you do see odd things and you meet people and you say hello.”
In a recent post made in Austin, Texas, Jagger wrote on Instagram, “Deep in the heart of Texas again…see y’all at the Circuit of the Americas Saturday night! #rollingstones #nofiltertour #austin #circuitoftheamericas #texas“
Jagger talked about what it’s like planning trips around a city during the day of a given tour date.
“If you’re only there for a couple of days, you do a bit of planning,” the singer said. “Is there a museum? Because each town has something of great interest, whether it’s a beautiful park, or a lovely picture, or a museum that’s interesting to you, or some odd thing that you never thought of.”
When asked if he is surrounded by bodyguards who may be just out of frame, Jagger explained, “I take one security guy or maybe two. And one of the guys—one of the musicians, maybe—and we go out and explore. We walked the strip in Nashville. I’m wearing a mask and a hat and so I [am not recognized]. It’s crazy. But most of the places I go aren’t super crowded.”
Jagger said that his goal is exploration. But it’s also fun for the Hall of Fame rocker to feel the feedback from fans and his social media followers.
“I did it in our previous tours,” Jagger said. “But now, social media has become more popular. People didn’t take quite as much notice as they do now. And when I stopped, when I did it from that bar, you know, the Beaver bar. Yeah. Some people took a lot of notice and I thought, well, actually, this is kind of fun.”
Speaking about his now-legendary photo in front of The Beaver Saloon in Charlotte, North Carolina, Jagger said the people didn’t notice him because there wasn’t a lot of pomp and circumstance at the moment.
“There’s hardly anyone there. It’s dark. It’s not like really grand,” he said. “I’m not in a big, huge limo. I just walk the block and then just go down there. And I can’t go inside the room because the covid rules of the tour don’t allow me to go in a saloon. And that’s a promise we made. But I could stand [on the patio] outside the saloon. And I’m far away from the people.”
He continued, “Local people tell me that that’s a popular dive bar when I get there. In normal times, I would go into the bar and spend time in there. But, you know, I didn’t want to do that because of Covid. So I just went outside. And at other times, you do the typical tourist thing like the St. Louis Arch. If you go there at certain times of the day, there’s not so many people. [Then you] take the mask off and do the picture.”
But, Jagger said, it’s not all about urban walking. He likes the outdoors and nature, too.
“Touring’s a pretty urban thing,” said the British-born artist. “So it’s nice to get out in nature and see a different perspective on things when you go to places like that. It’s wild. I went for some long hikes in some of these other places where I didn’t take any pictures. I think we went out in Missouri for quite a long hike to the forest. It wasn’t marked very well on the map, and the Google map wasn’t very helpful. And we made it. We walked to a place with virtually no one except for a guy in a canoe.”
Read the full interview here.
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