The Rolling Stones 1969 US Tour is Subject of New Book, ‘Is Everybody Ready for the Next Band?’

Share This:

The Rolling Stones’ 1969 U.S. tour is the subject of a new book based on previously unpublished first-hand accounts of those who were there. Is Everybody Ready For The Next Band?, via Spenwood Books, and also featuring over 50 fan photos and images, arrives Dec. 12, 2025, in the U.K., available here. It’ll be published on Jan. 27, 2026, in the U.S. [order here] and Canada [order here].

From the publisher’s announcement: In November 1969 the Rolling Stones toured the United States for the first time in three years. Gone from the band was founder member Brian Jones, replaced by Mick Taylor from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Gone too were the top ten-laden 30-minute sets played over inadequate PA systems to crowds of screaming, gawping teenagers. In their place was a fully-fledged 75-minute rock show drawing heavily on the new Stones albums Beggar’s Banquet and Let It Bleed, utilizing innovative lighting and staging.

Led by the Glimmer Twins – Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – the Rolling Stones rocked across America on a 24-date tour whose essence is captured in the live album Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, heralded by many as the finest live rock album of all time.

From an unpublicized opening night in Fort Collins, Colorado through to the tragic events at Altamont, California a month later, Is Everybody Ready For The Next Band? (taking its title from Chip Monck’s nightly stage introduction for the band) mixes contemporaneous press reports with over 100 previously unpublished first-hand accounts to present the story of a tour that has gone down in history as the first rock tour of the modern era in the words of the people who were there.

In one of the entries, radio DJ, author and music historian James Pagliasotti writes, “If you look at any of the photographs from that tour, the thing that strikes me always is there was a change that took place between the ’69 and ’72 tours that the Stones exemplified. There were people with their elbows on the stage while the Stones were performing. Even though they were starting to play to much larger crowds, there was still that intimacy. That really changed in ’72.

“I went on five shows on the ’69 tour. Backstage was like a case of beer and some potato chips or something. In 1972, backstage was catered meals and premium brand of liquor and French champagne. It was quite a difference. And I think we saw that in the music too.”

Pulling it all together is Manchester, U.K.-based Richard Houghton, author and compiler of over 20 books on music.