The Rolling Stones Planning Intimate Warm-up Gigs Under The Name ‘Cockroaches’

The Rolling Stones have made public plans to play a handful of intimate gigs in venues that only hold a few hundred people. The news comes from The Stones’ Ronnie Wood, who recently explained to NME that the revered band will perform under the pseudonym The Cockroaches, a guise The Stones have used in the past, as part of the preparations for returning to stadiums later this year.

Currently in Paris for rehearsals, Wood says the band is committed to giving it their all for their upcoming shows at London’s O2 Arena on Sunday, November 25 and Thursday, November 29 before heading to the US for two performances at the Prudential Center in New Jersey on Thursday, December 13 and Saturday, December 15.

“We’re all making a concentrated effort of being there on time every day, we start at three o’clock in the afternoon, we go through to dinner time, we have one break and so far everything has been [like] an operation, nose to the grindstone. We wanna give 200 percent,” Wood told NME.

“There’s going to be little club gigs that we’re gonna surprise ourselves to do as well, we’ll bung a few in next week or the week after, so look out for any Cockroaches gigs or whatever! I don’t know who we’ll be billed as but we’ll turn up somewhere and put a few to the test. Tiny, 200, 300 people kind of places,” Wood revealed.

The chance to see one of the biggest bands in history play in such a confined space is indeed a rare opportunity. No doubt tickets will be hard to come by and inflated ever so slightly from usual small venue prices. The cost of tickets to the Stones’ London and New Jersey shows have ruffled a few feathers of late. Muse bassist Chris Wolstenholme recently accused The Stones’ of being greedy, claiming the band does not consider what the average fan can afford.

In any regards, whether you missed out on tickets because of price, quantity, or you live halfway around the world, Keith Richards has gone on record as saying next year will most likely yield a more extensive world tour as The Rolling Stones consider 2013 to be their real 50th Anniversary.

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