Lady Gaga performs with the Rolling Stones at the album launch party – Billboard

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Fifty-nine years after Decca Records announced that England’s newest hitmakers had arrived on American soil, the Rolling Stones returned stateside on Thursday (October 19) to release their new album, Hackney Diamond.

“We always seem to release our albums in New York,” Mick Jagger told attendees at Racket NYC, an intimate Manhattan venue that took over the Highline Ballroom space. “We did it in a blimp. We did it on a flatbed truck going down Fifth Avenue,” he said, reading from a teleprompter. “We missed the releases so much that we had to make another album and come back and re-release it.”

Hackney Diamondco-produced by Andrew Watt, has been a long time coming, with the rock ‘n’ roll legends having been making it since their 2016 album of blues covers, Lonely blue. It is their twenty-sixth album released in the United States, and their first since the death of drummer Charlie Watts. But the release party was full of the reckless energy and presence-in-the-moment that has defined classic LPs ever since From our heads until Sticky fingers.

During their seven-song set, which began with “Shattered,” it became abundantly clear that the Rolling Stones definitely needed to make another album, even if it was just to play it live. While it is unlikely to cut Diamond They became live staples like “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Tumbling Dice” (both performed on the show), and the treatment of new songs like “Angry” and “Bite My Head Off” gave Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood hopeful anticipation . It comes with performance materials that are not easy, “flash” style. As a result, they set out to sell new material, revisiting new songs with an urgency that would surely be lost when they performed them for the 500th time.

At a small Stones show at a New York venue in front of a few hundred people, the audience was naturally packed with celebrities: Jimmy Fallon, Mary-Kate Olsen, Chris Rock, Daniel Craig, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall and Questlove (he DJed before and after the show) were all in attendance. . Costello nodded wisely to the music and exchanged kind words with his wife, Krall. Fallon nodded and sang. Olsen took a smoke break.

For the first three songs of the night, Lady Gaga was on the sidelines, but when the Stones came out for their encore, she took the lead role, performing their new collaboration “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” in what was easily the highlight of the concert. a night . . Dressed in a red and black sequined outfit, Gaga belted out Jagger on the gospel-tinged song. You might not expect an 80-year-old man who underwent heart valve replacement surgery to square off with one of the most talented living artists of our time, but Jagger was clearly delighted by the crowd’s energy and Gaga’s enthusiasm and adrenaline for performing new material.

Who knows how much longer the Stones can keep going, but judging by their album release concert in New York, we’re lucky England’s veteran rockers aren’t finished yet.