As the Stones tour again, the head of their longtime stage design firm Stufish describes his company’s creations, from 1989’s Steel Wheels gigs to the present day
Main image: The Rolling Stones’ 50 & Counting tour, in 2012. Photograph: Stufish
Mon 25 Apr 2022 09.49 BST
Steel Wheels tour, 1989
Ray Winkler, Stufish chief executive: ‘The tour was, at the time, the biggest in terms of sheer volume of different elements used to construct the stage. It took over 100 men to build it. The stage stretched over 300ft and was flanked by 80ft high towers on each side that Mick Jagger appeared on for Sympathy for the Devil. This is when the modern-day touring industry was born – when architecture and music came together to create these rock spectaculars’
‘In the 1990s, the spread of the internet caused a leap of accessibility, and we were influenced by this new era of technology. We gave the tour the working title of Gigabyte City, as the design presented the audience with an alternative future filled with computers. One of the most striking design elements was the giant cantilevering structure which arced over the band. We named it the “cobra” and it gave dramatic lighting positions for lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe’
‘I joined Stufish in 1996 and the Bridges to Babylon tour was my first time working with the Rolling Stones. I remember Mick Jagger being very involved in the design process, which he continues to do today. Our jobs as architects, is to take the artists’ vision and translate that into the design of the show. We designed this tour as a visualisation of the seven deadly sins with references to baroque architecture. The biggest design element was the 46-metre-long bridge that connected the main stage to the B stage – creating a literal bridge to Babylon’
‘For the band’s 40th anniversary tour, we created a skeletal stripped-down stage that transformed into a large billboard – Jeff Koons was commissioned to create the artwork for it, a very exciting moment. The show featured a custom-made collage by Jeff that measured over 200ft wide and 80ft high. It was printed on 13 roller blinds that concealed a large video screen’
‘We created three sets of the primary steelwork, which “leapfrogged” each other between different locations on the tour. This allowed the band to keep up with the many dates and before one concert ended the stage for the next date was already being constructed. It culminated in a massive open-air concert on the Copacabana beach in Rio’
‘Another landmark anniversary. By this time the giant lips had become an iconic Rolling Stones staple and we wanted to honour this by translating the Stones logo into the stage design. The lips were designed to inflate and deflate during different parts of the show’
‘Following an interview with Mick, we were given the job to do the 14 on Fire tour in 2014. It was the first tour we did with the band following the passing of Mark Fisher, the founder of Stufish. I remember being quite nervous as this was the first tour we did without Mark, who had a very strong relationship with the Stones. This tour was specifically designed for outdoor venues across Europe and Australia. We went through 50 design iterations in order to create a delicate balance between the abstract and the figurative’
‘The No Filter tour was an incredible success. We made a dramatic departure from any other previous Stones show, to create a more modern and clean design, stripped of any superfluous decor; it was our first time adapting a modernist design for the band and a show they had never done before. We were incredibly proud of this tour. Lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe has been instrumental in integrating set and lighting into a single entity’
