The Town Clerk of Ledyard, Rose Marie Belforti, made state and national headlines when she notified the city of Ledyard that she would not signal marriage licenses for similar-intercourse couples resulting from her religious beliefs. On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court dominated in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that denying marriage rights to same-sex couples violated the Massachusetts Constitution. On 9 November 2003, the band performed their first concert in Hong Kong as part of the Harbour Fest celebration, additionally in assist of the SARS-affected economic system. By the tip of 2005, the larger Bang tour set a file of $162 million in gross receipts, breaking the North American mark additionally set by the Stones in 1994. On 18 February 2006 the band performed a free live performance with a claimed 1.5 million attendance at the Copacabana seashore in Rio de Janeiro. The next Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tours, encompassing North America, Japan and Europe, saw the Rolling Stones touring for the primary time in seven years (since Europe 1982), and it was their largest stage production to this point. After the successes of the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle tours, the band took a break. Recordings from the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle tours produced the 1991 live performance album Flashpoint (UK 6; US 16), which also included two studio tracks recorded in 1991: the only “Highwire” and “Sex Drive”.
On 10 June 2007, the band carried out their first gig at a festival in 30 years, on the Isle of Wight Festival, to a crowd of 65,000. On 26 August 2007, they performed their final live performance of the A much bigger Bang Tour at the O2 Arena in London, England. Charlie Watts launched two jazz albums; Ronnie Wood made his fifth solo album, the first in eleven years, called Slide On This; Keith Richards launched his second solo album in late 1992, Main Offender (UK 45; US 99), and did a small tour together with big live shows in Spain and Argentina. After performances in Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand in March/April 2006, the Rolling Stones tour took a scheduled break earlier than proceeding to Europe; during this break Keith Richards was hospitalized in New Zealand for cranial surgery after a fall from a tree on Fiji, the place he had been on vacation.
The identical 12 months, Q journal named The Rolling Stones as one of the “50 Bands To See Before You Die”, and the 2002-2003 Licks Tour gave those that chance. Opening acts included Living Colour and Guns N’ Roses; the onstage personnel included a horn part and backup singers Lisa Fischer and Bernard Fowler, both of whom continue to tour commonly with the Rolling Stones. The Stones returned to North America for concerts in September 2006, and returned to Europe on 5 June 2007. By November 2006, the larger Bang tour had been declared the highest-grossing tour of all time, incomes $437 million. In November 2003, the band completely licensed the fitting to promote their new 4-DVD boxed set, Four Flicks, recorded on the band’s most current world tour, to the US Best Buy chain of stores. On 29 October and 1 November 2006, director Martin Scorsese filmed the Rolling Stones performing at New York City’s Beacon Theatre, in entrance of an viewers that included Bill and Hillary Clinton, released because the 2008 film Shine a Light; the film also options visitor appearances by Buddy Guy, Jack White and Christina Aguilera.
Wood and Jagger onstage with the Rolling Stones in Vienna, 2006On 26 July 2005, Jagger’s birthday, the band announced the title of their new album, An even bigger Bang (UK 2; US 3), their first album in almost eight years. These had been the last Rolling Stones tours for Bill Wyman, who left the band after years of deliberation, although his retirement was not made official till December 1992. He then revealed Stone Alone, an autobiography based mostly on scrapbooks and diaries he had been maintaining since the band’s early days. In 1999, the Stones staged the No Security Tour in the US and continued the Bridges to Babylon tour in Europe. The following An even bigger Bang Tour began in August 2005, and visited North America, South America and East Asia. The North American leg brought in the third-highest receipts ever ($138.5 million), trailing their very own 2005 tour ($162 million) and the U2 tour of that same year ($138.9 million). On 24 March 2007, the band introduced a tour of Europe known as the “Bigger Bang 2007” tour.