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Charlie Watts Drops Out of U.S. Rolling Stones Tour to Rest Up After Medical Procedure

It’ll be the first time the drummer has missed a Stones gig since he joined in 1963.

Charlie Watts has played at every single gig for The Rolling Stones since he joined January 1963, so fans shouldn’t begrudge him a little bit of time off. The drummer of the biggest rock band on the planet has announced that he isn’t going to make it to this year’s U.S. tour. In a statement, Watts, now 80 years old, said he needs time to recover from an unspecified medical procedure, joking: “For once, my timing has been a little off.” He went on: “I am working hard to get fully fit but I have today accepted on the advice of the experts that this will take a while.” Watts added that he’s asked his friend, the Grammy-winning Steve Jordan, to take his place for the No Filter tour, which is set to resume in St. Louis in September after a pandemic hiatus. Watts underwent treatment for throat cancer in the mid-2000s, but no details were released about what kind of operation he had this year.