But, after all these years, Richards reveals, "there's still always that element of uncertainty when you step onstage. It's like gambler's fever, you know? It's letting the tigers out of the cage. And then, after a show, you really feel like you've done something, even though sometimes you can hardly walk." More Q&A with Mick:

Which venue are you looking most forward to: the theaters, the arenas, or the stadiums?

Well, I think the whole idea is that you enjoy them all so that you don't get bored doing one thing. I mean, the problem I see is if you're doing six theaters in a row, you'd get really good at doing theaters, but if you're doing only one every week, you might never get good at them. That's the downside. The upside is that it's also enthusiastic. You never get bored, and say every night is wonderful.. On the other hand, if an audience is going to sleep, for whatever reason — especially in a very hot, outdoor show, the audience can be very tired — you have to sort of wake them up and work them. You can't ever tell an audience it's a terrible audience and it's got to wake up. We were talking about that at lunch, actually, because we were remembering when Oasis had a show and they came out and said, 'You're a lousy audience.' They may well have been a lousy audience, but the audience doesn't really appreciate you telling them.

No. Because they have paid their hard-earned money. Speaking of, do you know that a ticket broker is offering second row seats to the Madison Square Garden show for $5400 each.

I'd buy them. It's a bargain [laughs]. There's something wrong with selling it retail at $350, and someone else re-selling it for $5400.

Keith said to me that he knew when the 'No Security' tour ended that he probably had about18 months until his phone was going to ring and it was going to be you saying, 'You know, what do you think?' Is 18 months about enough time before you start thinking it's time for you and the boys to get back together?

That's probably about right, I suppose. I've never really timed it, to be perfectly honest. I don't really do it like that. There's a lot of things to go before because you want to see how the market is for instance, you know?

How is the market right now? The market for records is not good right now.

For records, yeah. Most of the time, we've been talking about shows. You can start off by saying, 'how's the market in general? And how's the market for a Rolling Stones show?' If we went to Argentina at the moment, we wouldn't get the offers.

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