It is hard to talk about making a ‘hall of fame’ in relation to rock ‘n’ roll without getting into clichés. It is far more interesting to consider a hall of rock ‘n’ roll survivors. Those legends who lived, toured and recorded through the wildest of decades and are still doing it. At the very centre of any such discussion has to be The Rolling Stones and Ronnie Wood.
Ronnie Wood
O2 Forum Kentish Town – 21 August 2026
Words: Kahmel Farahani
Tonight, The Rolling Stones’ new kid Ronnie Wood is taking to the stage at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town for his first full solo tour in 16 years.
At age 79, he still looks and sounds every inch the part, strutting on stage with a massive grin. Opening with It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It) is about as Ronnie Wood as it gets, and it is a great way to get every fan in the room singing along.
Wood himself was never a virtuoso, riff master or even fiery lead player. If anything, his skill has always been weaving with whatever band and guitarists he happens to be playing with, looking effortlessly cool all the while.
Songs like The Faces Flying and his own Mystifies Me fit that bill perfectly. Wood is still groovy, loose and very charming. He has also got two truly awesome singers on stage with him to help with some of the heavy lifting.
Frequent collaborator Imelda May brings the jazzy, moody charm while Chanel Haynes has the lungs to pull off Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High without even breaking a sweat.
Digging deeper into the Stones back catalogue with the funky, reggae flavoured Hey Negrita is an inspired move. It is hardly The Rolling Stone’s peak, but it is refreshing and fun to hear it live again after so long.
One wishes he kept digging, but instead Wood shuffles through blues and soul standards like Willie Dixon’s Spoonful and Chuck Berry’s Wee Wee Hours to Aretha Franklin’s Chain Of Fools.
Ronnie’s solo catalogue still holds some gems, though. One prime example is the Bob Dylan-penned Seven Days. The stormy, foreboding love song is probably Wood’s finest straight-ahead rocker.
Hearing The Faces Ooh La La followed by arguably the greatest The Rolling Stones song, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking, is a joy.
The band then swerves into a rather excellent version of the Jeff Beck Group’s chugging, stuttering blues rocker Plynth (Water Down The Drain). At this point, Wood and his band are fighting the venue’s 11.00 pm curfew.
The band teases Rod Stewart’s Gasoline Alley before the final big payoff hit, The Faces Stay With Me. It is a brilliant way to end. Ronnie and his band dash off the stage, have what looks to be a quick huddle with the venue staff, before running back on, saying they have sorted the curfew.
Oddly, Wood chooses a pair of lesser-known solo songs, Breathe On Me and Outlaws, to complete the evening’s encore. It feels rather anticlimactic after The Faces and The Stones, but it hardly matters.
In the end, Ronnie Wood is really one of the last of his kind, never to be reproduced. A Rockstar with a capital R, from when the term still had a meaning.
Even pushing 80, Wood has aged like a fine wine or, maybe better, a solid guitar. We should all be grateful he is still sharing his music with the world and that we are lucky enough to witness it.
