The Rolling Stones Unveil a New Album, ‘Hackney Diamonds’

Last month, the Stones teased the album via an advertisement for a fake glass repair company, called Hackney Diamonds, that appeared in a London newspaper. The ad’s text referred to several of the band’s well-known songs: “Our friendly team promises you satisfaction. When you say gimme shelter we’ll fix your shattered windows.”

In the interview with Fallon, the band said other album titles it considered were “Hit and Run” and “Smash and Grab.”

Philip Norman, who wrote “The Stones,” a major biography of the group, said in an interview that the release event was far from the band’s raucous 1960s and ’70s image but still managed to give its members an air of being “tearaways” by being held in London’s trendiest district. That was “typical Stones’s fakery,” Norman said, because the band had no previous association with Hackney.

Although the Stones have said “Hackney Diamonds” marks a “new era,” Norman said he was anticipating a classic Stones sound. “This is the Stones we know and some of us have loved for the past six decades,” he said.

The livestream generated interest online (at points 53,000 people watched live), but there was less hype on Hackney’s streets on Wednesday. Before the unannounced event, a few dozen fans waited outside the theater to catch a glimpse of the band walking the red carpet.

Sam Poullan, 42, a marketing director, said that two months after he watched a school play on the Empire’s stage, he was back to see “the original rock ’n’ roll band.”

The enthusiasm was not unanimous. As the huddle to see the band grew, three schoolgirls walking past asked what was happening. Told it was the Rolling Stones, Anya Morrisson, 16, said, “I’ve heard of them, I think.” Then she got on a bus home.