Well-Oiled ‘Steel Wheels’ Bound for $80-Million Payoff

Three weeks before the finale of the Rolling Stones’ “Steel Wheels” concert tour, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are proud of the band’s new-found discipline, and its trainload of money.

“I’ve never seen the boys so serious,” Richards said Wednesday. “Everyone is really conserving their energy for the shows instead of like 10 to 15 years ago when we would have, like, been up three or four days in a row. Things change.”

Since opening the 60-show North American tour Aug. 31 in Philadelphia, the 25-year-old rock band consistently has drawn sellout crowds despite admittedly bad acoustics in stadiums such as the Metrodome in Minneapolis. The Stones play there tonight for the second time.

By the time the tour grinds to a halt Dec. 20 in Atlantic City, N.J., more than 3 million concert-goers will have oiled the “Steel Wheels” machine with about $80 million.

And that does not count souvenir sales, corporate sponsorship from Budweiser and MTV, a line of Stones clothing, album proceeds, and the multimillion-dollar payoff at the end of the tour from a live pay-per-view television concert with Eric Clapton, Guns ‘N’ Roses stars Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin.

“I’m very proud of the way it’s financially run because I have a lot to do with it,” the 46-year-old Jagger said in an interview before Wednesday’s show. “But I’m also very proud of the fact that we do spend a tremendous amount of money on production.”