Liam Neeson remembers the moment he met The Rolling Stones
Actor Liam Neeson has been reminiscing on the time he met The Rolling Stones in a Heathrow Airport holding room, a time when the iconic rock and roll band were waiting to board the same flight to New York City as Neeson and his late wife, the actress Natasha Richardson.
Neeson told the NME that he and Richardson, who tragically died in 2009 after a skiing accident, had been scheduled to fly to New York by Concorde, but several technical issues had plagued its take-off, and the flight was eventually delayed.
“Keith Richards was there [with] Mick Jagger,” Neeson said. “And Keith had obviously had a couple of sips of wine, let’s put it that way… And then he came up to me and said, ‘It’s funny, everybody wants speed, but nobody’s got any! Hur hur hur.'”
Neeson then noted that Richards suddenly recognised the actor and said, “Wait, I know you!” But he quickly moved on to someone else in the holding room. “It must have been 20 years ago, maybe more,” Neeson added. The Irish actor also remembered the time he caught sight of them outside a music venue in Northern Ireland.
“I was too young to go, but I remember being outside,” he said. “It was the first time I saw barriers on the street where the Flamingo was because the Stones were coming, and I remember seeing and actually touching Charlie Watts’ elbow as he was going in. They all had long hair, and it was like, ‘Oh, my god!'”
Neeson looks to be a great admirer of Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who died back in August 2021. “He was kinda my favourite,” Neeson added. “There was some mystery to Charlie. He was the best-dressed, and there was this wise look about him. And boy, could he drum!“
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