"I aggravated it so I could drive back to London and go to the match": Bill Wyman once faked toothache to skip the Stones and watch the cup final

You’d think that being part of The Rolling Stones and living the dream as part of one of their legendary world tours would be an unmissable all-time high. Turns out that that wasn’t the case and, come their 1990 Urban Jungle tour, at least one of the band would much rather have been watching Crystal Palace instead.

That’s the remarkably honest truth laid out by Bill Wyman who, in a new interview with FourFourTwo, explained that, by 1990 he’d gone as far as feigning illness in order to skip band commitments and watch the footy instead.

By 1990, Wyman had grown tired of the Stones relentless efforts to maintain and please a crowd and, following a final payday across 1989 and 1990 (and the three stages of the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle tour), quit the band. However, it seems that he’d pretty much checked out before then.

Blame the 1990 FA Cup final.

"I had to find an excuse," Wyman remembers, setting the scene. The band were rehearsing in Amsterdam with their first gig of the tour days away, but with multiple US and Asian gigs under his belt, Wyman felt he could take his foot off the gas and take a well-earned break.

So what excuse did he come up with?

"It was toothache... I did have problems with my wisdom tooth, but I aggravated it so I could drive back to London and go to the match."

The match – which took place on 12 May 1990 – proved to be a blinder, and well worth Wyman’s cheeky attendance with Crystal Palace and Manchester United finishing the game in a 3-3 cliffhanger. Unfortunately, with the first date of the European leg of the tour looming (playing Rotterdam’s De Kuip on 18 May, 1990) he was unable to stretch his fake illness sufficiently far and missed the replay. (Palace would eventually lose one-nil to United.)

"I couldn't make the replay as we were already on the Urban Jungle tour,” Wyman admits. But, he claims, the band did great despite his absence and had "worked it out" by then.

"Mick [Jagger] and Charlie [Watts] were big cricket fans; Mick watches some international football, though he earned a reputation as a jinx,” Wyman reveals. “He was cheering on Brazil when they got humiliated 7-1 by Germany, he's been to England games where they've lost and he was a USA fan when they lost against Ghana."

Important lesson: If Mick Jagger ever comes begging you for a free ticket to the game, you know what to do.

Diamond geezer

Elsewhere Wyman relates some inside info regarding his input on the latest Stones album, Hackney Diamonds.

"They asked me to do a track [Live By The Sword] that was unfinished, with Charlie Watts playing on it. They thought it would be nice to reunite the original rhythm section.

"It was a hard one to play on, and busy – Elton [John] played the piano on it as well. Mick and the producer said my stuff was good and they were happy. I did two tracks and they'll save one for another album."

Famously, following Wyman’s departure at the end of the Urban Jungle tour, the band even went so far as to refuse to acknowledge Wyman’s departure. "When they were doing the plan for the coming year, I said: ‘Well there’s no point me discussing it, because I’m leaving.’ And they went: ‘You’re not leaving.’ I said: 'I am leaving, I’ve left.' And they wouldn’t believe me," Wyman told Classic Rock.

“Two years went by, and they were putting the band together again to make a new record in ’94. They said: ‘Are you still in the band?’ I said: ‘I left two years ago.’”