How the Rolling Stones’ 2006 Bigger Bang Tour Handled Keith Richards’s Tree-Fall Brain Injury

The most interesting part of the story isn’t the fall itself—it’s that Keith Richards turned a subdural hematoma into a punchline and the tour barely missed a beat. In April 2006, while on vacation in Fiji, Keith literally fell out of a palm tree he’d climbed to pick a coconut, hit his head, and later required emergency surgery in New Zealand to drain a blood clot on his brain.

The Bigger Bang tour was already deep into its European leg when the accident happened. The Stones immediately postponed shows in the UK and Europe, giving Keith about six weeks to recover. By June he was back on stage with a fresh scar, opening the rescheduled dates at Sheffield’s Don Valley Stadium. Keith supposedly quipped, “I’ve fallen out of a lot of trees in my time, but this was the first time I’ve had to have my head examined.” The only real change to the tour was a lighter travel schedule for Keith—but otherwise, the band played on as if nothing happened. The shows themselves were unchanged, and Keith’s playing didn’t show a single sign of the injury.