After playing some of the same music for the last 50 years, it would be only human if Keith Richards occasionally forgot a Rolling Stones riff here or there. Recently, in a radio interview Absolute Radio, the guitarist confessed to just that: he forgets how to play some of the Rolling Stones' greatest hits. Luckily -- thanks to his experience -- his fingers are on cruise control.

''When you kick off a song you say, 'I can't remember how the middle bit goes', but the fingers remember even if you don't," Richards told Absolute Radio. ''[I don't practice] as much as I should, probably," he added. "But now that we're putting the act together again I'm getting the chops back together.''

The band recently celebrated its half-century anniversary, and countless books, TV specials and exhibits are trickling out to mark the occasion. The most anticipated marker of all, however -- the 50th Anniversary Tour -- has been pushed back to 2013. ("Basically, we're just not ready," Richards told Rolling Stone magazine in March.)

When asked if he was excited for the prospect of possibly going back on stage -- for either a world tour or a special one-off gig -- Richards jokingly replied, "I need the work, man."

Unfortunately for fans, Mick Jagger recently explained that The Rolling Stones will not appear at either of the London 2012 Olympic ceremonies as they don't feel "stage-ready."

"We're playing around with the idea and had a couple of rehearsals -- we've got together lately and it feels so good," Richards told BBC News at a recent photo exhibition chronicling their 50-year career at London's Somerset House. "I think, soon! I think it's definitely happening. But when? I can't say yet."

He later added: "There might be life in the old dog yet -- we'll die gracefully, elegantly wasted."

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  • Mick Jagger walking off stage, Anaheim, CA 1978

  • The Rolling Stones posing with a group of ladies, during rehearsals for ABC's 'Thank Your Lucky Stars' TV pop music show at Teddington Studios, London, 11th November 1964

  • Keith cooking in the kitchen of Andy Warhol's Montauk home where the Rolling Stones were rehearsing for their 1975 Tour of the Americas.

  • 1972 U.S. Tour

  • Mick & Aston Martin London 1966

  • This shot was taken backstage at the rehearsals for ABC's "Thank Your Lucky Stars." 1964

  • Stones Primrose Hill, London 1966 -- an outtake from the Between The Buttons cover shoot.

  • Rolling Stones at the Alamo; 1975

  • Rolling Stones onstage 1972 (location unknown)

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