Towards the end of 99 I had an exhibition running and a friend brought the theatre impresario and composer Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber to view it.

Andrew and his wife Madeleine, foremost collectors of Pre-Raphaelite art, were keen to reinvent the established act of capturing social scenes of London, so a few years later he commissioned me to do a group portrait. Andrew's idea was for me to paint people from contemporary British society, and set it in the London Restaurant the Ivy.

The next thing I knew, I was in Toronto, rehearsing for Forty Licks. I was on the mend finacially and psyically, but I was frightened. For the first time ever as a Stone, I was about to go on tour with the band, sober.

I cracked on with the painting while on Tour and filled the huge canvas with all sorts of characters. Eventually to my great pride the painting was hung in the Royal Academy and then was permanently house at the Drury Lane theatre (a monumental place in theatre history) after a wonderful evening where I combined my musical world with my artistic one by performing a gig and holding an exhibition at the Lane.

Art was everywhere, the music was awesome, the atmosphere electric; the theatre rocked. It was one of the proudest moments of my life having Leah and Jesse perform with me, while Jamie and Tyrone were organizing art sales. I was joined onstage by Ray Cooper, Andy Newmark, Darryl Jones (who so kindly stepped in when Willie Weeks couldn't make it), Andrea Corr, Leah Wood and Beverley Knight. Mick Jagger stepped in, as did Bernard Fowler, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan. As I looked out from the stage I could see the royal box shaking as Kate Moss, Tracey Emin, Jimmy White and of course Jo raucously cheered me on. I hadn't felt this inspired for years.

In May 2005 the Stones agreed there were places in the world we still needed to see. We announced the Bigger Bang tour in New York, this time at the Juilliard School of Music. Right from our first gig at Fenway I could tell that I was playing better ­ we all were. It worked well, and this was evident to anyone who saw us. A top band on the top of their game. A whirlwind of gigs followed.

Concerts like Rio. A free concert on the beach at Copacabana, which meant around 50-100,000 people could actually see us onstage. The beach was long and the rest of the people ­ somewhere between 1­2 million ­ were either stretched down the beach for a mile and a half or hanging off balconies to our left along the street. Or they were in boats to our right. Or they were simply in the water.

The stage also had to be redesigned for this show, because it was too heavy for the beach, and we had to set up massive screens the whole length of the beach so that everybody could see something. We also had to set up a mile and a half's worth of speakers, down the beach, which created real problems for the soundmen because of the delay at that distance.

This show was historic. No one had ever done anything this big. Rod Stewart holds the all-time record for a concert crowd on Copacabana Beach, but he played there on a New Year's Eve and it's tradition that everybody in Rio celebrates New Year's Eve on the beach, so ­ no disrespect to Rod ­ people would have been there anyway. We claim the record for the most people ever on the beach who came to see a concert.

From the minute we arrived in Rio there was pandemonium. We sat locked down inside the hotel for three days before the show. Our chief security guards, Eric and Guardi, have never worked so hard. Documentary and press helicopters relentlessly hovered above. From our balconies at Copacabana Palace we saw thousands of fans watch the soundcheck, the stage being built, and numerous transvestites strutting up and down the parade. Fans would spot us when we came out on that high balcony and a roar would engulf us. The true frenzy is indescribable.

No one had a clue about exactly how many people would show up, and the beach in front of the stage stayed pretty empty until a few hours before the concert ­ but the beach behind was heaving. The hotel was just across the street from the beach and they had to build a walkway over the road to get us there. Trying to cross the street that night, we wouldn't have got there till the following Wednesday.

By eight o'clock it was really filling up and when we crossed the walkway there were a million or more people screaming, shouting and singing at the four of us. Flashbulbs were going off everywhere. By the time we'd walked across, it felt like everybody in South America had turned up to watch.

The crowd was so vast we could only see, maybe, 50,000 of them. It was only when we got on to the B-stage that we realized the full extent.

In Rio, when the B-stage moved us into the audience the noise was deafening, nothing like we'd ever heard before, and that's when the four of us suddenly understood that we were completely surrounded by almost two million people. When you think about the sheer volume of people, and that no one tried to spoil the party ­ it can only be described as mass happiness.

From my balcony, my family and I watched the beach get cleaned the next day ­ it must have been hard to find a lime in Rio for days after the millions of Caipirinhas that were drunk that night. In November 2006, in the middle of Bigger Bang, just as we were getting ready to wind down for Christmas, my brother Art died. I'd flown back between shows to be with him and was there when he closed his eyes. A few weeks later, I spoke at his funeral.

'We have a special guest with us today: King Arthur. Now I am head of the family, much sooner than I expected to be and I would like to thank you all for coming to see my brother Arthur off today. Without him and his teachings I would definitely not be where I am today. Not only as a musician and an artist but as a person who deep inside had the pleasure and satisfaction of knowing him as a friend and an inspiration. He was like a brother to me. In fact, he was.

Bigger Bang rolled on and came to a awesome climax at the 02 center. I was home and settled right back into my art and finishing my book. I feel blessed to have the support of my family and friends in everything I do ­ there have always been people to pick me up, carry me further and help me though. I've driven them crazy, no doubt about it, but for some reason they stand by me. Must be my good looks. Who knows what the future holds for me, all I know is that I'm not finished yet.