The Stones Endure, and So Do We
As the Rolling Stones jumped into “Jumping Jack Flash” near the end of their Philadelphia show last Tuesday, I flashed to one thought: this is why I’m here. That riff is what hooked me on the Stones. Keith Richards’s 11 note riff made that song, I bought the single, I got the Stones. More than 50 years later, remembering wearing out the record on a mono record player, I basked in that guitar riff as it washed around me in the delirium of stadium rock, part group ecstasy, part mind-altering acoustical slapback from the concrete bowl. The girl dancing on my right, maybe 25 years old, was entranced too, and I wondered what hooked her — what got her and her boyfriend to pony up for nosebleed seats in the stadium to hear a band that didn’t play a song recorded in her lifetime?
Keith Richards playing that riff last Tuesday.
Why were we there? Because the Stones are The World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band. Have been since forever. Will be until they quit, or until rock & roll stops mattering. Endurance is a talent. Just showing up at the age of the Rolling Stones, the youngest of whom is 72, and remaining the archetype for nearly 60 years, means more than the music. For me, watching the four Stones who date from the glory days — let’s say up through Some Girls in 1979 — was an experience I wouldn’t trade.
Good friends called in the afternoon of the show to see if I could fill in for a late scratch in their party. Hell yeah! And instantly I was relieved of the pain of calling myself a real rock fan without ever having seen the Rolling Stones live. Sure, the “No Filter” didn’t rank as a cultural event on the order of, say, Live Aid (or Altamont), but this was a gathering of the tribes for what surely must be the last time.
Our seats were high as concertgoers used to be — at the top of the 30 row upper deck of Lincoln Financial Field — but thanks to the gigantic HD screens and video production acuity of the tour directors, everyone had a great view of the highly-produced stage show. The sound was a little bit muddled at 100 yards distance from the giant PA array hung over the stage, but with songs you know by heart, it doesn’t matter much. (Or so I thought until another friend sent me a video of “Brown Sugar” from his swanky seats on the floor near the stage. Even on my iPhone, the sound was better than anything I heard that night.) But we were in the house, covered against the rain that intermittently fell, and together plumbing the recesses of our memories from the times when we were young and so were the songs. And make no mistake, the memory of the songs is for most of us as important as the live music.
The crowd was well served by a set list which only involved two songs from the more forgettable albums of the last, oh, 40 years, delivering instead the songs you HAD to hear, played mostly in familiar, shiny iterations that left room for snippets of spontaneity. “Sympathy for the Devil” was smoking hot; “Start Me Up” was a singalong smash. “Gimme Shelter” paired Mick Jagger with a powerhouse female vocalist who stalked him up and back on the runway, a stylized guitar neck extending 50 yards from the guitar body-shaped (kinda) stage occupying the north end of the field. The core four met at the “headstock” of the guitar for a short acoustic set including “Angie” and “Dead Flowers.” (No “Wild Horses?” Come on!)
Poor Keith was limited to two turns at the microphone (I was not Happy), singing “Slipping Away” and “Before They Make Me Run” during the de facto bathroom break mid-show. (Hey, they’re in their 70s!) Mick came back refreshed for a smooth segue into a searing workout of “Miss You.”
For me a highlight was “Midnight Rambler,” which allowed the band to play like The World’s Greatest. Keith and Ron converged near the middle of the vast stage, churning out the song’s dark shuffle, adding texture as they played off each other for maybe the thousandth concert rendition of the song, while allowing Mick to prance and menace (and even pull out a harmonica) along the extended stage. “Paint It, Black” followed, still full of powerful young-person alienation even if delivered by comfortable old gents.
“Brown Sugar” was a romp to open the encore; but by the end of “Satisfaction” Ron and Keith looked physically pained as they banged out the relentless riff for 10 minutes while Mick had his last dance on the runway. Perhaps it was me; perhaps the band who looked relieved when fireworks went off near the end of their hoary 1965 anthem, leaving no doubt that the show was coming to an end. As the band took a curtain call, 78-year-old drummer Charlie Watts finally conjured up his first smile of the evening, which seemed like one of great relief.
The price of rolling with the Stones has gone up since I spent $.79 for my 45 of “Jumping Jack Flash” at Newberry’s in Kennett Square. I didn’t look at the cost of the ticket my friends so generously gave me, but I heard that ticket prices for the show were topping off in the $3,000 range. This for a 60,000 seat venue, where all those seats were full. Why do we give these jaded millionaires millions more at every stop of their two year tour?
Because they’re still there. And so are we. And that is something valuable.
Why were we there? Because the Stones are The World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band. Have been since forever. Will be until they quit, or until rock & roll stops mattering. Endurance is a talent. Just showing up at the age of the Rolling Stones, the youngest of whom is 72, and remaining the archetype for nearly 60 years, means more than the music. For me, watching the four Stones who date from the glory days — let’s say up through Some Girls in 1979 — was an experience I wouldn’t trade.
Good friends called in the afternoon of the show to see if I could fill in for a late scratch in their party. Hell yeah! And instantly I was relieved of the pain of calling myself a real rock fan without ever having seen the Rolling Stones live. Sure, the “No Filter” didn’t rank as a cultural event on the order of, say, Live Aid (or Altamont), but this was a gathering of the tribes for what surely must be the last time.
Our seats were high as concertgoers used to be — at the top of the 30 row upper deck of Lincoln Financial Field — but thanks to the gigantic HD screens and video production acuity of the tour directors, everyone had a great view of the highly-produced stage show. The sound was a little bit muddled at 100 yards distance from the giant PA array hung over the stage, but with songs you know by heart, it doesn’t matter much. (Or so I thought until another friend sent me a video of “Brown Sugar” from his swanky seats on the floor near the stage. Even on my iPhone, the sound was better than anything I heard that night.) But we were in the house, covered against the rain that intermittently fell, and together plumbing the recesses of our memories from the times when we were young and so were the songs. And make no mistake, the memory of the songs is for most of us as important as the live music.
The crowd was well served by a set list which only involved two songs from the more forgettable albums of the last, oh, 40 years, delivering instead the songs you HAD to hear, played mostly in familiar, shiny iterations that left room for snippets of spontaneity. “Sympathy for the Devil” was smoking hot; “Start Me Up” was a singalong smash. “Gimme Shelter” paired Mick Jagger with a powerhouse female vocalist who stalked him up and back on the runway, a stylized guitar neck extending 50 yards from the guitar body-shaped (kinda) stage occupying the north end of the field. The core four met at the “headstock” of the guitar for a short acoustic set including “Angie” and “Dead Flowers.” (No “Wild Horses?” Come on!)
Poor Keith was limited to two turns at the microphone (I was not Happy), singing “Slipping Away” and “Before They Make Me Run” during the de facto bathroom break mid-show. (Hey, they’re in their 70s!) Mick came back refreshed for a smooth segue into a searing workout of “Miss You.”
For me a highlight was “Midnight Rambler,” which allowed the band to play like The World’s Greatest. Keith and Ron converged near the middle of the vast stage, churning out the song’s dark shuffle, adding texture as they played off each other for maybe the thousandth concert rendition of the song, while allowing Mick to prance and menace (and even pull out a harmonica) along the extended stage. “Paint It, Black” followed, still full of powerful young-person alienation even if delivered by comfortable old gents.
“Brown Sugar” was a romp to open the encore; but by the end of “Satisfaction” Ron and Keith looked physically pained as they banged out the relentless riff for 10 minutes while Mick had his last dance on the runway. Perhaps it was me; perhaps the band who looked relieved when fireworks went off near the end of their hoary 1965 anthem, leaving no doubt that the show was coming to an end. As the band took a curtain call, 78-year-old drummer Charlie Watts finally conjured up his first smile of the evening, which seemed like one of great relief.
The price of rolling with the Stones has gone up since I spent $.79 for my 45 of “Jumping Jack Flash” at Newberry’s in Kennett Square. I didn’t look at the cost of the ticket my friends so generously gave me, but I heard that ticket prices for the show were topping off in the $3,000 range. This for a 60,000 seat venue, where all those seats were full. Why do we give these jaded millionaires millions more at every stop of their two year tour?
Because they’re still there. And so are we. And that is something valuable.
Why were we there? Because the Stones are The World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band. Have been since forever. Will be until they quit, or until rock & roll stops mattering. Endurance is a talent. Just showing up at the age of the Rolling Stones, the youngest of whom is 72, and remaining the archetype for nearly 60 years, means more than the music. For me, watching the four Stones who date from the glory days — let’s say up through Some Girls in 1979 — was an experience I wouldn’t trade.
Good friends called in the afternoon of the show to see if I could fill in for a late scratch in their party. Hell yeah! And instantly I was relieved of the pain of calling myself a real rock fan without ever having seen the Rolling Stones live. Sure, the “No Filter” didn’t rank as a cultural event on the order of, say, Live Aid (or Altamont), but this was a gathering of the tribes for what surely must be the last time.
Our seats were high as concertgoers used to be — at the top of the 30 row upper deck of Lincoln Financial Field — but thanks to the gigantic HD screens and video production acuity of the tour directors, everyone had a great view of the highly-produced stage show. The sound was a little bit muddled at 100 yards distance from the giant PA array hung over the stage, but with songs you know by heart, it doesn’t matter much. (Or so I thought until another friend sent me a video of “Brown Sugar” from his swanky seats on the floor near the stage. Even on my iPhone, the sound was better than anything I heard that night.) But we were in the house, covered against the rain that intermittently fell, and together plumbing the recesses of our memories from the times when we were young and so were the songs. And make no mistake, the memory of the songs is for most of us as important as the live music.
The crowd was well served by a set list which only involved two songs from the more forgettable albums of the last, oh, 40 years, delivering instead the songs you HAD to hear, played mostly in familiar, shiny iterations that left room for snippets of spontaneity. “Sympathy for the Devil” was smoking hot; “Start Me Up” was a singalong smash. “Gimme Shelter” paired Mick Jagger with a powerhouse female vocalist who stalked him up and back on the runway, a stylized guitar neck extending 50 yards from the guitar body-shaped (kinda) stage occupying the north end of the field. The core four met at the “headstock” of the guitar for a short acoustic set including “Angie” and “Dead Flowers.” (No “Wild Horses?” Come on!)
Poor Keith was limited to two turns at the microphone (I was not Happy), singing “Slipping Away” and “Before They Make Me Run” during the de facto bathroom break mid-show. (Hey, they’re in their 70s!) Mick came back refreshed for a smooth segue into a searing workout of “Miss You.”
For me a highlight was “Midnight Rambler,” which allowed the band to play like The World’s Greatest. Keith and Ron converged near the middle of the vast stage, churning out the song’s dark shuffle, adding texture as they played off each other for maybe the thousandth concert rendition of the song, while allowing Mick to prance and menace (and even pull out a harmonica) along the extended stage. “Paint It, Black” followed, still full of powerful young-person alienation even if delivered by comfortable old gents.
“Brown Sugar” was a romp to open the encore; but by the end of “Satisfaction” Ron and Keith looked physically pained as they banged out the relentless riff for 10 minutes while Mick had his last dance on the runway. Perhaps it was me; perhaps the band who looked relieved when fireworks went off near the end of their hoary 1965 anthem, leaving no doubt that the show was coming to an end. As the band took a curtain call, 78-year-old drummer Charlie Watts finally conjured up his first smile of the evening, which seemed like one of great relief.
The price of rolling with the Stones has gone up since I spent $.79 for my 45 of “Jumping Jack Flash” at Newberry’s in Kennett Square. I didn’t look at the cost of the ticket my friends so generously gave me, but I heard that ticket prices for the show were topping off in the $3,000 range. This for a 60,000 seat venue, where all those seats were full. Why do we give these jaded millionaires millions more at every stop of their two year tour?
Because they’re still there. And so are we. And that is something valuable.
