After the wife so gracefully convinced me to buy tickets to
see the Rolling Stones in Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena on 11 May (“JUST DO
IT; you’ll hate yourself if you don’t.”), I wrote sincerely on this blog,
“here’s hoping that these old dudes don’t ruin or pervert the image and ideal I
hold so dear.”
Truly, the Rolling Stones are one of my favorite favorite
bands. It’s only rock and roll, but I
sure like it.
On the surface, their sound isn’t all that remarkable; the
blues-based structures and chord progressions are tried and true, the riffs are
often the first riffs picked up by novice guitarists (though the tuning can
baffle even the shrewdest of ears), and Mick Jagger isn’t the most technically
gifted singer. Underneath that surface
however is something a little harder to grasp; there’s a current of tension, of
danger, of sex and violence. It’s a
decidedly adult sound, one that separated them from their peers and fueled
their success -- it was fresh and exciting then, and it’s often imitated but
never duplicated now. This is part of “the image and ideal I
hold so dear.”
Their sound also undoubtedly lent to the band’s
characterization as bad-boys, up to no good.
They were viewed as degenerates, offensive and immoral and depraved
(which of course only made them more appealing). Certainly, their hedonistic bent (perhaps
most notably in the case of Keith Richards) had something to do with it too
but, sensational press-clippings aside, the tone and subject matter of their
music arguably spoke more to their badness than the headlines they made. Dripping with attitude, with dark undertones
of rebellion and hard living, the music of the Stones is wild and feral, full
of happily reckless abandon. Still, it
retains a touching human element that seems to leaven and lighten it. This
too is part of “the image and ideal I hold so dear.”
My personal history with the Rolling Stones is unexceptional
yet respectable. Initially, when I heard
their Hot Rocks in high school, I was
basically unmoved; I played with fire but didn’t get much satisfaction. It wasn’t until my college years that the
music really started to sink in and resonate with me. Incidentally, I started drinking and engaging
in more grown-up behavior around this time, which may or may not have had
anything to do with how I absorbed and experienced their music. I nonetheless began to recognize a different
quality in it, one I had heretofore heard but not effectively felt. Gravitating mostly to the band’s superb
1968-72 four-album run (Beggars Banquet,
Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile On Main St.), I found myself
hopelessly affected. I soon dug into
their entire catalog, ripping those joints and fully getting my rocks off. The deeper I got, the more clear their image
and ideal became to me, and the more dearly I began to hold it. I took it, and I couldn’t leave it.
To this end, I also consumed footage of the band at
work. Films like Gimme Shelter, Rock andRoll Circus, and Ladies and Gentlemen were/are revelatory to me. Their performances at the T.A.M.I. Show in
1964, in Ireland in 1965, and in Texas in 1978 prove that the Stones onstage
were a special animal with a lasting influence.
As such, I really came to respect them as a live act.
I could yak for days about how they operated in front of an
audience but I won’t go beyond this: Jagger is still widely regarded as THE
quintessential frontman. Finger-pointing
and hip-shaking, lip-pouting and cock-of-the-walk-strutting, he was charming
and charismatic, aggressive but coy -- the man wrote the book on rock-and-roll
performance. And Keith? He seemed to be all about the music and the
sensation of sound. Where other
guitarists of this period were showmen, flailing wildly and engaging the crowd
with any number of exaggerated moves, Keith often just played with his eyes
closed and sang to himself. To be sure,
he stepped about, swayed and shook his head but to me, he was way more into the
music than his contemporaries, savoring every melody. Though it’s likely he was high to a degree,
seeing him listening and loving gives me the sense that he was just as
intoxicated and transported by the music as he was by whatever was floating
around his bloodstream. The ever-stoic
Charlie Watts also seemed a little disconnected, despite the fact that his
drumming held the entire thing together.
All this too is “the image and
ideal I hold so dear.”
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m obsessed with
the Rolling Stones. I’m not trying to
compete with other fans, to suggest that I’m a bigger fan, or to prove that my
relationship to the music is stronger. I
just want to be clear about what this band means to me and how dearly I hold
their image and ideal. It’s special to
me. I’ve scrutinized the sounds and
sights, read books and collected ephemera but, I’d never seen the Rolling
Stones live. Over the years, I’ve given
them treatment here, here, and here. I’ve also
tried to work out how and why old men playing the music of young men, prancing
about like the 20-something bad-boys they once were, makes me kinda uncomfortable.
Accordingly, I worried that flying to Las Vegas and going to
the show, probably my last chance to see this iconic band play, would be
nothing but a letdown. I was concerned
that the Stones couldn’t cut it, that a group of 70-year-olds couldn’t possibly
rock with the same conviction they had 40-some years ago, that they couldn’t
possibly live up to the expectations I’d set as a totally fierce fan. Would spending a boatload of money for a seat
in a large arena sour my taste for the band?
Probably not. Would the defining
moment of my fanaticism tarnish the image and ideal in my mind? Maybe.
I waffled. But the wife, in her
wisdom, insisted. So it was with this
attitude, this raw reverence for the image and ideal of the Rolling Stones,
that I pulled the trigger on a 500-dollar pair of concert tickets.
And lo, the Rolling Stones did not disappoint. The show was much better than I’d expected,
cooler than I’d imagined, totally thrilling, totally awesome and totally
magical. Nine days later, I’m still riding
the wave.
 |
| Novel concept, this alcohol to go. |
We took our seats with a great, straight-on view of the
massive tongue-and-lip stage. Our seats were
not the cheapest seats but they definitely weren’t the most expensive. We were up behind the sound-board and
lighting-rig, which was manned by eight people in cockpits suspended from its
frame. Soon enough, it was raised to the
ceiling, out of view, and the house-lights went down. I had been nervously tapping my toes up to
this point but now, I jumped to my feet.
I whooped reflexively, without thinking, unable to contain my glee.
Grainy film flickered on the giant screen. Screaming teeny-boppers, convulsing
youngsters, the repressed youth of postwar England, all losing their minds at
the sight and sound of five thin, bushy-haired boys. Replete with sound bites from newsmen, famous
fans (Iggy Pop!) and the Stones themselves, the video served as a retrospective
of the 50-year history of the Rolling Stones as well as an introduction to the
band now jogging onstage in the dark.
A simple drum beat fills the arena. I’m quaking, my eyes are welling up. The spotlights flash to life and I promptly
lose it as Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood attack the first notes of “Get Off of My Cloud.” I’m still hooting madly as
Mick Jagger (Mick Fucking Jagger!) shimmies to the front of the stage and
delivers the opening verse. The snotty song,
released as a single in 1965, had aged well and, to my absolute delight, so had
the Rolling Stones.
The band, Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie, along with Darryl
Jones on bass, Chuck Leavell on piano, Bobby Keys on saxophone, some other guy
on a saxophone, and Lisa Fischer and Bernard Fowler on backing vocals, kicked
out their tunes as only they could.
Charlie, the oldest member at 71 (he’ll be 72 in June), drummed
mightily. Keith played riff after
indelible riff on a succession of beautiful Telecasters, trading solos with
Ronnie. Mick raced from one end of the
immense stage to the other, dropped trademark dance moves along the way and,
astonishingly, still had the breath to shout the words we all knew. At one point, he greeted the audience, “Ellow
Lass Vay-geese! You know what they say,
what happens in Vegas… ends up ten minutes later on Instagram.” He kept up the patter throughout the show,
thanking the crowd and introducing songs and band members, who all seemed to be
genuinely enjoying themselves.
Coincidentally, I was also enjoying theirselves.
 |
| Keith sings "Happy" in this phone-photo from our seats. |
Three songs in, I was in-control but, I hadn’t quite settled
down. My hands didn’t belong to me. They just couldn’t hold onto my beer, too
busy were they air-drumming, air-guitaring, or slapping rhythms on my
thighs. So when the slow, eerie groove
of “Gimme Shelter” began to grow and build around me, I was able to
half-collect myself and consider the magnitude of my situation: I was
experiencing one of my favorite favorite bands, a band whose “image and ideal I
hold so dear,” and it was amazing. I was
so overcome, I nearly wept when Charlie jumped in with those two snare-cracks
and the song took flight.
Though they play old guitars, the Stones are nevertheless
embracing new technology. Case in point,
they’ve got an app that lets concertgoers vote for one of five songs they’d
like to hear at the show. The winning
song for the Vegas show, by request, was “Beast of Burden” from 1978’s Some Girls. Keith and Charlie set if off, Mick started to
sing and who should swagger out from behind the drum-riser but Katy Perry. The pop star immediately turned heads as some
wondered who this young girl was, why she was sharing a stage with the Stones,
and just how the corset she wore was containing her ample bosom. I, for one, happen to be a legitimate fan of
Ms. Perry. My wife knows this and,
according to her, I screamed like a 14-year-old girl when KP made her
entrance. I remember it a little
differently: we both reacted simultaneously, feeding off each other’s
enthusiastic response to the surprise.
Either way, Katy held her own, singing well and dancing suggestively
with each of the smirking band members.
 |
| KP joins the Stones for "Beast of Burden." |
A highlight of this tour is the feature of former guitarist
Mick Taylor, who joined the band in 1969 following the death of Brian
Jones. He stayed until 1974, playing on
what I consider the Stones’ finest work, before leaving because he felt
under-appreciated. Footage of Taylor
playing with the band in this period is telling; he comes across as bored or
uninterested despite playing with an assured, expressive grace that calls to
mind one Eric ‘Slowhand’ Clapton, a virtuoso among dirtbags. He received a warm welcome as he took the
stage for “Midnight Rambler” which, in addition to providing him the
opportunity to loose an extended solo, allowed Jagger to show off his
undiminished harmonica skills. The song
ebbed and flowed, built up and broke down as Jagger whipped the crowd into a
frenzy before a sudden and thrilling conclusion.
The last song of the set was “Sympathy for the Devil,” a
long, wordy discourse evoking the disillusionment felt by so many young people as
the idealism of the 1960s faded. It’s a
song of anger and discontent, written by Jagger and Richards when they were
both 25 years old. Now 69, the two
performed their song without a hint of irony.
At this point in the show, time had melted away and age meant nothing to
me. I watched and listened to the band
as a generation of fans before me had. I
didn’t care that they were now old; I wasn’t bothered that they were playing
songs they’d written as young men. I was
just stoked that they were playing at all, and that “the image and ideal I hold
so dear” was still intact. Prior to this,
I thought “what a drag it is getting old.”
But now, I felt differently. I
felt invigorated and refreshed. Most of
all, I felt overwhelmed (in a good way).
I was in awe, impressed that this group of old folks could still get
down as they had so many years ago. I
sent them off with a sincerely appreciative cheer, my head swimming, my voice
hoarse, and my hands sore.
The band wasted no time in returning to the stage for an
encore. A large choir, split in two,
flanked the stage and began “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” It was cool.
I imagine a lot of others in attendance reflected along with me,
thinking that we were actually getting what we wanted. The band then launched into “Jumping Jack Flash” and that mean, mean riff invaded my headspace. They extended the tune, jamming around the
final chorus and making sure everyone understood how much of a ‘gas gas gas’ it
all was. I wondered, would this be the last song? The cap to 2+ hours of rock-and-roll
ecstasy? Though the lengthy show had
passed quickly, in a kind of haze, I just couldn’t believe that these guys had more
petrol in the tank. When the song ended,
the lights were cut. And then, without
so much as a breather, they punched it, hitting the accelerator for one last
hurrah.
Naturally, the Stones closed with “Satisfaction,” the 1965 smash
that put them on the map and basically started them down the road that led them
to where they are now. Taylor rejoined
the band, the light-techs pulled out all the stops (creating something akin to
the grand finale at a fourth-of-July fireworks show), and the entire place sang
along as the band muscled through a song they’d played countless times before
and took a final bow.
Choosing my most memorable concert is tough. I live for those sublime moments when music
surrounds me and transports me, when nothing else matters, when I somehow feel
alone in a room full of people. I can
think of a few shows that took me away, that made me give in and forget my name
for an hour or more (for better or worse), but I can’t remember being this
profoundly moved by any of my many rock-show experiences. Indeed, the Rolling Stones still have a valid
claim to the title of Greatest Rock-and-Roll Band in the World. Instead of ruining or perverting “the image
and ideal I hold so dear,” they reinforced just how strong my love is.
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