(this is a copy of a post I just put in Agora about the Rolling Stones concert I attended this past evening. The Stones still rock!): IVHB I got to see The Rolling Stones live in concert tonight at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. Had great seats too, lower level on the side-- a bit too close to the stage for my ears, and my hearing has yet to recover-- but a great concert experience. There are not many acts that can totally rock a packed 80,000 seat stadium, such that everyone in the place was standing from start to finish, but The Stones are obviously quite experienced at stadium shows. It is amazing those guys can still do such high energy shows. The Stones were on stage for close to 2 1/2 hours, and from start to finish, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were sprinting from one end of the stage to the other while jamming. There were long rampways to the left and right sides of the stage, as well as a rampway down the middle of the floor leading to a smaller stage at mid-field where they did a mini-set at one point. At one point, as they are doing "Satisfaction", and Richards is on stage doing a solo jam, Jagger runs all the way down the stairs, onto the field and back towards the small stage, dancing and high fiving fans on the floor (and more than a few women taking off their bras and throwing them to him...Jagger must have one HECK of a bra collection from all the shows he's done!) He gets all the way to the small stage, and then runs all the way back (and we're talking forty yards each way), leaps up the stairs and makes it back to his mic to pick up the vocals just as Richards ends his solo. And on another song, I think it was Jumping Jack Flash, Keith Richards went from one side of the LONG stage to the other, jamming at each end, to up on the bandstand to jam with drummer charlie watts, to down to left center to jam with ronnie wood and the bass player, and finally to center stage to jam with Jagger. These are 59 year old men we're talking about! Most musicians half or a third their age couldn't keep up with them. The stage was huge, had an enormous jumbotron above it, and flames coming out from the top (you wouldn't believe the pop from the crowd when Richards hit the first chords of "Start Me Up", and flames came bursting up from the top of the stage and Jagger strutted out and started to sing) There was a married couple in the row in front of us, and they were with their two college age daughters and their friends. And the father was telling me before the show started, that he and his wife had seen the Stones in concert a time or two in the sixties when they were in college, and they were treating their daughters to the show because it was a rare chance to have that common experience. I'll bet. To be able to see a hot band in college and then more than thirty years later, see that same band headlining another stadium show with your own college age kids?! The guy sitting next to me on one side had his four year old daughter with him, and the little girl was in her chair fast asleep as they were doing a rockin' LOUD version of Honky Tonk Women. Fortunately, the father woke her up and put her on his shoulders for the last few songs. That little girl may not end up remembering that show, but one day long after those guys are gone for good, she'll be able to say to her friends that she saw the Stones with her dad. Pretty cool. Anyway, the Stones played most of their bigger songs, and also some oldies (like Hand of Fate and All Down the Line, and Everybody Need Somebody) Truly memorable show. And after the last encore, after the Stones took their final bows, a rather elaborate fireworks display went off behind the stage. Nice touch! Oh yeah and the opening act was Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders, who also rocked. There's nothing like a good old fashioned outdoor rock and roll show on a cool autumn saturday night. Now if only my hearing would come back! :)19 responses total.
Sounds like it was a really fun show. Glad you're sharing them with us, Richard.
I don't know, there's just something odd about the idea of seeing a Stones concert with your parents..
Not if the Stones are old enough to be your parents, or possibly your grandparents.
Right. And liking them even that old isn't really all that strange, either. I think the Beatles, if all of them remained alive to do a reunion tour, would have drawn similar parallels.
But because the Beatles had not toured for so long, a reunion, at almost any date, would have carried emotional baggage for the audience far greater than the considerable emotional baggage people still seem to bring to Stones tours.
On the other hand, because the Beatles had not toured for so long, they quite possibly would have sucked in concert. Say whatever else you want about the stones, but they are pretty well, uh, road tested. Still, dbratman has a point. I don't think I've ever felt any desire to see the Rolling Stones live (after all, my lifespan and their old age have pretty much overlapped), but I might be tempted by a Beatles reunion if their dead half were still alive. Scarcity increases demand.
If the Beatles could pull off their earlier vocal harmonies (from Revolver, for instance, which *was* when they still toured, right?) live it would be a cool show. Some things like Sgt. Pepper would be a bit tricky, although later stuff (Let it Be) would have been doable.
here's the thing. seeing the Stones live in concert, you get the obvious impression not just that they like doing it, but that they LOVE doing it. The Beatles didn't like touring, they didn't like large arena or stadium shows. Their music was intimate. The Rolling Stones are the quintessential rock and roll band, the "world's greatest rock and roll band", because they have made great music and truly ENJOY playing it. When I saw them in concert the first thing you realized was that they loved it, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in particular, LOVE playing together and being the Rolling Stones. There is this pure joy those two have playing together, and with Charlie Watts and Ron Wood, that is priceless. It is why they haven't gotten old. It is why they can do stadium shows as hard and loud as they did thirty years ago. They enjoy it. Not all rock acts can say that. Too often its business. get on stage. get off. count the money. it isnt that often that you get to watch great masters who absolutely LOVE what they do and can't imagine living without doing it.
In all of the concert footage I've seen of the Beatles the music is virtually inaudible, drowned out by the screaming of hysterical female fans. I'm pretty sure that if I had been one of the Beatles I would also have found touring musically unsatisfying and quite possibly extremely threatening.
my dad took my aunt, his little sister, to see the beatles in 1964 in Baltimore. Claims he heard nothing. Just the louds of shrieks of girls. There wasn't the quality of sound systems in stadiums then that there is now
Correspondingly, there isn't the quality of shrieking now that there was then.
Have most of you not heard the live recording "The Beatles Live At The Hollywood Bowl?" It's never been reissued on CD. My vague recollection is that it's drawn from two shows in 1964 and 1965. It's filled with screaming from beginning to end.
The Beatle concerts in 64-65 where only around 30 minutes. It
was what was expected. I don't know if The Stones played longer in
65-66 when they came to America.
Ford Feild, here in Detroit will be Rock and Roll tested by
The Rolling Stones this weekend (Oct 12). Lots of acoustic work was
done in the design stages and we will see if it pays off on a major
Rock and Roll show. The Stones are expected to play for nearly
two hours, plus have an opening act.
Presumably there was a time when the Beatles were not extremely popular.
There was, but I suspect much of it was before they had any recordings out at all. IIRC, they spent something like six years as a club band before they were signed.
The Beatles were an extremely popular local club band for some time before they achieved a national fame, which in turn measurably preceded their international fame. They quit touring in part for the reasons suggested above: it was a dismal grind, the music was drowned out by screaming, and it's quite evident from recordings (when you can hear the music under the screaming) that, by the last couple of years of it, as a stage band they were pretty bad. (Orinoco pointed out that a Beatles reunion might have been a lousy performance: clearly, that wouldn't have stopped people from coming. For that matter, I've heard people complain about Stones concerts, not that the band was bad, but that they couldn't hear or see anything, something that would have been entirely predictable from the venue. Yet, they went anyway.) After a few years of studio-only work, the Beatles began missing the live stage a little, and tried to figure out ways to get around the problems. Booking themselves into some local club under a pseudonym was one idea considered, but never acted upon. But that urge is why they performed the Apple Records rooftop concert in '69, and why most of "Let It Be" was recorded live to tape (before it was Spectorized), in contrast to the pure studio creations of the Sgt. Pepper era.
Well, The Beatles did get the on-air invite from Lorne Michaels to come on down the SNL studio.
There's a story that Paul was visiting John & Yoko at the time, and they were watching SNL on tv, and thought about it ... but I don't know if it's true.
A further part of the story is that if they did show up, they were going to be told that as non-union musicians they wouldn't be allowed to play.
You have several choices: