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Thursday April 3, 1:32 PM
A musical hysteria called the Rolling Stones
By Raghu Menon, Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, Apr 3 (IANS) The Beatles want to hold your hand, but the Stones want to burn your town, it was once said about the notorious rockers from Britain.
One of the greatest exponents of rock n' roll, the Rolling Stones, who will play in Bangalore Friday, are undoubtedly the biggest band ever to perform in India.
The fact that the band is 40 years old hardly takes away the sheen from the quartet -- that is the aura around them and their music. The Stones never started in their now identifiable charismatic, flamboyant style though.
One of the earliest photographs of the band is of three of the then five Stones in the early 1960s.
It captures bassist Bill Wyman, guitarist Brian Jones and Mick Jagger in Cardiff, South Wales, decked up in black trousers, white shirts, dark neckties and black shoes, quite undistinguishable from the rest of the British bands aspiring to make it big at that time.
But theirs was to be the transformation that left people gaping. It changed the good looking Christian boys to rebels, dishing out highly contagious music and attitude.
The Stones probably scared parents in the 1960s and 1970s like no other band -- such was the addiction that teenagers found in their music.
Those teenagers must be about the age of my old man now but the fire in their belly still burns just as it burns in that of Jagger and Keith Richards, both of who turn 60 this year.
A large part of the crowd at a Stones concert would be around the age of the parents that the band frightened off in their heyday. But that doesn't mean their music is any bit less popular among the following generations.
Songs like "Street Fighting Man", "Satisfaction", "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Jumping Jack Flash" still get people, cutting across age groups, jumping around in a musical, rhythmic frenzy.
Unlike the other classic bands of the 1960s and 1970s like Credence Clearwater Revival and Led Zeppelin, who couldn't last a decade, the Stones are still performing -- an accomplishment unparalleled by any other band of their stature.
The band completed 40 years in 2002. The '40 Licks' world tour is a celebration of the long journey these musicians have successfully undertaken.
The bands' double CD compilation is doing brisk business. "Forty Licks" as the anthology is called has at least two-dozen rock anthems, essential to any rock aficionado's collection.
The Stones have endured a lot. From drug addictions and convictions to being banned in the U.S. to the infamous Altamont gig in which a fan was brutally stabbed to death.
But the band got itself out of all these situations and what's more kept the good music flowing.
The deep friendship between Jagger and Richards could take credit for the band's survival all these years. The "Glimmer Twins", as the duo once called themselves, were and still are the backbone of a musical hysteria called the Rolling Stones.
The magical riffs of Richards' guitar together with Jagger singing his insinuating and liberating thoughts have booked them a one-way ticket to rock immortality.
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Thursday April 3, 6:30 PM
Indian fans hungry for Rolling Stones show
BANGALORE (Reuters) - Indian fans say they can't get no satisfaction until the bad boys of rock sweep them off their feet with their high-voltage act.
The Rolling Stones, on a swing through Asia as part of their "Licks" World Tour, are ready to rock India for the first time ever with a concert in Bangalore on Friday and one in Bombay three days later.
The Indian organisers, DNA Networks, say they expect a sellout crowd of about 20,000 each in the two cities to listen to lead singer Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood and drummer Charlie Watts.
"It's the chance of a lifetime to see Mick Jagger in the flesh," said Waleed Hussain, a Stones fan since he was eight.
Hussain, a 24-year-old Bombay-based software professional, said he and his friends planned to sleep overnight outside the concert venue to grab the best spot.
Some fans said they would fly anywhere in the world to hear the iconic British group revered for hits such as "Satisfaction" and "Jumping Jack Flash". The group heads to Bangkok after India.
"They are earthy, in-your-face and also very trendy," said Ajay Chandwani, 44, president of a Bombay-based advertising agency.
The group, travelling with an entourage of about 150 people and tonnes of equipment, arrived from Singapore on Tuesday.
"I've always been afraid of coming here because once I get in, it's hard to kick me out...It's my kind of country," Richards said after his arrival in Bangalore.
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