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Topic: Ronnie Wood Return to archive Page: 1 2
May 26th, 2005 12:01 PM
Voodoo Scrounge When I first got into the stones, I bought the live Bridges to Babylon DVD. I thought it was absolutely tremendous. However, I couldnt hear anything that Ronnie was playing. Except for a few notes on Miss you and Out of controll I really struggled to hear him.
I bought live at the max on DVD and again I couldnt hear what Ronnie was playing. Now I know that live at the max isnt the greatest DVD, but I still couldnt hear him.
Was he so fucked up then that the crew turned him down so low that we couldnt hear his fuck ups?
I heard a rumour that on the Steel Wheels tour, the stones employed a guy to play out of sight from the crowd. He would play all of Ronnies bits and they would turn Ronnie down. True?

Anyway. Im glad to say that I though Ronnie was great on the licks tour. For me he made songs like Worried about you and Tumbling dice.
May 26th, 2005 01:12 PM
marko Well,ronnie was better in 89-90.His worst is probaply
98.
May 26th, 2005 01:48 PM
Saint Sway I like when Ronnie hops around and waves at the audience!!






just think of what it would be like if he devoted that kind of energy to actually playing the instrument that his hanging on his shoulders
May 26th, 2005 02:15 PM
gimmekeef But then Chuck would have nothing to do!...Wait!!!..what a great idea...someone tell Ronnie!!!!
May 26th, 2005 03:55 PM
glencar At Wembley in '99, he was so trashed he could barely stand up. Mick looked annoyed at him during the band intros.
May 26th, 2005 05:09 PM
Saint Sway imagine how much tickets would cost if the guitarist actually played
May 26th, 2005 06:00 PM
ListenToTheLion After 1981 I completely lost confidence in Ronnie's playing. If they kick him out right now nobody would notice it.
May 26th, 2005 06:35 PM
sammy davis jr. That's a good point I hadn't thought of.....If Ronnie was booted- nobody would notice- sound wise. I'm not slammin' the guy, it's just his contributions have gotten so minimal. Still love him though.
May 26th, 2005 07:15 PM
winter Let's be fair here.

Last tour, at least the shows that I saw: Fleet, Gilette, Orpheum, Giants Stadium, Hartford, Fleet again, MSG (HBO) and Astoria - Ronnie outplayed Keith consistently.

F*@k, Keith barely plays his guitar anymore.

Wintah
May 26th, 2005 09:00 PM
Child of the Moon
quote:
winter wrote:

F*@k, Keith barely plays his guitar anymore.



It's painful to watch sometimes, isn't it? "Think I'm gonna strum a chord here... now make a few faces and poses, look out into the audience and wink... maybe give the neck of the guitar a little kiss... oop, time to strum again, improvise a bad Chuck Berry lick where there isn't supposed to be one... now to make some more poses..."
May 26th, 2005 10:10 PM
Bruno Stone
quote:
Child of the Moon wrote:

It's painful to watch sometimes, isn't it? "Think I'm gonna strum a chord here... now make a few faces and poses, look out into the audience and wink... maybe give the neck of the guitar a little kiss... oop, time to strum again, improvise a bad Chuck Berry lick where there isn't supposed to be one... now to make some more poses..."


Yeah, all this is very sad. But i want to believe that, if there are not that silly crew ( Lisa, Bernad, Chuck, Chaplin, etc ), they can play as it is supposed to be. As we saw in the press conference show. I was hearing Keith playing, doing good licks, and i liked the BS solo by Ronnie`s hands.
May 27th, 2005 12:05 AM
BILL PERKS THE WAY KEEF PLAYS GUITAR NOWADAYS DRIVES ME CRAZY-HE PLAYS WITH THE NECK WAY UP MOST OF THE TIME-WATCH 81 HAMPTON -ITS ALL ABOUT THE SOUND BEING PUT OUT.NOT HOW HE CAN WING IT THRU A SHOW.WHICH HE DID ON THE LAST TOUR.
May 27th, 2005 12:17 AM
LadyJane Watch the new video on rs.com and DARE to tell me Ronnie isn't kickin it!!!

LJ.
May 27th, 2005 12:22 AM
Soldatti Ronnie plays great during the first part of each tour, then all the way down...
May 27th, 2005 12:45 AM
Poplar
quote:
Saint Sway wrote:
imagine how much tickets would cost if the guitarist actually played



WOW - a good question.
May 27th, 2005 03:06 AM
Jumacfly
quote:
Soldatti wrote:
Ronnie plays great during the first part of each tour, then all the way down...



and then they come to Europe and then massive deception for Ronnie's fans
May 27th, 2005 04:31 AM
Pierre I'm not a Ronnie Fan to be clear.
May 27th, 2005 05:26 AM
Jumacfly
quote:
Pierre wrote:
I'm not a Ronnie Fan to be clear.



I am...but Keith playing was very disapointing too, let's face it!
May 27th, 2005 05:41 AM
ListenToTheLion
quote:
Soldatti wrote:
Ronnie plays great during the first part of each tour, then all the way down...



When I listen to bootlegs from the first part of the Licks tour I am still not impressed by Ronnie's playing. But to be honest: also Keith is not in the best shape during that tour.
May 27th, 2005 06:03 AM
Voodoo Scrounge Ronnie has completely lost what the Stones recruited him for. That down right dirty guitaring. He only survives in the stones now because of the reputation it carries.

He has no real say in song writting. I heard a Virgin radio show a few months back. The DJ asked Ronnie what the new album was like and he replied that he didnt know because he has had very little to do with it.

He will be a stone till the end, but he needs to buck his ideas up.
Keith needs to do the same too.
May 27th, 2005 09:06 AM
Honky Tonk Man I'll give Ronnie credit. At least he TRIED during the Licks tour. There were indeed, atrocious moments. His Wild Horses solo at the first Twikenham show and any of his feeble efforts on Worried About You. However, he was great on the US leg and I thought he was very impressive at the HBO show. Especially on If You Can't Rock Me.

Keith, on the other hand? Well, I think he's learnt to adapt to his frailties. He sometimes struggles to hold down a rhythm, but his Berry style fills nevertheless entertains me. It does seem to me that he really struggles at times and in my opinion, he tries to make up for it the best he can.
May 27th, 2005 05:22 PM
T&A good post there HTM - in agreement with you. KR's artform has been reduced down to a bare minimum of fills and licks. i like what i hear, but i wish there was more of it...
May 27th, 2005 06:20 PM
ListenToTheLion
quote:
Honky Tonk Man wrote:
I'll give Ronnie credit. At least he TRIED during the Licks tour.



Imagine he didn't try!
May 27th, 2005 06:36 PM
Honky Tonk Man Thank you T&A.

Like many here, I'm a Chuck Berry fan. I like his style of playing and there isn't a greater imitator of his style than Keith. The problem lies in the fact that Keith seems to have no choice. All those great rhythm guitar tracks like Neighbors, When The Whip Comes Down and so on, have been adapted to fit Keith's current form. In my opinion, the man plays some fine licks, but not where you'd think they're required. The sad truth is that they are now. Thanks to my mate stewed & Keefed, I've been watching a few of the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle shows. Now, Keith was a rhythm monster on those tours.

I don't know if you personally, or anyone else here agrees with me, but I feel that was Keith’s peak. Maybe this was when Ronnie was loosing it a little, but Keith gave 100% during those shows.
May 27th, 2005 07:04 PM
T&A As a rhythm guitarist, I think Keith's peak would still have to be '72/'73 - but then again with MT as his foil, perhaps it was easier for him to concentrate on rhythm. As for his limited range as a lead player, I'd actually have to go with 97-99 - his leads were sharp as razors in those days. Licks was the first tour I thought he actually struggled to find the notes he was trying for....
May 27th, 2005 07:27 PM
Happy Motherfucker!! >>After 1981 I completely lost confidence in Ronnie's playing. If they kick him out right now nobody would notice it.<<

Believe me many people would notice, it’s the fact that it is his image that would be missed. I for one think that Ronnie is very good at times, but not consistent. He certainly isn't a technical player by any means, but he does play what is need for Stones material, at least a percentage of the time. I do agree that he is not the player that he once was, like in the early 70's, then again maybe he is but has just losted the ability to give it 100% every time he takes a solo. The one thing that I can say about his playing that I've always liked, is his ability to improvise and play by feel. It really doesn't seem that he quite plays every solo the same every time, which is a good thing for sure. Keith on the other hand basically does what he always has done, but to a certain extent less of it. I mean, I thought his playing was good last tour and he sounded fantastic at the press conference. What he really needs to do is get the SOUND back that he had in the early 70's (72'-75') when he was using Marshall and Mesa Boogie amps pretty much exclusively. If he would just get back that dirty gritty sound that he had then, I think that this tour could really be something special. I did notice that at the pree conference that he had a much better fat sound then he has in years, so I'm hoping that this is a indication of things to come.
May 27th, 2005 09:22 PM
Child of the Moon The slide in Keith's playing really became apparent to me between Bridges and Licks. On the Bridges DVD, Keith definitely seems to know what he's doing. As mentioned above, he's playing great lead, and his rhythms, while not quite as great as '81 or '89, are still there. I still get excited watching Keith during the Bridges shows.

With Licks, it certainly was a different ballgame. The rhythms simply weren't there, and while there's nothing I love more than a good Chuck Berry lead, Keith was missing those, too. Sloppily played, their placing in songs was terribly misjudged (the only part of the HBO version of Angie I don't like is when he tries to put that little string bend in there at "Angie, I still love you, baby." That might fly with an electric rendition, but that acoustic one just didn't need it), and he kept doing it over... and over... and over... and over again. The HBO rendition of Let It Bleed... ugh, I have to skip that one every time, it's just so embarassing.

That's not to say he isn't still capable of shining moments. I thought his playing on every version I've heard of No Expectations from the last tour was phenomenal, and he continually surprised me with his parts on Worried About You, Midnight Rambler, and others. Keith's still got "it"... he just needs to pull his head out of his ass once in a while.
May 28th, 2005 01:11 AM
wgwalsh We all need to respect RW & KR. They have the guts to get up and move forward.

Don't believe all of the rumors. Some of the stories may have a thread of truth and then are developed into fiction novels.

One must ponder, after all of this time, how can they sell all of those expensive tickets if all of the rumors were true ?

Who doesn't make mistakes ? Who doesn't like to attend parties or relax with some of Grandpa Walton's recipe ?
May 28th, 2005 02:20 AM
TheSavageYoungXyzzy I'll go out on a limb, Child Of The Moon, and say it's not ability so much anymore as it is consistency.

We all know Keith Richards and to a lesser extent, Ronnie Wood were masters of their instruments. You have only to listen to the Stones or Faces of yore to know that. While age certainly plays a factor in technical skill (you simply don't move as fast, and the drugs'n'booze probably didn't help those electrical impulses cross the synapses any quicker), I think the big thing that's gone from both guitar players in the Stones is consistency, hence the big backing band. When the Licks tour first started off, it started with a bang. Ronnie was playing audible, good guitar for the first time in about a decade or so, Keith, despite the fact that he seems to have taken up mugging the crowd because he knows that unlike Ronnie he can get away with it, laid down some excellent work as well, and the pair went on their merry ways.

But as that tour progressed, Keith would slip. Then Ronnie would slip. Sometimes, one would cover for the other (the Olympia show where Ronnie barely stumbled his way through the first half, only to have Keith almost carry him through it and scare the shit out of him, bringing around an incredible second half), and sometimes, both of them would have off nights, resulting in atonal garbage. But those side people back there are more a safety net than an addition to the sound. The horns are fine, the Stones have always liked horns. But the backup singers, the prominent role of the keyboard player, and the mysterious third guitarist? They're there primarily to cover up the sound if one of the two guitarists fucks up. It's not that they've somehow lost their talent - there are boots from last tour that have both Ronnie and Keith (occasionally on the same night!) playing their guts out and sounding phenominal.

I think Ronnie's figured this out and Keith soon will as rehearsals get underway - the way to beat it is to stay in practice. After detoxing or whatever from the Licks tour, Ronnie went right back out and played with a bunch of younger bands. He organized events. He kept busy. He jammed a lot. He pretended it was the seventies. By contrast, what did Keith do? That Willie Nelson thing... and this new album. Ronnie knows he doesn't have Keith's luxury in that band. Keith pretty much flat-out said that Ronnie was the expendable member of the band, that they could keep going without him. So now he's trying to get that old consistency back by playing constantly and in live settings. By contrst, the only real playing Keith has done in awhile seems to be in the studio. In the studio, if you fuck up, you can rerecord over and over until you get it right once, then run off and never play it again. It's very different from live work.

So when I watched the "Brown Sugar" rehearsal video, it was pretty obvious to me where the problems were - that camera stayed on Ronnie the whole time, and for the first time in Stones history, he was higher in the mix than Keith. Keith sounded out of tune to me, or like he was vaguely paying attention, or struggling to keep up. Granted, he sure as hell came together for the live show, and they sounded great if a little sloppy there, but he would do well (and Ronnie could do well continuing) to play as much as he can. If they can play consistently every night, or be able to cover if the other isn't having an "on" evening, then they don't really need that safety net of the backup crew.

So yeah, it's not their skill. I've heard them both play some pretty awesome stuff fairly recently. It's just the ability to keep that skill going over the course of a year or so of heavy touring when you're in your late 50s/early 60s.
May 28th, 2005 06:00 AM
luxury1 Good to see you posting again, Savage. I always enjoy your words.
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