| August 19th, 2005 11:45 PM |
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| Daethgod |
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,16323024%255E1702,00.html
Stones return with big bang tour
From correspondents in Boston
20aug05
THE Rolling Stones start a global tour in Boston tomorrow that will extend their record as the world's most successful touring band and put Mick Jagger and Keith Richards back into the musical controversy they most enjoy.
The still-strutting, rock granddads are promoting their first studio album in eight years, "A Bigger Bang".
They consider it one of their more leaner and meaner efforts and the lyrics to a song attacking American neo-cons have guaranteed that the tour will start at Boston's Fenway Park in the polemical spotlight they love.
While they deny that "Sweet Neo Con" is a direct attack on the administration of President George W. Bush, Jagger's words leave little doubt, according to most listeners:
"How come you're so wrong,
"My sweet neo con?
"Where's the money gone,
"In the Pentagon?"
The Stones front man is unapologetic and the group has little to fear.
Jagger says the song came out of an argument he had with some "Republican friends". "We disagreed and we argued about Iraq," he said in a recent interview with CNN.
While the Dixie Chicks faced a conservative backlash for saying they were ashamed of the Iraq war, every Rolling Stones date in North America is practically sold out with the best tickets having a face price of more than $US 450 dollars.
And the music industry is agreed that the Rolling Stones' 31st world tour will increase their legendary status.
The Rolling Stones are "far and away the most successful touring entity in the history of mankind," Ray Waddell, senior editor at Billboard, was quoted as saying by USA Today newspaper.
Since 1989, the group has grossed $US 1.125billion around the world, selling more than 12 million tickets during the 1990s, according to the report.
"The Stones have written and rewritten the book on touring," said Waddell, with the use of credit cards at merchandising stands and using one promoter for global tours instead of one for each country.
Jagger said the songs from the new album -- which is released on September 6 -- are so strong that about 12 have been rehearsed for the concerts.
He wanted a back-to-basics Stones to come through in the songs. "I thought, 'We can't do this album the way we've been doing them, spending months in a studio with hundreds of people. It's difficult, expensive and not much fun'," Jagger said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
So there is only Jagger, guitarists Richards and Ron Woods, drummer Charlie Watts and bassist Darryl Jones who play on most of the 16 new songs which includes country-soul ballads as well as raunchy Rolling Stones.
Watts is back in action having finished surgery and treatment for throat cancer. Jagger and Richards had just started writing songs for the album at Jagger's home in France when they were told of Watts' illness.
But he is set to be a fixture for the whole tour that will take the Rolling Stones through the United States and Canada, Latin America this year, Japan and Asia early in 2006 and then back to Europe from June to August next year.
The Rolling Stones have now been playing for 43 years, in various guises and despite deaths and scares such as Watts' illness.
Richards said in a recent interview with NBC television that the band still loves what it does. "It's as simple as that."
But Jagger admitted there is more. "You want to do the job that you enjoy doing. But, the other thing is that the difference perhaps between us and these other people is that we make a big noise about it." |
| August 20th, 2005 12:27 AM |
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| corgi37 |
Has there actually been any word they are really coming to Oz from the boys themselves? Or is it still "up in the air"? |
| August 20th, 2005 12:44 AM |
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| Daethgod |
i keep hearing April/March
word is Rod Laver is booked
Corgi we are there, in the pit !
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| August 20th, 2005 10:16 AM |
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| corgi37 |
You better believe it mate. |
| August 20th, 2005 03:09 PM |
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| Soldatti |
quote:
But he is set to be a fixture for the whole tour that will take the Rolling Stones through the United States and Canada, Latin America this year, Japan and Asia early in 2006 and then back to Europe from June to August next year.
Latin America this year?
an obvious mistake. |
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