| October 8th, 2005 04:24 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
It may be only rock 'n' roll but Jagger never phones it in
Jagger still better than anyone
RAY MCALLISTER
POINT OF VIEW Oct 8, 2005
timesdispatch.com
You know those "100 Things to Do Before You Die" lists? Jump out of an airplane. See a Hawaiian sunset. Try to figure out reality shows.
Well, if "See the Stones" isn't on your list, you need to rip up your list.
It's a bad list.
The Rolling Stones may not be an obvious choice. They will never be the Beatles, after all. They're history's No. 2.
And as for creativity, well, Jagger-Richards has never been confused with Lennon-McCartney, or Dylan, or Springsteen.
And even when they were shyly promoting themselves as "The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band," the Stones may not have been the straight-ahead rockers The Who were.
But you want a show, this is a show.
No, this is THE show.
Let's just go ahead right now and call Mick Jagger the most commanding stage presence of our lifetimes.
Competition's over.
Too over the top? He's got to be close. Jagger offered compelling evidence again Thursday night in concert at the University of Virginia's Scott Stadium in Charlottesville.
We were lucky enough to go, thanks to our older daughter getting tickets for us, her and her husband.
Jagger's performance?
Well, they say when Laurence Olivier was on stage, you couldn't take your eyes off him.
Bogart on film was that way.
Nobody could take their eyes off Jagger. Forty-five thousand pairs of eyes. He struts, he runs, he gyrates, he thrusts, he points, he exhorts, he stares down, he preens, he thrashes, he punches, he enraptures.
Jagger is an aerobics instructor on steroids. A boxer with Gene Kelly's moves. The devil on Energizer-bunny batteries.
And keep in mind the Stones are supposed to be old guys. They've done these songs a million times. Almost everything Thursday was 30 or 40 years old.
Why not phone it in? Just do a nostalgia show. Contemporaries do. And their audience is certainly heavy on the baby boomers.
But the Stones do the biggest tour out there, with the best staging and special effects, and with Jagger, of course.
So everyone comes. Teens and college kids are pocketed between the pockets of Boomers. Lots of 'em, too, dancing, singing, thrusting their fists into the air.
You would have thought it was a Green Day concert.
How good were Jagger and the Stones?
Good enough to keep 45,000 people on their feet every second, singing and dancing, even including people like me, who can't, well, sing or dance.
Good enough to come back after a 55-minute interruption for a bomb hoax and somehow have everyone amped back up within, oh, 5 seconds.
Good enough even to joke that a concert at U.Va. was "cooler" than one at Virginia Tech would have been -- and not anger Tech fans.
So if you have not seen Jagger and the Stones, some advice: Start a list of things to do before you die, and put that on it. Up high.
It may not be easy.
Cost of one concert ticket: $110.
Time spent in a traffic jam just to get to the stadium: 2 hours.
Number of people trying to squeeze in the gates at once: Thousands.
Mick Jagger: Ageless.
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| October 8th, 2005 05:52 AM |
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| maumau |
wow
maybe virgin should hire him for a change |
| October 8th, 2005 07:31 AM |
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| exile |
great review |
| October 8th, 2005 08:52 AM |
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| Daethgod |
that was the coolest read !
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| October 8th, 2005 09:09 AM |
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| jb |
Fuck that...Jagger/Richards are far superior to Macca/Lennon. Ans while I love the EWho, lets not get carried away....the Big four albums blows away anything the Beatles or any other group ever recorded. |
| October 8th, 2005 10:23 AM |
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| JaggerLips |
Fantastic read!
It's definitely one of those things you have to do before you die.
Pretend this is their last tour and save your money and get yourself some tickets and go and mavel and savour every strum of the guitar and ever thud on the drums and the sound of Mick's larynx at work.
I can't wait to see them all again! |
| October 8th, 2005 12:25 PM |
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| Flashpoint |
quote:
jb wrote:
Fuck that...Jagger/Richards are far superior to Macca/Lennon. Ans while I love the EWho, lets not get carried away....the Big four albums blows away anything the Beatles or any other group ever recorded.
Well, the composition thing it's just about taste i think and that comparison will be floating around forever but i did not share the Who remark at all...should we send him a copy of Brussels Affair? |
| October 8th, 2005 02:20 PM |
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| gorda |
Note to self:
Get a boob lift when I turn 40!
Is that what happens?
Geez!
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| October 8th, 2005 06:31 PM |
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| Soldatti |
Mick's work is incredible, let alone that he's on his 60's!
I went to see a local band show yesterday, another "Stones" wannabe bands over here and the frontman (age: 25) barely could sing during the 2 hours of show. |
| October 8th, 2005 10:03 PM |
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| glencar |
quote:
jb wrote:
Fuck that...Jagger/Richards are far superior to Macca/Lennon. Ans while I love the EWho, lets not get carried away....the Big four albums blows away anything the Beatles or any other group ever recorded.
You reach brilliance occasionally still... |
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