Waiting to be kissed
You're a beauty, such a cutie
How could I resist
-“Oh No, Not You Again”
There she stood, a shapely young blond girl, in her early twenties shaking every bone in her body. She was wearing a tight white top, short jean skirt, red cowboy boots and caught the attention of everyone in her sight. However, whoever was gazing at her, she did not take notice as her eyes were on one man, who was forty-years her senior. Her eyes were transfixed on him as he shook, sauntered and signaled to her when she caught his eye. As their eyes met, she let out a scream at the top of her lungs piercing those around her and her body could no longer contain the stimulation as she shot up and down in the air, almost as if those red boots had mini rockets on them. During all of this commotion, she stretched her arms out wanting to make some kind of a connection with the God in her midst. As he looked at her and howled “Oh No, Not You Again”, she shrieked louder. Why in God’s name is this young twenty-something woman screaming and hollering at a sixty-two-year-old man? I’ll tell you why, the man is Mick Jagger. Say what you want about him -God, Satan, sexy, ugly, ego maniac or tortured soul-the man is a rock God. In the annals of rock n’ roll, the Rolling Stones are unprecedented; other bands have come and gone, but at the end of the day, only the Stones have been able to keep it together through breaks ups, death, drugs and a constantly changing musical climate over forty years.
I don’t go to shows to find the cracks in the foundation. I look the other way hoping that every time I witness the magic of live rock ‘n roll that I will be transformed to another place and time. With some luck and a virtuous proposal to the right people, I found myself extremely fortunate to review not one, but two Rolling Stones shows over the last week. I was blessed to catch them rock out the Bradley Center in Milwaukee and then two nights later in Chicago at Soldier Field. The focal motive for seeing two shows was to see if there would be a dramatic variation in witnessing the self proclaimed “World’s Greatest Rock Band” in modest (arena) and larger than life (stadium) settings. Is there a difference between shows and venues? Yes. Can it be summed up to altered songs and staging? No. The truth is each show has a unique stamp on it. Sometimes it’s a chosen rarity, a guest performance, a mishap or the response of the crowd that gives each show its individuality and prevailing significance. There are those who say the shows are all the same, the good news is that after seeing these two shows I can say they couldn’t be further from the truth.
Part One: Thursday September 8th-Milwaukee, WI
The Bradley Center (The Arena)
The lights dimmed and an intro video showing a “big bang” in outer space occurring. Out of the wreckage, the band member’s faces appeared one by one until the Keith Richards riff to “Start Me Up” ignited the crowd. Running out of the darkness was the model for all front men; Mick Jagger. Strolling along like a man in his thirties, with a red jacket and hat, he reached out to the near sold-out audience…“Start Me Up, I’ll never stop” he sang and for the next 110-minutes, he never did stop. While “Start Me Up” has opened every show of the tour to date, what follows depends on anyone of a number of circumstances. The song that has held the final slot for the majority of the tour, “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll”, was next as Richards tore through his best Chuck Berry riff. I somehow knew by not being conservative with their set list, like they had been in stadium over the two previous weeks, something magical would happen.The Stones has one of the vastest catalogs in the history of music so trying to decide what to perform each tour is a daunting task. However, I have yet to go to a Stones show and not see at least one song I’ve never seen before. Tonight, that song was “She’s So Cold”. The standout track from 1980's “Emotional Rescue” was in peak form as the band shred through the number like a band who had something to prove. A quarter century after the song was first written and twenty-three years since it was last performed and the band are setting another benchmark for performance with this emergent version.
Two days prior to the show, the band released their first new studio album of new material in eight years, A Bigger Bang. Tonight, the album was represented by three songs, including “Rough Justice”. There are those who do not want to see this new material, however, if a band stops creating, they stop developing as musicians. “Rough Justice” is proof that the band is still evolving. Keith Richards fired off a few shredding licks which proving the Stones don’t plan on resting on their laurels any time soon.
Exile On Main Street was dispatched next. This is the Stones at their most raw. Ron Wood’s solo was slick and potent as his guitar wailed and screeched signifying that the heart of rock n’ roll is still pulsating with a vengeance.
Jagger introduced “Night Time Is The Right Time”, performed as a tribute to Ray Charles. If a concert is truly astonishing, you will walk away with at least one transcendent moment that will be etched in your heart and mind forever. Tonight, this was that moment. The soulful tune established that beyond all else, the Rolling Stones are the world’s greatest cover band. The soulful rendition had killer vocals from Jagger, but wait, there was more. Out of the back of the stage appeared opening act Buddy Guy. When it came time to solo, Buddy let his axe rip and it was one of the most ferocious acts of performance I’ve ever been witnessed to. In the midst of Buddy’s solo, Ron Wood, who was standing behind Buddy, turned around and watched the solo from the giant screen overlooking the stage. Buddy’s playing was so fervent that he broke a string on his guitar. Wood returned his eyes to the stage where the blues legend himself was mere feet in front of him and stood there in complete awe as he shook his head back and forth is disbelief at the solo he just witnessed. Ron Wood was not the only one doing this but also the 16,000 in attendance. What I had witnessed was arguably the world’s greatest blues guitarist steal the show from the world’s greatest rock band. When the song came to its climactic finish, the crowd in the upper rafters were on their feet roaring with approval the likes of which I’ve seen merely a handful of times in my life.
The first nine songs of the band’s set were perfectly paced and performed. After band introductions, Keith Richards stepped up to the microphone for his two numbers, and surprisingly instead of a rush for the bathrooms, many were eager and did listen attentively. Keith’s songs continue to grow on you with every listen. If you go back to 1980 and picked the twenty-five best songs by the band, many of those numbers would be Keith tunes. “Little T&A”, “I Wanna Hold You”, “All About You”, “Slipping Away”, “Thru and Thru”, “Thief In The Night” and “Losing My Touch” are classics. Keith’s songs have always been faithful to the blues model the Stones based their sound around their first decade. Tonight he started off with “The Worst” from 1994's Voodoo Lounge (arguably the band’s best post-1981 album). A gorgeous sweet sax solo, a harmonizing duet from backup singer Bernard Fowler and Ron Wood’s melodious country pedal steel melodies would give us one of the finest performances of this song as new life was breathed into it. When I first saw this song on the Voodoo Lounge tour in ‘94, it was rough around the edges and in all honesty, felt unfinished. Tonight it was sweet and tranquil. However, before Keith was done, “Infamy” (from A Bigger Bang) would be performed with a iniquitous riffs from Richards backed by a band relishing the prospect to establish themselves as more than just a band who relies on greatest hits.
Mick rejoined the band back on stage, with a microphone wrapped around his head, as the band ran through “Miss You”. Halfway through the song, the stage began to lift with the six main players and it flew over to the b-stage, where your humble narrator happened to be in front of. As the stage landed and the band continued through “Miss You”, it became clearly evident that bassist Daryl Jones, who took over for retired Bill Wyman in 1994, has clearly found his groove as a true member of this band. As I watched his fingers move across those four strings and felt the reverberations of his playing, I realized how underappreciated he is. Daryl’s bass was turned down in the mix for his first few tours following Bill Wyman’s departure, most likely out of respect to Wyman’s style of performing. However, Daryl’s a seasoned veteran now, so for the first time in his tenure I am really hearing and feeling the musicianship he brings to the stage.The final new song of the evening, “Oh No Not You Again”, electrified the crowd with its catchy chorus. Jagger strut his stuff and with wide open arms tried to make contact with as many audience members as possible. Charlie Watts may be 64-years old but his drumming is unprecedented. He whacks them harder and maintains the rhythm better than anyone else. During “You Got Me Rocking” he was hammering his drums so fiercely I thought he may shatter one. The upper rafters were singing and shaking along to the band’s catchiest tune of their post Tattoo You catalog.
The remainder of the show my friends refer to as the Hot Rocks set, as its one powerhouse track after another. “Paint It Black” is one of those haunting songs that resonate as much today as it did when originally written over thirty-five years ago. The classic guitar intro led into a devastating pulsation by drummer Charlie Watts on his kit. As I gazed to the upper rafters to the crowd behind me, seas of people were clapping with their hands in unison. This was merely another song where the band, once again led by inexhaustible Charlie Watts, was firing on all cylinders and they maneuvered the crowd to the next level of madness with this intense performance. “Honky Tonk Woman”, “Sympathy For The Devil”, “Brown Sugar” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” were gloriously performed pushing the audience over the top.
For the lone encore, Richards took to the stage, front and center, to play arguably rock’s most celebrated riff, “Satisfaction”. The current incarnation of “Satisfaction” has been stripped back where it has less emphasis on the spectacle and more of a concentration on the crude performance. As the song came to a rousing finale, the Milwaukee crowd was rapturous. I was tired after standing for close to two-hours watching this band give it their all, and I’m less than half of Ron Wood’s age (58). I went into the show with a cynical chip on my shoulder not believing they would capture my imagination as I felt they would not show me anything I had not seen before. I’m happy to say that I was dead wrong. It appeared to me that the Stones still had something to prove as this determination would flow over into the stadium performance two nights later.
Anthony Kuzminski is a Chicago based writer and Special Features Editor for the antiMusic Network. His daily writings can be read at The Screen Door. He can be contacted at thescreendoor AT gmail DOT com and can be followed on Twitter
