 Commercia Park, Detroit
on Wednesday, August 31st. 2005.
Set list:
Start Me Up - You Got Me Rocking - She's So Cold - Tumbling Dice - Rough Justice - Back Of My Hand - Beast Of Burden - Ain't Too Proud To Beg - Night Time Is The Right Time - Intros - The Worst - Infamy - Miss You - Oh No, Not You Again - Satisfaction - Honky Tonk Women - Out Of Control - Sympathy For The Devil - Jumping Jack Flash - Brown Sugar - You Can't Always Get What You Want - It's Only Rock'n'Roll (encore)
Reviews:
Rolling Stones deliver satisfaction with a bang by Brian McCollum
There's no such thing as a little Rolling Stones show.
RICHARD LEE/DFP
Mick Jagger
of the Rolling Stones rocks Comerica Park on Wednesday.
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As evidenced Wednesday night at Comerica Park, where a near-capacity crowd of
about 38,000 gathered for the fifth date on the band's aptly named "A
Bigger Bang" tour, these aren't so much concerts as they are manmade
wonders.
As they have with every tour going back two decades, the Stones once again
have upped the ante on stage production. At this rate, the band's Really Really
Big Bang Tour in 2008 will have to play cornfields to accommodate all the frills.
Wednesday night, vocalist Mick Jagger roamed a stage so mammoth it appeared to
be part of the Detroit skyline -- a towering contraption with the look of a
futuristic parking deck. Along the top four stories were scores of fans who in
some cases paid hundreds of dollars for what likely amounted to the strangest
front-row seats they'd yet enjoyed.
Beneath them were Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood, and drummer
Charlie Watts, back for another round of shout-along rock classics, presented
with polish to match the dizzying lights and state-of-the-art sound.
As with previous Stones stadium shows -- and any music production of this
magnitude -- the flip side of such spectacle is the sprawling distance, literal
and figurative, between the band and its audience.
Even from the closest seats, which stretched in long rows across Comerica
Park's outfield, it was easy to feel a disconnect. From the back of the stadium
-- in this case, behind home plate -- it could feel as if you were viewing
someone else's concert.
Jagger did his part to bridge the gap, establishing his personal tempo from
the outset as he scampered and strutted from one end of the stage to the other,
making clear that fans could rely on at least one source of motion for the
night.
And, yes, there was indeed music. After taking the stage at 9:20 p.m. to a
mini fireworks display, the group launched into "Start Me Up," the
first in a 21-song set of music spanning precisely four decades. Audience roars
went up with each familiar, wiry opening lick -- "Tumblin' Dice,"
"Beast of Burden," "Sympathy for the Devil."
New tunes from the band's upcoming album, "A Bigger Bang," largely
held their own against the time-tested ones.
While there were few surprises in the set list, the Stones shook things up
with their potent cover of "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" -- the obligatory
Motown nod in Detroit -- and a heartfelt rendition of Ray Charles' "Night
Time is the Right Time."
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