The world's greatest geriatric rock show hit Nashville's Gaylord
Entertainment Center Monday night, and the Rolling Stones offered proof that
paying $300 a ticket to watch some old guys play rock 'n' roll isn't always a
stupid idea.
It was really them, in all their glory, not some weathered and compromised
version of something that used to be great. The show lasted more than two hours,
with little between-song patter other than lead singer Mick Jagger's occasional
''Thank you, Nashville.''
Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Charlie Watts and their battery of
backing players came to play, not to converse. They opened with a throttling
Street Fighting Man, closed with a super-tough Jumpin' Jack Flash and played a
bevy of hits in between. The Music City locale may have had something to do with
the choice to play Sweet Virginia and Loving Cup, two lopers that sound far too
countrified for today's country radio.
By PETER COOPER
Staff Writer
It shouldn't work anymore, but it does.
The Rolling Stones who performed Monday night at Nashville's Gaylord
Entertainment Center are as much a giant, mobile corporation as a band.
The $35 T-shirts only seem a bargain by comparison to the $300 tickets. The
fans are better-padded (in wallet and in belly), with less hair and more khaki.
The group now exists without longtime bass player Bill Wyman. The venue is too
big for an honest-to-goodness rock show. The Stones haven't made a great album
in at least 21 years (and that's if we give that 'great' designation to Tattoo
You), and both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards will turn 60 years old next year.
As fan and music business veteran Andy McLenon remarked before the show, the
Stones know what we're thinking: too old, too expensive. This isn't a rock
concert, it's a dinosaur exhibit.
''They know all that,'' McLenon said. ''I'm telling you, they won't let us
down.''
Um, they didn't. They were on. They were great. They were magic. They exist
in full glory, not as some weathered and compromised souvenir of a triumphant
past. They still do something no one else can do.
Monday, Keith Richards was first to emerge. He wore a baggy coat, a Fender
Telecaster and what songwriter John Prine would call an ''illegal smile,'' and
his snarling guitar riff was a ''Gentleman, start your engines'' call. In an
instant, the Stones burst into Street Fighting Man, throttling the audience with
sound and motion. Many times, Richards bent down, his guitar only inches from
the stage, as if transmitting the secret, raunchy tones of the underworld.
Guitarist Ron Wood ó the youngest and newest official Stone, having joined
the band a mere 27 years ago ó has cleaned up his alcoholic act and emerged
with renewed vigor and sharpened senses. He and Richards create a sludgy murk
that sounds bigger and badder than ever. Meanwhile, drummer Charlie Watts thuds
merrily along, holding his sticks in a jazz-ready style that appears antiquated
and sounds Ö it sounds like he's playing drums for the by-gosh Rolling Stones.
Jagger is in amazing shape, appearing far younger than most of the
40-year-olds in the crowd. The tour has taken no toll on his voice, which
remains pliant and powerful. He still jumps about and dances around, though
Monday he concentrated on singing songs rather than play-acting. He's a showman,
but not at the expense of the songs.
Ah, the songs. Start Me Up, Tumbling Dice, Gimme Shelter, Satisfaction, Honky
Tonk Women, Brown Sugar and other hits were heard, of course. The Stones are
touring in support of a ''Best Of'' album called Forty Licks, which meant there
was no need to concentrate on recent, lesser material (goodbye, Steel Wheels and
Bridges to Babylon), though the band did produce a sweltering You Got Me Rocking
and a poignant, Richards-led The Worst, both from 1994's Voodoo Lounge album).
The
only brand new song was Forty Licks' Don't Stop. A four-song mini-set of Exile
on Main Street (1972) material was strongly received: perhaps the Music City
date provided impetus to do the honky-tonkin' Sweet Virginia and Loving Cup.
Missteps? Well, a piped-in percussion track left Sympathy For The Devil too
close to karaoke. It was more an excuse to sing ''woo woo'' than it was an
evocation of the original recording's danger and mystery. Later, an elongated
jam on Can't You Hear Me Knocking left some in the crowd checking watches (or
racing to beat last call for alcohol).
But the trip to the mid-floor ''B Stage'' was good, mucky fun, with the guys
standing close together and banging out It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, Little Red
Rooster and Brown Sugar. Then the Stones exited the hall, only to reemerge on
the main stage for Jumpin' Jack Flash, which was nothing if not the toughest,
most explosive thing in the world.
Two hours, 21 songs, no real let downs. There was an old guy up there,
singing ''She blew my nose and then she blew my mind,'' and it sounded like
poetry.
Review:
Mike
Moeller:
IT WAS JUST A GREAT NIGHT IN NASHVILLE. AND A SPECIAL THANKS GOES OUT
TO THE UNNAMED WAITRESS AT JOES CRAB SHACK FOR ASKING FOR I.D. WHEN I
ORDERED A DRINK (I AM 32 AND LOOK EVERY BIT OF IT).
ANY HOW, HERE IS A SONG BY SONG REVIEW
1.STREET FIGHTING MAN - CAME OUT ROCKING WITH KEITH LIGHTING UP THE
STAGE. NOT A STUDIO FAVORITE OF MINE BUT IT WAS AWSOME LIVE.
2.START ME UP - GOOD VERSION.
3.IF YOU CANT ROCK ME - THE BAND CONTINUES TO SET AN AWSOME OPENING
PACE WITH THIS SONG.
4.DONT STOP - NOT A FAVORITE OF MINE. I WISH THEY WOULD HAVE THROWN A
RARE SONG IN THIS SPOT. WORRIED ABOUT YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER BUT
THIS WASNT BAD.
5.MONKEY MAN - GUITAR PROBLEMS EARLY ON WERE SOON CORRECTED AS KEITH
AND RONNIE WERE TERRIFIC. ONLY THING IS NO LISA FISCHER TO THIS POINT.
6.GIMME SHELTER - WE NOW HAVE LISA FISCHER AND SHE IS AMAZING. THIS
SONG WAS PLAYED WONDERFULLY.
--- EXILE ON MAIN STREET SET ---
7.SWEET VIRGINIA - GREAT TO SEE THE EXILE SET. ONLY PROBLEM WAS THAT
THERE WAS A PROBLEM WITH THE GUEST VIOLENISTS SOUND.
8.LOVING CUP - I HAVE LISTENED TO SEVERAL BOOTS OF THIS SONG FROM THIS
TOUR BUT THIS WAS JUST THE BEST VERSION I HAVE EVER HEARD.
9.ROCKS OFF - GOOD SONG. TIGHT VERSION. I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE
HEARD LET IT LOOSE IN THE EXILE SET.
10.TUMBLING DICE - MICK SAYS ONE MORE SONG FROM EXILE AND THERE IT IS.
THIS SONG WAS JUST GREAT.
---INTRODUCTIONS---
THE CROWD REALLY RESPONDED FOR CHARLIE AND KEITH.
--- KEITH'S SET ---
11. THE WORST - I AM A HUGE KEITH FAN BUT HE DID NOT REALLY SEEM TO BE
INTO HIS SET TONIGHT. THE WORST WAS GOOD BUT THRU AND THRU WOULD HAVE
BEEN NICE BECAUSE IT IS LONGER AND WOULD HAVE GIVEN US MORE KEITH TIME.
12.HAPPY - EXILE NIGHT CONTINUES WITH KEITH KICKING ON HIS MOST FAMOUS
TUNE. NICE WORK BY RONNIE AS WELL.
13.SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL - JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD GET A BREAK
WITH AN OFF SONG....HELL NO! HERE IS SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL WITH KEITH
DOING VERY WELL ON HIS SOLO. WHO CARES IF HE WASNT INTO THE WORST. HE
PERFORMED ON THIS SONG LIKE ONLY HE CAN. NICE FLAMING TOUNGE ON THE
JUMBO SCREEN.
14.YOU GOT ME ROCKING - EXCELLENT SONG. KEITH AND RONNIE WERE REALLY
100 PERCENT INTO THIS ONE.
15.CANT YOU HEAR ME KNOCKING - WELL I HAD READ ALL THE REVIEWS FROM
OTHER SHOWS AND THEY WERE ALL GREAT BUT REVIEWS CANNOT DESCRIBE THIS
SONG. NUFF SAID!
16.HONKY TONK WOMEN - GREAT SONG WITH KEITH WALKING OUT PLAYING THE
OPENING RIFF WITH ONE HAND. ALSO HAD A GREAT ANIMATED VIDEO PLAYING ON
THE JUMBO SCREEN.
17.SATISFACTION - KEITH REALLY WAS INTO THIS ONE TONIGHT. IT IS
AMAZING HOW MANY TIMES THEY HAVE TO PLAY SOME OF THESE SONGS AND STILL
MAKE THEM SOUND THIS AMAZING RATHER THAN STALE.
--- B STAGE ---
18.ITS ONLY ROCK AND ROLL -
BELIEVE IT OR NOT I AM NOT A HUGE FAN OF
THIS SONG BUT LIKE SFM IT WAS JUST INCREDIBLE LIVE.
19.LITTLE RED ROOSTER - DELIVERED AT A PERFECT BLUESY PACE THAT HAD
EVERYONE ROCKING.(I WAS SCARED THE GENTLEMAN'S LITTLE RED ROOSTER IN
FRONT OF ME WAS GOING TO GET CARRIED AWAY AS HE WAS HAVING SOME FUN
WITH TWO LADIES)
20.BROWN SUGAR - KEITH JUMPS RIGHT INTO BROWN SUGAR AND THE PLACE IS
GOING NUTS (NO REFERENCE TO #19 GENTLEMAN) BOBBY KEYS COMES ON THE B
STAGE TO JUST HAMMER THE SAX SOLO.
--- ENCORE ---
21.JUMPING JACK FLASH - WELL THE BAND EXITED THE B STAGE AND ITS
ENCORE TIME. SUDDENLY OUT OF NOWHERE .... JUMPING JACK FLASH. THIS WAS
A PERFECT ENCORE FOR AN EVENING WHEN THESE SO CALLED SENIOR CITIZENS
SET A PACE THAT HAD ALL AGES IN THE GAYLORD CENTER GASPING FOR AIR.
I MUST SAY THAT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE SEEN THE STONES LIVE. IN
PAST TOURS THERE SEEMED THAT SOMETHING ALWAYS CAME UP. I MUST ALSO SAY
TO ANYONE OUT THERE WHO HAS NOT SEEN THEM, DONT LET SOMETHING COME UP!
THEY ARE NOT THE WORLDS GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL BAND IN NAME ONLY. THEY
ROCKED NASHVILLE AND LEFT EVERYONE THERE NO LONGER WONDERING WHY THEY
PAID WHAT THEY DID FOR THEIR TICKET. I HAVE NEVER BEEN A BIG FAN OF
MICK JAGGER BUT I MUST SAY THAT HE IS A TRUELY GIFTED PERFORMER AND I
LEAVE THIS SHOW WITH A NEW FOUND REPECT. AS FOR KEITH, HE IS THE MAN I
HAVE ALWAYS ADMIRED HIS DESIRE AND PURE ENJOYMENT OF WHAT HE DOES.
RONNIE WOOD PLAYED GREAT AND HE PROBABLY DOESNT GET THE CREDIT HE
DESERVES. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST CHARLIE. THIS MAN IS AMAZING.
THANKS TO THE GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL BAND IN THE WORLD FOR GIVING ME
THIS GREAT NIGHT IN NASHVILLE.
Gaylord Entertainment Center,
Nashville, Tennessee
Review: Rolling Stones of today shows days of glory aren’t
over
