RSFCO

photo by © Blue Lena stonesplanet.com

TORONTO -- The Rolling Stones went for a much "bigger bang" last night in front of more than 40,000 fans at the Rogers Centre.

After playing to a mere 1,000 fans at the Phoenix during a special club show back in August -- as they wrapped up tour rehearsals in Toronto at Greenwood College School -- the veteran British rockers returned to play a proper, two-hour stadium show with all the bells and whistles. That meant performing on a massive steel stage -- 90-feet tall and 285-feet wide -- with two built-in balconies for about 240 fans behind the band .

There was also an impressive video-and-light show reflecting the title of their latest album, A Bigger Bang.

Fireworks and fire bursts signalled the evening's first song, Start Me Up, a tune that also began the Stones' tour opener on Aug. 21 in Boston at Fenway Park.

In fact, the band, led by frontman Mick Jagger, resplendent in a sparkly silver jacket, continued the Fenway Park set list with You Got Me Rockin' , but then veered away with the third song, She's So Cold, which included vintage video.

Jagger, 62, moved easily and nimbly around the stage, shaking his hips and clapping his hands, while guitarist Keith Richards, 61, could be seen with a cigarette dangling from his lips from the opening song.

"Hello Toronto!" said Jagger. "Oh boy, I tell you, six weeks, we rehearsed in a school down the road. Everyone was really hospitable. Hopefully, tonight we sound like we rehearsed."

When they first appeared, the band was just Jagger, Richards, guitarist Ron Wood, drummer Charlie Watts, bassist Daryl Jones and keyboardist Chuck Leavell, but eventually it expanded to a much larger configuration.

Three backup singers and a four-man horn section joined the group for song number four, Tumblin' Dice, a definite concert highlight.

The first new song of the night was Rough Justice, also the first single from A Bigger Bang. But despite that album's overwhelmingly positive reviews, it was clear most of the crowd had come for the hits.

"Are you in the mood for something a little more romantic now?" asked Jagger, before launching into the Stones classic, Ruby Tuesday, to huge cheers as Richards chimed in on the chorus.

The band also pulled out the lesser-known, country-tinged Dead Flowers, a song they also performed at the Phoenix with Jagger on acoustic guitar, and the Sticky Fingers' standout Bitch.

Also intact from Boston's tour opener was the band's tribute to Ray Charles. They performed a soulful rendition of Charles' Night Time Is The Right Time with backup singer Lisa Fischer tearing up the joint with her stadium-worthy vocals, sometimes achieved through deep-knee bends.

Richards, wearing his trademark Pirates of The Caribbean bandanna and hair trinkets, was also a crowd pleaser on lead vocals on both The Worst and Infamy, the best new song off A Bigger Bang.

"It's good to be amongst friends," said Richards.

The neat trick of the night, as in Boston, was when the Stones moved from their main stage to a smaller b-stage. During Miss You, the band was on an elevated stage, moving via hydraulics on a track to the back of the floor.

The group remained on the scaled-down stage for three more songs -- the new tune, Oh No, Not You Again, Satisfaction, and Honky Tonk Woman, the latter during which they returned back to the main stage where a gigantic pair of inflated, flowered-decorated lips greeted them.

Later highlights were Sympathy For The Devil with the stage bathed in red lights and fire bursts and a Richards' incendiary signature guitar solo, a horn-heavy Brown Sugar and the set-ending energizer Jumpin' Jack Flash with yet more fireworks and firebursts.

The encore saw a spirited crowd singalong on You Can't Always Get What You Want -- "Hey Toronto, you sang that beautifully," said Jagger -- and the end-of-the-night fan favourite, It's Only Rock 'N' Roll.

Meanwhile, opening act Beck, decked out in a white blazer, a black, white and red polka-dot shirt and black pants, had the unenviable task of playing to a half-full stadium of Stones fans earlier in the evening.

Plucky as ever, the hip-hop-blues-folkie and his five-piece band opened his 35-minute set with his seldom-played breakthrough hit, Loser, despite being completely dwarfed by the Stones mega-stage.

Then he got straight to new tunes from his latest album, Guero -- Black Tambourine and Girl -- before a fan finally shouted out some much-needed love.

"I love you too -- we have some friends!" said Beck, 35, with a laugh, but before he could finish his thought his band broke into Devil's Haircut from 1996's Odelay, followed by Where It's At.