 Twickenham Stadium, London
on Sunday, August 24th. 2003 Around 50000 people will be attending this show.
Starsailor is warm-up tonight.
Set list:
Brown Sugar - You Got Me Rocking - Don't Stop - Rocks Off - Wild Horses -You
Can't Always Get What You Want - Paint It Black- Tumbling Dice - Slipping Away -
Happy - Sympathy For The Devil - Starfucker - I Just Wanna Make Love To You -
Street Fighting Man - Gimme Shelter - Honky Tonk Women - Start Me Up
-Satisfaction -
Jumping Jack Flash.
 Review
The grandads of rock and roll rocked on:
By Gail Hebert.
BACK in 1967 the national Times railed against the sentence passed by a harsh
judge when the Rolling Stones were busted for drugs. The line ‘Who would break
a butterfly on a wheel?’ went down in pop history.
Well those wings are gnarled seasoned leather, fashioned to last and on
Sunday they flew right back home to Twickenham. The Olympians returned to Athens.
Any residual apprehension about Mick Jagger’s ’flu leading to a second
cancelled concert were banished. The long running Forty Licks tour circus,
celebrating the band’s ruby anniversary, pitched camp at the headquarters of
English rugby on August 24, ‘‘bigger and like fine wine, better than ever’’.
To enter Twickenham rugby stadium was to walk into a wall of sound, volume
undimmed by council restrictions which reduced Twickenham’s seating capacity
by a third. Magnified musicians were splashed across giant screens, part of a
superstructure of sound and vision which took 300 personnel a week to mount
across the south stand.
The lights dimmed; a bass note pulsed around the stadium: thm, thm, thm, thm,
thm and there they were, the literal grandaddies, of rock, Charlie, 62, Ron, 56,
Keith, 59 and Sir Mick who was 60 this year. They plunged straight into Brown
Sugar and the stadium rose as one, 50,000 souls a waving, weaving mass for the
whole two hours of wrap around sensory blast over 19 songs, a new full on
Twickenham Experience. Tough if you are under 5ft 3in.
The supporting act were first up at 6.30pm. A respected combo by reputation,
Starsailor were well received by the crowd who ranged from die hard rockers,
bearded bikers, to moneyed professionals, able to fork out £75 and hundreds on
the black market, for a seat on Twickenham’s hallowed turf, overlaid for the
occasion with enough decking to shut the Ground Force team up for a year.
The band appeared delighted to be ‘‘back home’’. Mick hailed his
audience: ‘‘Welcome to Twickenham. Very nice of you to come. We’ve never
played Twickenham Rugby Club [sic]. We feel very privileged.
‘‘It wasn't going to be the first night, but that's the way it worked out
- and I'm glad you're all here.
‘‘We first played at Richmond Athletic Group. It’s not far from here to
there.’’ It was an unnecessary reminder to an audience who were there the
first time round, at the Crawdaddy in Richmond, Eel Pie Island and the Bull and
Bush (now Edwards). Local lad Ronnie Wood, long time resident of Richmond Green,
now lives in Kingston.
Guitarist Keith Richards was positively evangelical. Wearing his trademark
bandana and flicking fag ash, the 59 year old ‘sage of Sidcup’ grinned his
grizzled grin: ‘‘It’s not half nice to be home. I slept last night in my
own house.’’ Half of Twickenham must have been there and most of the
borough’s civic greats, from councillors to rotary and membership of entire
amenity societies, or so it seemed. Glitterati on a wider scale brought glimpses
of Andrew Lloyd Webber and entourage, actor Charles Dance, while 18-year-old
Elizabeth Jagger swept to her seat in a flurry of security. Someone thought they
saw BBC director general Greg Dyke being asked to stop and pose for the pictures
of fans sticking out their tongues which flashed across the giant screens during
the one hour interval.
Five thousand of the 50,000 sales were to surrounding residents and 5,000
fans travelled from overseas. Locals had oversubscribed by three to one a ballot
for 1,000 pairs of ‘twofers’ - two tickets for the price of one.
Fans were admitted from 4.30pm. Many brought along offspring, hoping their
passion had passed down the genes. Given the clamour for tickets, could it be
that the good smattering of really small children represented wasted tickets?
Those with no sixties baggage came just for the craik. No, mother, that one
is spelled differently. The strongest substance in evidence was tobacco and the
most subversive act saw jumping Mick spraying the contents of his water bottle
over the audience. There were some raunchy bits of animated action on the giant
screen during Honky Tonk Woman, I suppose.
You had to admire the energy and physique of the musicians. They defy all
received wisdom. Here was testament that you can live hard over four decades and
live to tell the tale, apparently healthy, and, worst of all dammit, stay thin.
The main man routinely catapulted up and down and from side to side of the 54
metre wide stage. Okay, if we really look hard, Mick has just the smidgen of the
beginnings of a dowager’s hump. Miaow.
The temperature on a balmy night shot up during fireworks and the searing
heat from pyrotechnics during Sympathy with the Devil and a rollicking Jumping
Jack Flash finale. Then suddenly it was 10.30pm, arms around shoulders for a
final bow and it was all over. The Stones vanished into the night as abruptly as
they arrived, no doubt off to an early night, a good book and cocoa.
The crowd, in the practised RFU way, melted into the night, moving still as
one towards Twickenham station. Comments ranged from rave up to speechless. A
spiky haired Brighton woman managed to mouth: ‘‘Fantastic. I can’t
describe it.’’ However, a fan criticised the ticket price and the set
design, saying he couldn’t see the stage or screens for ironwork and a man
from Kew thought the acoustics weren’t as good as Wembley.
From his home in neighbouring Talma Gardens, David King remarked the next day:
‘‘The audience came and went very quietly. You couldn’t hear much, just a
general sound in the distance. It only got loud at the end when they sang
Satisfaction. And we didn’t hear the sound check at all.
‘‘Our cat Pip sat listening with his ears back for the whole two hours
and only moved when the fireworks began. It was nice to see so many happy people
- I expected to be digging spent spliffs out of my hedge. There was no trouble,
but then they were all old people my age (mid 50s), weren’t they! Only joking.’’
Before the show Twickenham started to resemble international days at around
lunchtime on Sunday. The roads surrounding the rugby stadium sprouted fast food
outlets and unofficial souvenir stands. By mid-afternoon, long, good natured
queues snaked back from gate P. Security for Stones concerts is watertight and
it emerged that staff requirements had been underestimated for the required
searches of each ticket holder.
Don Parks from Ivy Cottage, leaned on his Whitton Road gate opposite at
5.30pm and watched the parade of fans with his wife Margaret. ‘‘It’s nice
to see it so orderly,’’ remarked the 86 year old. ‘‘I suppose I ought to
be flogging something’’.
His 88 year old wife agreed. ‘‘We’ve got a walnut tree. There are
walnut tree all around here, but the squirrels get them now.’’ The couple
were planning to open the window and listen to the Stones. ‘‘Or close
it’’, Margaret added after a pause.
 
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