Rock icon turns 80, fans wonder where the time went
Smiths Falls Record News
By Chris Must
Just a few days ago, the music press announced that Robert Plant (ex-lead singer of Led Zeppelin) would be joining in an Oct. 28 birthday bash for none other than Bill Wyman, the original bassist for The Rolling Stones.
What caught this music fan off guard was the fact that Wyman (born Bill Perks) is celebrating his 80th birthday this year. What the hell?
As someone who was originally inspired to pick up an out of tune six-string acoustic guitar back in 1980 after hearing about the musical and non-musical exploits of Mick and Keith and the other archetypal bad boys of rock, I spent many years dreaming that I might actually get to see these musical heroes in person.
Despite fears that The Rolling Stones would break up for good in the mid-1980s after Mick Jagger launched a solo career, the band stayed together, recorded yet another album, and embarked on a massive tour in 1989. In December of that year the Steel Wheels tour came to Montreal, and I was determined not to miss the show.
It was like a pilgrimage to Mecca. My wife and I, and fellow news reporter George Mather boarded a bus in Smiths Falls and were taken to Olympic Stadium for the Stones concert.
In the event, the venue was packed with thousands of fans, but the acoustics in the concrete stadium ensured that we were treated to one of the largest (and most expensive) garage band shows ever. The guitars and keyboards were very hard to hear, but Mick Jaggers’ vocals, along with Charlie Watts’ drums and the deep, rumbling bass tones supplied by the aforementioned Bill Wyman were clearly audible. This was one of Wyman’s last live gigs with the band he originally joined way back in 1962. He left for good at the end of 1992, three decades later. Considering how long most bands last before they break up, that’s actually an amazingly long haul.
I clearly remember watching that Steel Wheels show in Montreal. I had a piece of cardboard and a pen, and I wrote down each song they played – which, in retrospect, seems like a pretty geeky thing to do. They opened with Start Me Up and closed with Jumping Jack Flash.
Arriving back in Smiths Falls tired but happy in that December of 1989, I recall writing a column for The Record News about the experience. I mentioned that Keith Richards had introduced his song “Happy” with the comment, “Here’s one for Christmas.” I was struck by the warmth of that sentiment, and the very different atmosphere at this concert compared to one the Stones had organized 20 years earlier in California. At Altamont Speedway on Dec. 6, 1969, a spectator was stabbed to death in front of the stage by a member of the Hells Angels, who had agreed to provide “security” at the show in exchange for $500 worth of beer. Must have seemed like a good idea at the time.
The end of the Age of Aquarius and 1969 seem awfully long ago today. In fact, so does 1989, although even then people were making ageist cracks about “The Steel Wheelchair Tour.”
This may just be the inevitable narrow-minded view of a crusty old fart, but I feel very strongly that young people today have no conception of how important music used to be. Whatever The Beatles did was front-page news. In the 1960s, leading rock stars like Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger were asked about their views on life and politics while interviewers waited with bated breath to hear the answers. I have a friend who lives in Carleton Place, who is originally from England. He’s 68, and he remembers being in the audience at the taping of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus special in 1968, and heading to Hyde Park the following summer for the Stones free concert and tribute to Brian Jones, the ex-Rolling Stone who had just drowned in his swimming pool after being kicked out of the band he had founded. (Rock and roll is a vicious game, as April Wine correctly observed a few years later.) Frank from Carleton Place has another Rolling Stones-related story that shows what a small world this really is. Frank’s father was Bill Wyman’s sergeant when he was in the British Army in Germany fulfilling his mandatory National Service, and was still plain old Bill Perks.
Happy 80th birthday, Mr. Wyman. Your former band mates have out-performed and outlasted the competition for well over five decades. To paraphrase Shakespeare: We shall not look upon their like again.