If Bill doesn't want to be onstage for a Stones tour, couldn't he sit in the wings and play to video monitors showing Keith and Charlie, while Daryl mimes to a monitor with Bill on it?

Bill's return is, after all, the last gimmick, other than changing guitarists.

Here's a better idea: Do it strictly as a quintet, with two horn players and a keyboardist.  Use no backup singers and a "No Security"-style basic set.  Play only songs that can be done in that group format.

Economy, harmony, humility.  Be an R & B band again.  Play lots of old shit and blues covers - people will be momentarily confused, but ultimately satisfied by the tossed-in hits. 

Don't have a B-stage.  Do the whole show on the smallest, barest stage possible, in the center floor of arenas under a gamut of lighting.  Play multiple small venues and theaters in large cities.  Make like it's Richmond again, and Helsinki, and Wembley 1967.

Going back to the basics would turn Bill on.  Just don't light him brightly.  If the band could get a hard on for its real roots and make an audience feel it from city to city, it'll go over bigtime.

let's don't and say we did.

I love the idea too.....but didn't we have the discussion before about the Stones returning to their blues roots? I was all for it, but others cued me into the reality that it probably wouldn't work....


I think that long term, true Stones fans would love to see that. But the average person coming to a Stones show....wants to hear the warhorses most of all. Over and over and over again...

I'm voting for Hell yes!

Nellcote wrote on Oct 19^th, 2008 at 7:30am:


Absolutely right - plus the added factor that er..he left of his own accord despite the band trying for years to get him to reconsider PLUS the fact that he's admitted to having no interest in the music the Stones have made ever since.

Seriously - what are people thinking by reckoning its a 'great' idea.

Keith :  "I know how we'll solve all our problems, Mick....Let's sign up a 72 year old bassist who doesnt like our music to inject some fresh blood and let's play all our shows from now on in northern Europe. While we're at it, we'll reissue "Rarities" with the 'undoctored' front cover. They're bound to snap it up in their millions...."

bass players are a dime a dozen, who really cares at this point if bill comes back.  the only thing he has going for his name is that he was the original bass player for the stones [which is larger than life, of course] and that he owns a popular greasy spoon restaurant somewhere in London.  i highly doubt ticket sales would increase if he toured with the stones next tour.  there would be a bigger difference if ron wood wasn't playing.  bill for most, during the mid eighties and beyond looked like a sour puss just going thru the motions.

I agree that Bill & Charlie were tight, but Bill aint coming back. I've seen Bill on stage many times and he added little to the excitement of the show ~ he was mostly standing in one place and showed no facial expression or enthusiasm, rather boring to watch after a minute. Darryl adds more life to the stage, he's great on bass and he adds some funkiness, but I bet he was told to tone it down because he isnt a REAL Stone and they dont want the feel of the music altered ~ but his bass can be funked up and loud on occasion, like at the Vegas show in March 2005. That night they gave Darryl center stage and he was twirling around showing off and putting on a real fine performance! I heard there was a big party that night after the show and Darryl had  a bunch of people who were there for him. He was dressed up fancy and putting it all out there for some hot babes who were dressed up Vegas stylle! Darryl rocks!

ORTHOPEDIC TESTICULAR PLANE SEAT DESIGNED FOR ROCKER

[LONDON - REUTERS]  Septuagenarian rocker Bill Wyman may be rejoining the Rolling Stones for a twin-leg worldwide tour, thanks to a special orthopedic "balls wagon" designed at the University of Manchester.

Wyman, who now resembles your grandmother in his little, square glasses, hails the orthopedic chair, designed to be installed in a Gulfstream jet chartered for the tour, as "just the third-leg assist I've always been seeking, really."  Wyman claimed that the chair has relieved the fear of flying that caused the rocker to leave the Rolling Stones following their 1990 Urban Jungle tour.

The chair's designer, Dr. Dermott McDylan McDonald, explained the device's success.  "I ken it's a damn fair balls wagon, all right," observed the inventor in a dialect resembling the glug-glug of oatmeal stout.  "We've designed a wee snug pocket for Mr. Wyman's superannuated junk, and on every takeoff the jet's hydraulics will inflate the recess in exact proportion to readings taken from sensors pasted to the Wyman scrote."  The inflation factor is intended to deliver anti-anxiety sensations to the user's testicles, obviating severe retraction or disappearance into the peritoneum.

Part of the efficacy of the treatment lies in stuffing the chair with materials friendly to the user, Dr. McDylan McDonald notes.  "Oh, Christ, it's stuffed with 100-pound notes, sport," laughed Wyman when queried.  "That's all that gets anybody's knackers flying, innit?  You should enquire of Charlie's drumstool.  Crinkle-crinkle!"

The Hon. Harry Longballs, M. P., Dean of the Scrotal Distension Society of Milton Keynes, has already mounted a support march for the device, leading a thousand adherents in motorized orthopedic testicular chairs in a drive on Tunbridge Wells this past Michaelmas.

The orthopedic testicular chair makes a brief appearance in an experimental form in the hospital scenes of Casino Royale, after secret agent James Bond 007 suffers excruciating genitorture for entertainment's sake.

SPECIAL TO THE GUARDIAN

I thought he played sax....