MONTREAL — Trotting out a set almost entirely made up of vintage hits and fan favourites at Sunday night’s Bell Centre concert, the Rolling Stones pulled off the tightrope-walking feat of providing evidence for both sides in the debate of whether time is still on theirs.
Mostly, the conventional wisdom of recent years held true. Mick Jagger remains a force of nature at almost 70, one whose physical energy onstage can only be looked upon with slack-jawed admiration. Charlie Watts, still with the most dependable left-hand snap in the business, makes everything look so easy. Ronnie Wood really does do almost all the hard work on guitar, with Keith Richards having become a bit of a joke as a musical presence. Richards — stooped and slow-moving, looking like Yoda in a fright wig — is clearly more comfortable now with the ragged Chuck Berry riffs he injects into It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll than with his spotlight introductions to Gimme Shelter and Paint It, Black, both of which he barely managed.
There can be no doubt that most of the 15,000-plus fans in attendance had made up their mind going in: they howled deliriously at the outset of every song, with the exception of last year’s just-OK Doom and Gloom and One More Shot — questionable inclusions, to be charitable. Even the icy lack of interaction between Jagger and Richards probably went unnoticed by them.
For reasons not everyone can fully grasp, Stones fans need to believe their boys have still got it, that they never sounded better and, most of all, that they’ll always be the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band. But anyone who has seen the group in their prime would be hard-pressed to argue that Sunday night’s concert was primo Stones. It was mostly respectable, adequately done retreads of their oldies: apart from the aforementioned 2012 tracks, the most recent song on the set list was Start Me Up, released 32 years ago.
Nonetheless, there were enough grin-inducing moments to make the event, at the very least, good fun — if nowhere near worth the $635 top price. (And truly, what live act could be?) The choice of Get Off of My Cloud as an opener, singer Lisa Fischer’s powerhouse vocals on Gimme Shelter, a spry Dead Flowers (by request from Montreal fans via a vote on the band’s website), a winningly joyous take on The Last Time, with special guest Win Butler of Arcade Fire trading vocals with Jagger, a blast of tenor sax from Bobby Keys on Emotional Rescue and Jagger’s hammy audience-baiting on Honky Tonk Women as he prowled the catwalk around the “tongue pit” in front of the stage — these were irresistible.
Moments of pure musicality were rarer in the high-octane nostalgia fest, but a few were there for the taking. Consider Wood’s solo during You Got the Silver or special guest and one-time Stone Mick Taylor — all but impossible to recognize, but still a devastating guitarist — leaving his trademark lyricism at the door and going for speed and stock riffs on Midnight Rambler, but pulling it off nonetheless.
You have to give it them, but it was a squeaker. Fifty is a good, round number. Let’s politely forget the “and counting” threat.
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Stones in Montreal 6-9-13 (Read 9,550 times)
