Gazza
Unholy Trinity Admin
   
Offline

Rat Bastid "We piss anywhere, man.."
Posts: 13,231
Belfast, UK
Gender:
|
Just home an hour or two ago. Stayed on until today to catch the Bowie exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum this morning (if youre in London for the show this weekend, I recommend checking it out - but get there by 9.30 am)
Anyway, it appears that London was hotter this weekend than it was in 1969 and I'm happy to report that the Stones were a lot hotter than they were that day too. Apart from Keith doing something bizarre on the first note of the show and Mick missing his cue for the last verse of Brown Sugar, they were all pretty much on all evening. Saturday proved to me that the euphoria of the 02 opening night I saw in November wasn't just an emotional reaction - they really are playing better than they have in a decade. I really enjoyed the whole show - even the songs that I think should have been retired ages ago. ('Miss You' was really good - honest. There. I said it). I know its hard to judge a TV performance against a gig you attend in person, but I thought they played better than they did at Glastonbury.
Setlist was pretty much as I would have expected, content wise, to be honest. Except for the fact that they moved a couple of the warhorses to early in the set to get the festival crowd going from the off. It worked pretty well, as the show was really well paced and the crowd (around me, anyway) seemed really into it throughout. We didnt get into the gig until after 6 and by the time everyone did their thing (merchandise, pisser, bar, grub etc) the agreed rendezvous time extended from 15 minutes to almost an hour so the Vaccines were nearly done when we finally got somewhere that at least half of us could agree upon as a vantage point. Well, well back from the stage but in fairness the sound was really good.
Vaccines finished at 7.40 (they played about 40-45 minutes, not the one hour that BST had put on their website) so I was confident enough we'd get a two hour set after all from the Stones and thats exactly what they did. 19 songs is a bit underwhelming though, it has to be said. It could have been arranged that they were onstage before 8.25 and able to play a couple of songs longer than what we got.
Highlights for me was the one-two punch of my favourite pair of Stones songs - Midnight Rambler and Gimme Shelter. 'Sympathy' was quite terrific as well, with an amazing fiery backdrop which looked amazing in the gathering darkness. The crowd went really nuts for 'Paint It Black' and (surprisingly) 'Gimme Shelter'.
The show started with a five minute montage of footage from the 1969 show instead of the fan video we've had for the tour shows. Other than Jagger wearing a frock (was it the same one? Anyone?) on one song, asking the crowd who had been there in '69 and introducing Taylor at the start of 'Midnight Rambler' (first time this tour?) by commenting that '69 was his first show ('we just dragged him out of the pub and put him on stage..') there was very little mention of the iconic '69 gig - and no mention of Brian. A wee bit disappointing,but not surprising.
The underuse of Mick Taylor though continues to be a real head scratcher. One song on electric and then bringing him back to play a barely audible acoustic guitar on the final song? Whats that all about? Its the musical equivalent of having the chance to cast someone like Jenna Jameson in your own porn movie and then reducing her to a clothed part where she just flashes a bit of cleavage. 'Midnight Rambler' is the highlight every night. A large chunk of the audience know that and I'm pretty sure the Stones do as well. Maybe THAT's the problem!
The Stones have a lot more mileage in them if they can work at a reasonable pace and dont kill the momentum they have now by taking long stretches off the road. The setlists are what they are, I suppose - I didnt really expect anything daring for a festival event and it wasnt an expensive ticket (£95) so it was well worth it. Whether I'd pay silly money again for an arena show is another issue, however - but for those who can or will, there's no real misgivings to be had about the performance levels. This tour is streets ahead of the Bigger Bang tour - but with a few minor tweaks that are not outside their control (a bit more variety in the content, more songs with Taylor, fewer 'token' guests and not forcing their fanbase to play a game of chicken by putting off buying tickets until the prices tumble) - it really could be even better.
The pre-show was great fun as always. Always terrific to see people I havent seen for maybe a decade or since the last tour - or ever. We had a real hoot at the Monkey Puzzle as you can probably tell and at the St Giles afterwards.
I wont be at next week's show as months before the Stones announced these gigs I'd made arrangements to go see a few Bruce shows a couple of days later and combining the two isnt really doable, but I hope everyone has a blast. I'll miss you fuckers.
|