Am I right in thinking that this was the last true 'old school' Stones tour?

By that I don't mean the stage setup, the lineup or the sound or any metrics like that, but I was watching Sticky Fingers Live and the "Street Fighting Man" from Kansas City and in terms of the overall level of performance and energy, this seemed like the last time the band seemed truly ageless.

In the "Street Fighting Man" from KC, I was struck by how alive and animated Keith is, doing his leg kicks and smiling and posing up a storm while still playing some absolutely brilliant guitar. Fast forward to the Paris 2 2017 video, which is another widely lauded later version, and he looks so much older and tired. He's still playing well, but the riff has been simplified and Ronnie is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Mick is extremely animated and mobile in both videos, but in 2015 he not only seems more brisk and fluid in his movements, but spontaneous in the sense that he's actually living out the song through his moves, whereas in 2017 he just does a bunch of dashing and pirouetting.

The band had a great sound that tour; Keith's tone had real crunch to it that it had been lacking for a long time (I never liked his guitar sound on the 50 Tour), and he could still very capable, very fluid and melodic leads and solos. Compare the Orlando "It's Only Rock'n Roll" to any version since, I can't imagine him playing that well these days. They finally sounded like a lean, mean guitar band again.

After this tour, Mick slowed down, the tempos slowed down, Keith became more erratic, the only real improvement was with Ronnie stepping up more and more to cover for him.

Not everything was perfect (Lisa should've left after 2013, if brought back at all), but the band overall was operating at a superb level that I don't they had been at since maybe the Fall 2006 leg.

I have loved many performances and shows since, and I think that they actually managed to grab back a significant amount of that 'fountain of youth' / 'how do they do it?' mystique for the 2019 tour (if my Met Life 2 show was any indication).

Pull out any boot from that tour (my favorite shows are Detroit and KC) and you'll see what I mean.