When I hear the drummer,
Get me in the groove.
When I hear the guitar,
Makes me wanna move.
Can you feel the magic,
Floatin’ in the air?
Can you feel the magic?
Oh, yeah.
Nearly time to start getting ready.
Update: The Stones are in great form. Reviews are varied, depending not on how folks received the band, but on the stadium. Our seats were in front, yet almost as far back as possible. The sound was good and, although the binoculars were in demand, I was pretty happy … until they got to “Miss You” and the stage began to move. The centre of the main stage was, it turned out, perched on a truck, which drove into the centre of the stadium, as the band played on, where it joined a couple of fixed wings to create another decently sized smaller stage. This was too much for me and one of my mates, and we made a break to hunt out better spots. By the time we had luckily managed to upgrade to the half-way point (and probably a couple of hundred bucks), the truck was driving back, the Stones were driving “Honky Tonk Woman”, and everything was about perfect. As I said in comments, the highlight – perhaps influenced by said strategic seat upgrade – was “Paint It, Black” and “Sympathy” (set list here). An historical perspective? The 60,000 Olympic Stadium is a dud compared to the 20,000 Sydney Superdome, but the band is utterly undiminished. In fact, Keith and Ronnie were probably in the best form I’ve ever caught them, ripping at will and weaving all over the place. Even Keith’s vocals, sometimes raspingly forgettable, were strong. Charlie was a rock. Lisa Fischer was treat. Jagger was Jagger. I’m still buzzing. You can’t beat these guys: their song catalogue, their muscianship, their experience, their production resources. Long may they live, for we’ll never see their like again.
downer can hear the music
i hope he is getting ready
if you are into geriatric guitar players I prefer BB King.
At least he isn’t ugly and he can actually play guitar
Homer
I welcome you back and miss your pathetic puns, but please for the love of God, lose the moniker already …
Jealousy is a curse, Homer.
what Jason said
Bring back EP – if that is your real name – I disagree on two points.
a) B.B. King is one of the ugliest black men in history (I invoke this category merely to indicate my predeliction for same)
b) Keith Richards is one of the finest white guitar players in history (this time it’s just affirmative action, I guess)
For the record, I agree that BB is good at guitar (though not nearly as versatile as Keef) and that Keef is ugly (though somewhat less so than BB).
The irrevelence regarding the looks of BB and Keef aside, Keef is a mighty fine guitarist but Lucille is one of the sweetest sounds ever in the history of music.
Jason, you have confused me with Bill Clinton.
He was missing his moniker.
To play for the rolling bones you have to be ugly ,dead slow. Indeed people will not be able to tell whether you are alive or dead.
The Who were a much better,innovative and original band.
Anyone who is thinking of using scag then take a look at Keef or Wonnie
Dunno where you live, BBEP, but I won’t need to pay half my salary to go see evidence of heroin’s folly.
In any event, still playing in a world-famous rock and roll band at age 60-whatever seems like a pretty lame disincentive. Unless all you care about are looks!
BBEP, your lame comments are enough to make a grown man cry. Never let it be thought that BB King is not a great guitarist – I’ve seen him a dozen or so times, and although the original intensity is long gone, he still cooks. But hey, here we’re talking about something different; we’re talking about the greatest show on earth. Start me up or gimmee shelter …
Nice pic. Can’t believe I didn’t go stake out the hotel, getting lame in my old age.
Keef always makes it look easy. Presumably that’s because he’s played most of their songs for several decades and because of all the open string tunings. I only know when I try to do it, it’s different ‘cos I don’t tune open(no, different being a euphimism for shit which is what I shoulda said). Can’t compare Keef and BB, Keef might have learnt from BB amongst others but the styles, the genre, the vibe is different.
homer – you are a floppy dick.
Charlie probably consumed more heroin than Keith & Ronnie put together and Charlie still nearly looks as cool and dapper as me.
Get on the train homer.
Also, I object to these snarks about Keith.
Keith is incredibly sexy.
Talent is sexy.
Charisma is sexy.
A sense of humour is sexy.
Great taste in music is sexy.
There are no other criteria worth mentioning.
Keith was in tremendous form tonight – as good or better than ever, and in a great mood – and Ronnie was not far behind. Charlie was imperious. Jagger never changes. But the guitarists stole the show.
Best moment? No question: Keith calling Charlie in on a thundering “Paint It, Black”. They nailed the classic, and followed with a great reworked approach to “Sympathy”. Surprisingly, that old warhorse, “Satisfaction”, lifted off in closing the show.
The big question: where was Bobby Keyes? Sick? Is there a story here?
[Post update-review added, above]
Beazley gets wierd in an interview on 2UE:
CARLTON: On the line, the Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, good morning.
BEAZLEY: Good morning. Well, we got no satisfaction from Alexander yesterday …
WILKINSON: Were you there [the Rolling Stones concert] last night?
BEAZLEY: … time is not on his side.
CARLTON: Nineteenth nervous breakdown, do you think?
BEAZLEY: That’s right.
WILKINSON: Very good, Mr Beazley.
BEAZLEY: Paint it black.
CARLTON: All right.
BEAZLEY: I’m lost in the ‘60’s, I’ve got to tell you. The Stones are no good after 1969.
CARLTON: Well, I think you’re probably right.
WILKINSON: No, there was some good stuff in the ‘70’s.
BEAZLEY: Not much.
A Review from Michael Pascoe in today’s Crikey
oops- here it is
18. Rolling Stones at Telstra Stadium – we won’t get fooled again
Michael Pascoe writes:
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Yes I know, that’s The Who, not the Stones, but it should apply to the media who happily went along with hype and PR exuberance orchestrated by the world’s most famous economist before and at Telstra Stadium last night.
Maybe the gushers – SMH, The Oz and Terror – were in the $399 diamond seats where, maybe, the acoustics were OK. For those in the mere gold seats of the Homebush echo chamber, the sound was RS. Someone quipped it was amazing Keith Richards could still remember the lyrics to two songs, but in row 22 off to the side, you couldn’t tell. What the folks in the nose-bleed bronze chairs were hearing, I can’t imagine.
I suppose a 60,000-seat open-air Stones concert has as much to do with the music as 60,000 people seeing the Pope on his Vatican balcony has to do with Christianity: not much. It’s just bragging rights – yeah, saw the Stones – mixed with the mass hysteria that can be whipped up by revered performers dealing with fans who really need to think it’s good to justify what they’ve paid.
The Stones themselves still put on a good show, just like the last one and the one before that. In a better venue, their talent and stature would do the job, but last night it was the crowd itself that seemed to be most impressing the crowd. Towards the end of the concert when the 58,000 were standing in the rather ghostly smoke from fireworks, waving their arms and many bald heads on command from the prancing London School of Economics graduate, a fella standing near me said to his date “isn’t that amazing, absolutely fantasticâ€?. He meant the crowd – not the band.
Melbourne has been promised a different concert in the “more intimate� Rod Laver arena, without the big stage with the section that rolls out into the middle of the football field. Maybe that will be worth going to.
Love your work, Mick, but for the traffic jams (not helped by the Royal Easter Show being on next door), the rubbish stadium food, the slowly-served expensive drinks and lousy sound – nah, I won’t be fooled again.
Some guys just can’t pull a trick, even if it’s handed to them on a plate. Pity Pascoe missed it – and I only paid $56, got a v. tasty chicken roll, several beers, and home in 20 mins.
Like the Daily Flute, if I was really free, I’d be off to Melbourne for more. That was the main problem: it was too short. OK, it was 2 hours, but felt like 20 mins.
I’d be there in a flash if I wasn’t stranded over here in Perth, CS. Crikey reporters are more obsessed about hammering the Greens these days than doing anything of real value.
Did they play Gimme Shelter, I’m a Monkey?
I doubt very much that Charlie consumed more heroin than Keith. For starters he was only on the stuff for a couple of years and diluting it with speed.
No Gimmee Shelter, alas, Cal. There’a a link to the set-list in my brief review (added to the post above).
Interesting to see that Flutey didn’t kick in until “Night Time Is The Right Time”, which I admit was something of a show-stopper. I began to be captured with “Oh No Not You Again” off the new album, when Keith let go with an absolute pearler of a front and centre solo. I would have liked to have heard a few more off the new album, but, hell, the catalogue is just too big.
On the way out of the stadium some shaggy haired young fella gave me a brochure which i shoved in my pocket and have only now just looked at. It appears to be for something which sounds like the textbook example of a cult.
“We were those who had a deep yearning in our hearts to find somewhere we could call ‘home’. Many off us came from good families. Some of us had a miserable home life. No matter where we came from, we couldn’t silence the longing we felt in our heart … we wanted a way out of all the guilt and misery we felt within ourselves. We needed a place to belong …. We live a simple life, working hard on our farms … “
Yikes. Beatles fans might fall for that guff brother, you’ve come to the wrong place …
I paid $150 per ticket and got them last week from Ticketek. The sound where I was (near the halfway line 20 rows from the front) was perfect. When you feel the sound in your stomach you know it’s good.
And bollocks to Keef not being sharp, I don’t know how he makes a guitar sound like that. Not the technical workmanship of Ronnie, but somehow spine tinglingly brilliant.
And Beazley, you were shithouse after 1996, so fuck right off.
Sound half way back on the floor perfect too. I have been singing the snaky riff to Miss You all day …..
Miss you was my high point. I have pissed the office all day with outbreaks of woo ooo ooo oooo ooo o oooo
The Movementarians have arrived. Nana nana nana nana Leader!
Hey Flutey, which side were you on? Sounds like we were close to the same musical spot – i.e. perfect. We were on the right-hand side (facing the stage).
And yeah, it was “Miss You” that made us abandon the nosebleeders.
My high point was Honky Tonk Woman, just because its that song plus it was on the small stage so I was alot closer. And Chuck Leavell’s honky tonking on the pianny was super. Also Dead Flowers, v. happy to see that. A pretty great setlist within the parametres of what they’re likely to play. No Gimme Shelter but Lisa got her big moment with Nightlife and that was fab. And Paint it Black was special. During Keith’s two songs, spesh This Place is Empty, alot of people sat down — hello? its the best bit! — which gave me my only unobstructed viewing corridor of the night. Glad it was for Keef.
Woot!
My night in the garden of good and evil ….
I did write to the management of the Stones and the East Coast Blues Festival reminding them that all the concerts were scheduled during or after my nuptials. I kindly asked if they could reschedule or failing that, front row seats.
Would you believe I didn’t get a response?
So cs, flutely, Amanda, FXH and everyone else who got to see the Stones, Lobos or anyone else who went/is going to a concert this week, I’m insanely jealous and will get my revenge.
If you were on the stage I would be on the right hand side.
Gee, it does sound like I shouldn’t given away those free front row tickets to the Stones at Rod Laver Arena tomorrow night.
But really what could I do? It clashed with a Simpsons’ rerun.
Tomorrow night Nabs?
According to the TV Guide the only Simpsons is at 6 and around the time the Stones are expected on stage, on TV we have the Footy Show, The West Wing, Laura Norder and some guy with cannibal elephants being pursued by an FBI chick.
Could the Stones compete in Melbourne with such a line up?
So you’re saying Shaun I shouldn’t have given away free front row tickets to the Stones?
Incidentally I’ve got a transpontine TDL infrastructure PPP I’d like you to invest in.
No. Just warning what you were up against.
Is that like a monorail? I love investing in monorails.
I’ll take the ticks nabs – I could give me West Papuan mates the flick to see the stones, prolly no. I’ll be along to see them sing in their band along with Bridie and Chocolate Cake and others.
Wood-ducks. E-bay had the tickets going for as low as $6.80 on the day.
the punters obviously knew of the appalling sound they would hear. Perhaps the last concert at that venue!!
I think that’s pretty accurate, Homer. I’ve run into lots of people who were spoiled by the Enmore and Superdome gigs last time, and didn’t want to go back to the pitfalls of open air. And if it has to be open-air, the cricket ground is superior.
What I’d like to see is an alternate Stones concert, where they dug out songs that they don’t usually play live. Stuff like “Let It Loose” and “Winter” and “Hand of Fate” and “Parachute Woman” and many more deserve an outing.
Some representative reviews are now at this site (below the set list). On the now infamous sound issue, Leo Joseph sums up:
Anyone sitting near us said it was awful because of the sound and anyone we spoke to who had been sitting on the floor of the stadium, or anywhere on the stage left or right sides of the stadium said it sounded great and was fantastic. We believe them.
Yes, my sound was nigh perfect, but personally, whether for sport or music, I think the Olympic Stadium is a piece of junk that should be burnt to the ground, and rebuilt, this time fucking properly.
And the Bobby Keyes mystery rolls on, unsolved …
Bobby was on stage in Melb last night so whatever it was, apparently nothing serious.
Nice setlist for lucky ducks at Rod Laver. Sway, yay.
http://iorr.org/tour05/melbourne.htm
Airbourne were the openers I see. Good on ‘em.
Reading the reviews, looks like the friggin’ Melbourne dudes got the concert of a lifetime (that we got at the Superdome last time). Funny how a stuff-up – apparently in “Brown Sugar” last night – works to the band’s benefit. I’ve seen them stuff-up “I Go Wild”, and it proves them human, cracks the professional surface and puts their talent in relief. Anyhoo – no more parochial complaints from Victorians about anything for at least 5 years.