Saturday 24 October @ 2.30 p.m.

[www.metmuseum.org]

Got my ticket!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-10-24 10:57 by bv.

Let us know how it went, Beast!

Gonna try and swing it. Wish I knew a yesterday! Cheers Beast!

Yeah please beast ... Yell out YAAAAHHHH at the end for me........LOUD now too won't ya ...



ROCKMAN

>> Yell out YAAAAHHHH at the end for me <<

yeah! and have some popcorn :E

Unfortunately the Met doesn't serve popcorn E: - but I followed Rockman's instructions (and wasn't the only one)! It was a bigger auditorium than I thought, with a circle as well, and it was all full - standing room only. A shot in the arm (no pun intended) it was to see it on a big screen for once. I wish they'd had a second screening - I would've seen it right over again in a heartbeat.

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Beast
Unfortunately the Met doesn't serve popcorn E: - but I followed Rockman's instructions (and wasn't the only one)! It was a bigger auditorium than I thought, with a circle as well, and it was all full - standing room only. A shot in the arm (no pun intended) it was to see it on a big screen for once. I wish they'd had a second screening - I would've seen it right over again in a heartbeat.

Any deleted stuff that's not on the versions us peasants have seen?

"The wonder of Jimi Hendrix was that he could stand up at all he was so pumped full of drugs." Patsy, Patsy Stone

This movie on a big screen ? How was it like ?
I 've always thought the movie is a bit boring .Actually ,I 've wachted it may be 3 times only.And always the same parts : the hilarious interview with Mick opening the door without shirt & Keith making his joints on the table ,the journey through America ,the part at the police station & the stage parts.

I think that you must already know the following review ,but it always makes me smile ....

---

Drugs, Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll (and drugs & more sex)


Of all the tours the Rolling Stones have made across North America, the 1972 tour is still remembered as the most outrageous, most provocative, most inventive musical outing the fab five from London ever performed.

I was fortunate enough to see this juicy juggernaut when it made its stop in Vancouver on Saturday, June 3rd, 1972. As Stones expert Harold Colson has written elsewhere… "The fabled summer 1972 tour through the U.S. and Canada is revered by Stones fans worldwide as arguably the band's greatest ever, and it remains enshrined in the annals of rock lore and popular imagination as the masterpiece speedball of indoor triumph, outdoor maelstrom, and backstage debauch. In powerful testament to this enduring sway, vast quantities of audio recordings, books, magazines, photographs, films, videos, and other memorabilia have since issued through licit and sub-licit channels to keep the coveted sights and sounds of the Stones Touring Party alive, rolling, and fresh to this very day."

@#$%& Blues is one of those enduring sub-licit channels which not only celebrates the fore, middle and background of this tour, but which also presents itself as one of the very best rock tour movies ever made, and never seen.



Here's the scene: the Stones have not visited the US since the 1969 disaster of Altamont -- also immortalized by the Brothers Maysles in the tour/performance flick Gimmie Shelter -- and the group is riding high and hard on the success of their definitive album, Exile On Main Street.

Myth-mad Mick, despite the surprisingly frank shots of Gimmie Shelter, decides to do the film thing one more time and enlists the talent of famous photog/filmmaker Robert Frank (he shot the pix on the Exile album cover, and shot a brutal documentary on madness, called Me and My Brother).

In comes producer Marshall Chess, who, early in the movie, gives the plotline: Mick has already written a song called @#$%& Blues, about a gay hooker in London, to fulfill the group's contractual obligations to Decca records, which was run at the time by an old fart named Sir Edward Lewis. Apparently, during a meeting, Mick gets up and plays a demo of the song to the uptight geezer… the lyrics of which are:

Well, I'm a lonesome schoolboy ..etc etc

Needless to say, this winsome ditty had the desired effect, and the song was never released. Chess goes on to say some cat in New York was organizing a benefit for Oz Magazine, which was being hassled by the government in an obscenity trial, and the idea came up to do a porno album, with rock stars contributing "adult" material to raise dough for the underground magazine.

@#$%& Blues was one song, and there were others, like Dr John (The Night Tripper)'s "You Can Never Eat Too Much *****". Then the idea expanded from an album to a film… which this isn't.

Shot cinema verite, docurocku style, @#$%& Blues is a pinball machine of images -- soft, warm, harsh, exploitive, funny, sad, boring, stupid and smart, jammed with images of excessive hard drug taking, nodding-off Stones, roadies @#$%& groupies, backstage parties, naked women, heroin shoot-ups, and, yes, some great concert footage. It was, however, so over the top that the Stones banned its release and obtained a court injunction against its distribution. Cinematographer Frank finally got the rights to screen the flick once a year, but one can only obtain this movie on video in bootleg form.



Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, commenting on @#$%& Blues, called it "definitely one of the best movies about rock and roll I've ever seen. . . . It makes you think being a rock and roll star is one of the last things you'd ever want to do." Amen to that. One has the feeling these guys are soldiers, waiting for the next battle, the next opportunity to feel alive. In the meantime, there's the tedium, confusion, boredom, and good old angst & ennui of being locked into a big money, big stadium, big everything rock tour.

Director Frank unblinkingly reveals these patterns of unrest behind the Stone's bulletproof window of fame, showing us the ever-present drugs and groupies, Keith Richards' addiction to heroin, Mick Jagger's problems with the high-maintenance Bianca (who looks like Sade at a Nirvana concert) and, most interestingly, just how adroit the Glimmer Twins are at concocting and manipulating their outlaw reputations.

One of the sadder themes Frank also films is the degeneration of his friend and co-cameraman Danny Seymour, who finally succumbs to the temptations of drugs and sex around him. While not downplayed, Frank underscores the concert performances with his fascination of the backstage world, and allows the mundane sounds of the tour to set the film's themes and feel: raw and inconsequential conversations; Bianca's tiny music box; a bluesy, poignant piano theme; yammering local disc jockeys; and the nervous practice of antsy musicians just prior to going onstage.



For a 90-minute flick, only about 15 are concert shots. We watch the boys perform the opening song for pretty well every night of the tour, Brown Sugar, as well as Midnight Rambler, Uptight (with Stevie Wonder), Happy, and Street Fighting Man. Midnight Rambler is notable for Mick's haunting harp opening, and the band, blitzed as they are, still play very well, with Keith laying down his usual heavy chops against Mick Taylor's intelligent fills.

No doubt shocking when shot, but now mostly cliches, given the excesses of bands which followed - Led Zeppelin being first and foremost -- @#$%& Blues reads like a litany of rock high priest thou shalt's:

watch everybody snort coke & shoot heroin
marvel at Bobby Keyes and Keith Richard as they toss a TV off their hotel balcony (first they check to see no one's below)
thrill as Dick Cavett asks Bill Wyman, "what's running through your nervous system right now?"
smirk as Wyman doesn't answer
leer as Mick Jagger rubs his d*** through his pants, then undoes them and gets his hand in for a better feel
gasp as a girl trying to get into the concert complains her baby was taken from her because she's always on acid
laugh to discover a scalper is charging $10 for a $3.50 ticket
chuckle as a totally stoned Keith tries to order room service for some strawberries, blueberries and "three apples"
look at your watch as the boys play some very drunken poker. See Keith win.
ooh as Charlie Watts makes a very difficult pool shot in a southern diner
moan as a naked groupie rolls on a bed, legs spread, fingering her *****
make notes as Keith tells Mick it's best to snort coke through a rolled up dollar bill
guffaw as Mick turns to the camera after a brief meeting with Tina Turner and says "I wouldn't mind…"
look at your watch again as the tour crew packs the group's suitcases and cleans out their hotel rooms
wonder in amazement as Bianca sits sullenly, smoking a cigarette and playing a little music box over and over.


OK, we're talking bootleg here. Gawd knows how many times this video has been copied before falling into my quivering hands. It's not pristine 35mm, that's for sure. On the other hand, the film itself is so zany that the highly degraded picture quality (the sound has remained pretty good) can actually add to the ethereal nature of this strange trip.

My copy shows massive colour shifts to mostly blue, and the definition between colours has degenerated to almost a posterized effect. In some shots you can't really tell who the people are anymore -- but does it matter? This ain't Spielberg, this is hardcore rock 'n' roll, and it still has the backbeat, so you really can't lose it.

I think this is the greatest rock movie ever made -- probably that ever will be made, combining a talented, artistic filmmaker with the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band at the height of their glory on their craziest tour.

Doesn't get much better than that.

© Rick "Ojo" McGrath July/2001

Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, commenting on @#$%& Blues, called it "definitely one of the best movies about rock and roll I've ever seen ??4

I don't think so .

And he has forgotten the part when Mick Taylor comes into the hotel room whith the naked groupie on the bed ,and if I do remember well ,he felt so embarrassed with it and the joint ,you can see it on his face.

Edited because ofspelling mistakes



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-10-25 18:06 by SwayStones.

Thanks for posting that, SwayStones. It was riveting to see the film on a big screen, especially some of the concert footage and Mick at his most drop-dead beautiful and alluring. It was much better quality than the copied-to-death bootlegs. And to answer Menace of Mayfair, I think there was probably one short clip that was not on any DVD I saw. Much too rude to describe to the polite folks on here, of course.

The Uptight/Satisfaction in full clarity was mindblowing! The joy and love on the musicians faces was incredible. That needs to be released!!! It was far far better than any bootleg copy I've seen. Worth it for that alone

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Beast
Thanks for posting that, SwayStones. It was riveting to see the film on a big screen, especially some of the concert footage and Mick at his most drop-dead beautiful and alluring. It was much better quality than the copied-to-death bootlegs. And to answer Menace of Mayfair, I think there was probably one short clip that was not on any DVD I saw. Much too rude to describe to the polite folks on here, of course.

You're very welcome !
Mmm...don't tell me the "short clip thatt wasn't on the DVD " was the logical concluded for Mick's private exploration...Oops !



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .