Does anybody other than members of this forum use the term "Vegas Era" in relation to the Rolling Stones?

No.

Not even all the members of this forum do.

The whole "Vegas Era" BS is a myth that sooner or later I will have to debunk.

C

The Stones played fantastic concerts in the 90ies, the expression Vegas era does not do justice to these shows. Yet at times (mainly through the ABB tour) the Stones and their promotors ripped off their fans and did some bad tricks (like "resceuduling" shows) so they cannot complain about beeing called a Vegas act.

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liddas
No.

Not even all the members of this forum do.

The whole "Vegas Era" BS is a myth that sooner or later I will have to debunk.

C

Agreed, the term has no currency outside of a % of members of this forum. It's use should be eradicated.

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BlackHat
Does anybody other than members of this forum use the term "Vegas Era" in relation to the Rolling Stones?

I am a member of this forum, and I never use the expression

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Keep On Rolling

I use it very regularily to describe 1989 and onwards. I use the term freely to other musicians, who although they may no have heard it before, they know EXACTLY what I mean when I use it.

Backing musicians, dancing-in-synch do-wop vocalists, additional guitar players, lights, balloons, lyric monitors synched to click-tracks, drum loop samples (the drum-equivalent of lip-synching to pre-recorded voclas), fireworks, safety nets, safety nets and more safety nets. Oh, and merchandise that would make George Lucas blush - all designed for maximum dollar intake.

The new music in this era (which stretches to nearly half of their existance) is a complete afterthought, completely limp, lifeless product, though confusingly barren of memorable hooks, and only enjoyed by hardcore fans who try to time-travel in their minds back to the days when a new Stones album meant something (30-plus years ago).

It's a useful term, and should be used more as a benchmark for other bands on How To Not Piss Your Legacy Into The Most Expensive Freakshow. For younger music fans, it's also important for them to understand that The Vegas Era is when the best gourmet burger bistro became McDonalds. Like Rod Stewart, The Rolling Stones DID have an era when they were absolutely incredible.

[thepowergoats.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-03-18 22:51 by jamesfdouglas.

The excessive gimmickry behind Stones live shows seems to have begun a good deal earlier than 1989, and if you ask a certain UK contingent of musicians/performers and fans, the "completely limp, lifeless product" of new Stones music seems to have applied as early as 1976.

Today's news from the Las Vegas Sun......................

[www.lasvegassun.com]

__________________________

Heck Barry Feber !!!... can remember hearing him on the radio ...



ROCKMAN

I use the term. '89 on. I loved every show I saw during this period (they are, unfortunately, the only shows I have been lucky enough to attend), but '89 was the beginning of a stage production and a choreographed Mick that simply is not like the band prior. Again, loved those shows dearly... but they were not the same gritty band as they were before. Different guitar sound, more polished performances over-all. "Vegas-era," while slightly derogatory, fits. imo.

I think the 'Vegas Era' label is most resented by those who were not lucky enough to see the Stones prior to Mick's takeover in 1989...

It's the end of an (vegan) ear.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-03-18 23:26 by GravityBoy.

I use the term regularly. It fits like a glove.

While largely seen as being 'negative' by most, I think on the flip side, a new degree of professionalism and consistency was the result.

We still had some great performances, not as great as before for sure, but then they are also WAY older than before.

It was Mick's doing and kudos to him for pulling it all together. How can you run a circus with a bunch of (recovering) dope & alcohol addicts as the main attraction.

For all of Mick's accomplishments, the 'Vegas Era' may be amongst his greatest

How can you run a circus with a bunch of (recovering) dope & alcohol addicts as the main attraction.

Well they did it in '68 (except for the recovering)............and I liked it........

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-03-19 02:22 by NICOS.

Click tracks, sampled instruments, synthesizers, songs starting and ending with clockwork precision, warhorse heavy setlists. That is Vegas to me.

1976 had nothing to do with the Vegas era. 1976 was part of their evolution, they progressed all the time, 1976 was funky. 1978 was punky.

1989 was pure business because of one thing and one thing only: Mick's failed solo career. That is the only reason for them to record anything after 1989 (which they more or less havent) and tour. Mick is nothing or close to nothing without the marketing name the Rolling Stones

I've been aware of the 'Vegas Era' since at least 1978. I'd say, for me, it began the second I turned into my neighborhood record store in 1974 and I heard 'It's Only Rock & Roll' for the first time. There was something cheesy about it. Then Mick's stage wear on the '75 TOTA looked derivative of glam, which was already passé. Then the horrible (except for the El Macambo cuts) 'Love You Live' ripped everybody off. It all seemed so beneath the powerful band from Ya Yas and Exile. They really did seem like a Greatest Hits band without much depth. And even though the '78 Texas show is exceptional, a lot of the tour was not, and sounded like they were going through the motions.

A lot of people I know attributed the decline to Keith being a junkie whose abilities had been eroded. They sounded like absolute crap on Saturday Night Live in '78. To be honest, I can't stand the way they sound of 'Let's Spend the Night Together'. 'Hampton '81' is far superior, and probably is so because they'd spent more time on the road by then. And I can't listen to anything live from '89. I liked being there but it's not very good on record, with just too much going on without anything vital going on.

I totally understand the Vegas tag. They've certainly sounded that way a lot in the past few years. They seem to lapse into it unless they're prodded, or they're road hot, like No Security, their last great tour.

Never use it. There is no such era.

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NICOS
How can you run a circus with a bunch of (recovering) dope & alcohol addicts as the main attraction.

Well they did in '68 (except for the recovering)............and I liked it........

I'm with you...it's just not sustainable.

What secludes the 89` tour (and the ones that followed) is the fact that they streamlined the music by cutting off the flaws. There were no really bad shows anymore. All shows sounded the same.
Sadly, by doing so they also cut off the creativity and improvisation. That is Vegas to me.

No and its one of the stupidest descriptions of the Stones I have ever run across!

It's an apt descriptive term and not entirely derogatory of the shows from 1989 forward. I take it to mean a punctual, professional, no expenses spared rock show, albeit one lacking in danger. (Then again, how dangerous can rock musicians who are at least in their mid-40s, as they were in 1989, be? Full disclosure: I'm 52).

The Vegas Era seems intended to compare them with latter day Elvis Presley and his larger, highly professional bands. However, Elvis's Vegas show could be pretty damn good on the right night!

It's the edges that got knocked off with time. Plus the ever growing sidemen who threatened to crowd them off the stage. You can't tell me that 'Get Off of My Cloud' from the PPV isn't just one step away from being a Vegas revue, with medley's not far off.

Used to work in Vegas regularly, never heard this term.

Someone here argued that the STRIPPED Like a Rolling Stone CD single wasn't a hit because Mick was using his "Vegas voice." Meaning I guess his live singing type voice where he broadens it and avoids the high notes and growling and Monkey-Man-like screaming to preserve it through a show and a tour. As Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton recently told The New Yorker, "'You can hear how Jagger just talks a lot of it...Steven is singing the whole time.'"

Anyway, "Vegas" can obviously take on broad connotations when used regarding the Stones.

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24FPS
I've been aware of the 'Vegas Era' since at least 1978. I'd say, for me, it began the second I turned into my neighborhood record store in 1974 and I heard 'It's Only Rock & Roll' for the first time. There was something cheesy about it. Then Mick's stage wear on the '75 TOTA looked derivative of glam, which was already passé. Then the horrible (except for the El Macambo cuts) 'Love You Live' ripped everybody off. It all seemed so beneath the powerful band from Ya Yas and Exile. They really did seem like a Greatest Hits band without much depth. And even though the '78 Texas show is exceptional, a lot of the tour was not, and sounded like they were going through the motions.

A lot of people I know attributed the decline to Keith being a junkie whose abilities had been eroded. They sounded like absolute crap on Saturday Night Live in '78. To be honest, I can't stand the way they sound of 'Let's Spend the Night Together'. 'Hampton '81' is far superior, and probably is so because they'd spent more time on the road by then. And I can't listen to anything live from '89. I liked being there but it's not very good on record, with just too much going on without anything vital going on.

I totally understand the Vegas tag. They've certainly sounded that way a lot in the past few years. They seem to lapse into it unless they're prodded, or they're road hot, like No Security, their last great tour.

Mick started the glam thing in 1973 already.

I agree with the poster above about the spectacle/circus-thing started in 1975 already. Even an elephant on stage, LOL! Luckily, Keith got rid of it.

In hindsight, I think it's a bit unfair to blame the Stones for the big stages and the stadiums. We should blame the 80s and the bad taste of that decade. The Stones didn't lead that race, they just joined it...

1) There is a professionalism introduced from 1989 which I ambivalently from that time understood to be necessary, and a need for control as well applied to concerts played in such great venues as stadiums. Those factors in my view cannot been reduced to security seeking.

2) Over the years there is a tendency for the aging audiences' growing conservatism to more or less compel the band to feature well known songs as warhorses in their concert setlists. This a factor that is not to be attributed to the band, but to rather to its audiences.
(For my own part, I ideally thought that from 1981 songs from the '68 - '72 ought not be parts of regular concerts, apart from encores, but understood this to be unrealistic. How would "the Las Vegas era" critics have liked that?)

1) and 2) are separate factors.

3) After possibly their most groundbreaking period studiowise '68-'72, they followed more or less two strategies: a) like a sponge to adopt upcoming ideas from other scenes and absorbing them into their own kind of music, which thereby was modified and, consequently, developed,
b) after periods of increasing inconsistencies and breaks, they needed to reshape their own musical stance, especially after the comparatively weaker DIRTY WORK.Their come back album STEEL WHEELS, despite having a few gems of its own, did not achieve this reshaping, in my estimation, which then had to be done anew with VOODOO LOUNGE, making it possible to develop out from there. However, the aging audiences' neglect of new albums contributed to more inconsistencies.

My view is that it gives a wrong perspective to understand these elemnents in the light of a "Las Vegas era" epithet, and I have been in opposition to this theory. And the elements are in themselves not all due to band itself, but to the listeners of studio material and to concert audiences.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-03-19 10:33 by Witness.

"Vegas Era" is a catchy term. It is also an intersting term in that sense what a discussion board can do: you put people together to discuss, and finally of that dicourse comes up original terms or concepts like that to describe some common phenomenon. Yeah, it is created and put to use in this forum, and does not really exist elsewhere (or if it does, someone has read IORR). But it is a descriptive term, and anyone who knows a bit of the Stones or rock music, seem to get its meaning immedeatily. I am sure it will last forever - too apt to die - and will belong to the vocabulary of future rock historians or Stoneslogists.

It originally surely had a pejoritive meaning, but I think the term has long ago past that phase, and it is just a technical term to refer the times after reunion in 1989 (or at least that's the way I use it). Surely there still are people who don't like the term, but not even them cannot ignore it. It belongs to a common vocabulary of this site. It is so common that there are people who have started to see it as a "myth" or something like that, which I think a healthy reaction as well. It is open for a debate. And then there are theories who see the Vegas Era starting eralier or later, and even what counts as its criteria are under discussion.

Of its etymology... As far I recall, its origin derives from Licks tour. That was the time when the expression "Vegas act", and some of its variations started to occur in some reports to describe the recent shows. Then it little by little transformed to cover the whole period from 1989 on. I don't know who orginally come up with the term - I guess it was "in the air", and quite many quickly adopted it. I guess I was one of the first to use it systematically - so if one wants to shoot anyone for spreading the disease, the bullet won't be wasted on me.

I checked my own past posts, and this is the first occasion I use the term in one variation (we need to note that there are no posts in archives prior 2005, so it is not probbaly the first one.) It's from May 2005. That sort of talk was 'original' back then... (and shit, I haven't much evolved from then...)


"I'm not taking a personal swipe at anyone here on this board, but does anyone else here sometimes feel as though we (Stones nutters) ask too much from the band? Is it just my imagination or do we sometimes carry on as if we own them & we resent them because they can no longer give us what we want?"

I think you might be right. But to be claimed to be "the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World" it does rise some expectations, don't you think? They are not any goddamn another band, they are The Rolling Stones! I rather see them quitting proud and still alive and well than to be seen as bunch of senile grandpapas refusing to stop their circus act to as long as there is some pennys still to be juiced out of it, no matter that the guitarists have long ago forgetten the last chops of "Brown Sugar ".

Personally I know that I am addicted to the adrenaline of the feeling seeing them live. Usually the moment of their entrance is the most thrilling feeling you could ever get from a music concert. It really doesn't matter what they play, how to play, is just the plain fact that they ARE there, in that very moment. Here they are, Lady and Gentlemen...the men of "Street Fighting Man", "Satisfaction", "Gimme Shelter", Exile, @#$%& Blues, Hyde Park, Altamont, Nellcote, Toronto... But it has been like that for the last 15 years. Few aristocrat millioners taking the role of playing the role of a band called The Rolling Stones, and people pay goddamn much to see the legend. The old men taking the roles they created some 30 years ago, playing the songs they created some 30 years ago. And I suppose laughing all the way to bank.

But if we look what they have actually done since their come back (1989) and being the "best Stones ever", I don't see any lasting value of their output. When they finally gave up, if they do, how do we view them then? Most of the material we are left with is old grand-papas doing the songs when they wrote when they were in their twenties. Take all the documents from Steel Wheels tour to the possible last one, soon cover about a half of their career, and take it out of the context, you will see that most of it just breathless autopilot shit that is circulated some 1000 times - a miles and years away from their old glory. Like I said the thrill is to be there, present, but somehow that magical subjective feeling cannot transmitted into documentary. What we objectively see and hear is basically a cover band doing lame autopilot so and so versions of old hits, sometimes doing it better, sometimes not. Maybe "Paint It Black" was done better in 1990 than 2002, or maybe not, but does that really matter? Take some old Ready Steady Go and see the guys doing the song even playback then and you can FEEL what makes this band so great. What about "Sympathy"? "Gimme Shelter"? "Midnight Rambler"? Can you honestly say that the Stones are doing justice to the anthems like that? Quite contrary, with their recent Las Vegas Orchestra, lead by maestro Chuck Leavell, they are juicing out every possible drop of magic and danger these songs once had. Is that worth of documenting? Are those 'shows' really something to remember, even though Jagger happens once in three years to nail the vocals of some "That's How Strong My Love Is" in a way that ALMOST adds something into it? Is that the way the "Greatest Rock and Roll Band in The World" should be seen and heard and to be remembered? I would say no, but shit, we are loaded with secondary quality material like that that little by little is ruining the legacy of the band.

I remember seeing the footage of The Stones in Barcelona '90 and at the time I thought that jeez, how breathless and lame they sound. But I can only imagine how great the atmosphere was in the audience. You know, being there. So sad that it didn't transmit into film, but instead we witness a forced and bored band doing lame versions of old hits. But after seen many footages like that (Miami 94, Four Licks…), hearing loads of bootlegs, I have started to realize that hey, that old Barcelona concert wasn't so bad. In fact, the band was quite tight, the guitarists did play their instruments and so on… It looks like I am setting my standards to the 'best Stones Yet", Mach IV level, even enjoying of the results, and sometimes not only from a hardcore fan and a collector point of view. But even starting the story from 89 on, what can be seen is that the quality of their performances has decreased - do we hardcorers admit or not. Of course, there are tricks to hide the lack of hunger: hardcore stone fans are very easy to satisfy - just take some odd "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" or "Hand Of Fate" from the vaults, and those people are thrilled and grateful forever - no matter how poor are the actual results in terms of music. Four Licks is a sad documentary of that, expect some rare moments of greatness and spontaneity, what we see is the ruins of the once great band.

I sometimes feel that outside the realm of Rolling Stones hardcore fans, from a distance, people see much clearly what can not be seen inside: The Rolling Stones is basically nothing but a funny group of old relics doing their nostalgy act and milking out their past with their continuing last tours.. . to put that in more 'insider' terms: ever since their come back of 89 The Stones are just circulating and milking out the stuff, legacy and reputation they gathered in their first wild creative twenty years. For most of people here I suppose that is okay, and for me somehow, too.

I should say now that I hope that The Stones prove me wrong; that they will come with a killer album, play better than ever, kick out Chuck and all the other tourists from the board, just two strong and loud guitars in front - Keith concentrating in playing instead of posing, Mick re-inventing his natural stage presence…blah blah blah…

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-03-19 10:52 by Doxa.

Oh, how time flies! I remember that post very well, Doxa. 8 years??

Oh yeah, Dandie, but we - nor the band - haven't changed or aged one bit...

- Doxa