Although the Stones have broken the mold of rock bands by surviving so long they actually have what you might can a life span. Much like a marrige, a little life planning must come into their conversation. Like a couple planninmg to take that trip they always wanted to and think they should do it now while they have their health, I have wondered if this was the motivation for the Licks tour.

The timing seems right. Numerous health issues surfacing, reaching ages that nobody will call middle aged anymore.

Let's add it up. A double 'best of CD'. Practice a whole ton of material, particularly of note are rare jems and covers that show their range and interests. Play every type of venue possible from private parties, benifits, clubs, arenas, stadiums. Double live CD (nothing new) but with some keepers. The four disc DVD showcasing the types of venues and the relative stage shows. Now probably nobody appreciates this but when I heard the sound mix for the last tour I thought they had 'matured', smoothed out some of the rough edges

There was that bit of news that stadium shows may be the norm for the next tour. No talk of unique tour plans. Sort of a back to 'new album and tour' mentality.

So was that the 'big one' in anticipation of getting it done and down on CD/DVD before the possibility of it being too late. I think it adds up.....I guess the new tour will tell but I would not put my money on them topping the 'scope' of the Licks tour.

Naw I'd be willing to bet the Stones
plan to roll on awhile yet or they woulda
called it quits after the Licks tour.

NO....there are more chapters being played out right now.

ROCKMAN

It's over. The new album good, bad or indifferent will be ignored by radio and most of the buying public and given their ages I really hope there is no tour. It's impossible to sustain. Their song book is a young man's song book. Don't get me wrong I'll buy the new album. This next tour may be the first I've missed in 32 years.

The new tour will be just as big if not better then the licks tour was and I sure will go see them. Sad to say but your probably right about radio not giving much play to the new album and thats sad because it will probably be a darn good one. But as far as the tour they will still pack them in and perform as good or better then ever.

At this stage of the game it really doesn't matter
if the new album is a hit or not. They are an enormously
popular touring act with a big catalogue they could
play from here to kingdom come. Whether they are
more popular or less is really a mute point.
With a tour every few years, they could
carry on indefinately. We'd of course
like them to be number one, and that
would be nice, but it isn't
necessary anymore, hasn't
been for quite some time.

In terms of their later tours.


Steel Wheels=The comeback. The Stones cutting it as the Worlds greatest Rock n Roll band achieved again. A new way of touring and stage design which sets the mold for higher tech shows.
Theme=Bladerunner meets a shutdown factory or even Even a city at night.


Voodoo Lounge="Welcome to the Voodoo Lounge". Stones being fun again. Capturing a newer generation of Stones fans.
Theme=Spooky-Voodoo


Bridges to Babylon=Different, hip, Stones. One cool ass stage.
Theme=a Futuristic Temple of some sort


No Security (an extension of the Bridges tour really)
Catch the Stones indoors for the first time in a long time. An intimate evening with the Rolling Stones
Theme=Construction site. Tough and Gritty.


Licks=Lets put on one hell of a tour.
Theme=there is no motief or specific theme.....Just catch the Stones at a venue of your choice: Stadium, Arena, or if your lucky a club.

Next time....will have it's own deal and purpose. they will think of something. Each one was a different Chapter. Next time we will have another is all.


Ian



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-02-16 09:29 by Ian Billen.

Good point Mark... there was something like farawell in the whole concept of Licks Tour - the Stones were looking more "back" than ever, even Jagger seemed to be comfortable with the idea that their most remarkable work was done decades ago (f.e. all these theme shows: Let It Bleed, Exile..) And for sure they have never played so many different songs during the tour. It was just next to officially admitting thet they really are a nostalgy band trying to attract their many fan generations and those possible human beings that have never seen them before (and considering the ticket prices, mostly the baby-booomers) It really looked like this could be the last time...

But it always does.. I have the feeling that even the Stones themselves may think the same way, and that somehow seems to work as a motivation for them.. to force them to make everything as good and big and great as possible in the case that is the really the last time.. Well, actually, organizing and doing such a massive tour that the Stones are used to, needs an enourmous amount of energy and concentration that I suppose that the last thing they have in their mind is to think about the possible following tours... after a long holidays and rest and doing something else they once again find that idea of tour (and the money involved) attractive..

I think the real swamp song for the Rolling Stones as a real recording and touring band was the 1981/82 tour. In that tour - and years around it - everything clicked: the band had a great album to tour with, one of the biggest hits of the time on lists (turned to be their last 'classic').. the enthusiasm of the crowds was huge and I suppose their true fan base was bigger than ever (around that time the band also gathered their last big genaration of fans)... The Stones were truely the biggest and most popular band at the time (maybe unique moment in their career). They were winners, they had outlived all their greatest rivals, The Beatles, Zeppelin.. and doing the biiggest tour nobody ever seen before.

After that has been the "come back years" of touring, trying to repackage and re-cicle (and milking out) the product that was created 1963-1982. And it will continue as long as the majority of them are in some condition to hit the stage, and there will be found millions of people all over the world that are willing to pay big amounts of money to see the living miracle and maybe a hint of their youth and of the 'real thing'...

- Doxa

There will be a new CD and a new tour but it is not going to be a big bang as the Stones have toured so much since 1994 to Joe Public it's just another tour.

The Stones are creatively bankrupt so they are not going to break any real new ground. However they could come up with something interesting like Johnny Cash.

Like Keith said the Stones are just there, like the sun going up in the morning and down in the evening, which is why they are not appreciated that much.

Once the band folds whoever runs the empire will hopefully open up the vaults although I hope for well planned and designed releases.

Rorty Wrote:
>
> After that has been the "come back years" of
> touring, trying to repackage and re-cicle (and
> milking out) the product that was created
> 1963-1982.

Look at the set lists from 1989 to 1997, there are about as many new songs played during those tours as there were in 81-82. They were not just play old songs from 63-82.

the old saying. the stones are not just a band they are a way of life...every new album covers new ground.. to prove this, you alway hear old time fans putting down the new stuff because its not as good as their old stuff..
the new album will sell and be played if,
1. its good
2. the record company pushes it to the stations.
and the younger fans like it..
if they put out a album to make the old timers happy, then it won't be played on the stations and will not sell.....but if they make a great rock and roll album like tattoo you or some girls, then we will be rocking again...
also we are lucky because jagger gets bored with doing the same old thing.. he won't put out a remake of his last album.. but i do think keith will have to work harder to hit a home run.. i hope he is in the mood, to work!

I think Licks should be their farewell to the road. They performed quite capably, released a good career compilation, and a good DVD set. They have nothing to prove as a live act, and I don't see them significantly improving anything at this late stage. I really hate to think of them carrying-on too long, like an aged athelete who has out-stayed his/her abilities. The Licks tour and associated documents are, IMHO, a very fine impression of the band for posterity's sake. Why not leave it at that?

All that said, I would like to see them re-dedicate theirselves to the studio. In this environment they can properly "grow the music old" as I believe Keith once put it. With less time spent roaming the world, they should be able to knock-out a new disc more often than every eight years.

karl

'Don’t forget, if you’re on your bike, wear white'

Nope, no the end yet - new CD and new tour, but smaller venues - no problem about that, maybe they will have more time focusing on music and using less time on showing off.....

Listened to VL last night - not a bad CD at all.....

Yeah this could be the last time - but it won't be.

'See you again!' they shout as they leave the stage......

Regards,

Ian.

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as Keith once said - "retire to what?" Musicians just don't retire - it's their hobby as well as their job/vocation. So, this is a mere academic debate.

Ray Charles sure wasnt a radio staple prior to his death, nor was Duke Ellington's now lauded 50s/60s work given the serious attention of his 1926-45 'peak' period - til after his death. Louis Armstrong, considered a relic by the 40s bop era (which polarized jazz fans much the way punk did rock fans)& surely on Ed Sullivan in the 60s (in an era of Coltrane, Ayler, Beatles, etc), is the now (rightly) viewed as the greatest jazz innovator of his generation, some say of the century, and his warmth, joyous musical personality, & bigger than life personal style are evident on much of his later work, (umpteenth versions of his early classics that have been issued on posthumous live albums, or underrated later albums re-issued in the cd era) His post '30s work is far less innovative than the 1925 - 28 "Hot Fives & Sevens" but is still (well, much of it - he was prolific if nothing else) enjoyed by listeners & re-evaluated by jazz critics - All these popular artists did their warhorses ad nauseum live (& in studio) sometimes adding something fresh, sometimes phoning in their performances. IMO the Stones were still experimenting successfully as of B2B, and choosing never or rarely played songs during the '99 & '02-03 tours. Every Stones studio album (including 40Lix) has gone top 5, & platinum or better DESPITE indifference at radio. Should Muddy Waters be criticized for revisiting old songs on his fine late 70s 'comeback' albums produced by Johnny Winter? Should Muddy or Wolf have retired when r'n'b or soul or funk led younger black music fans to abandon blues, and their new singles no longer got airplay on black radio? The Stones are master musicians, they want to play, I want to hear them, and the theme of "its over" has been around since at least '72. Early 60s isnt old for film directors, or Tony Bennett. The long, great era of issuing new albums every six months (the 60s) or every year or 3 (thru the 90s) may be over (as they make their movies and solo albums and breed horses and paint and play music with others), but in attitudes towards the Stones there is frequently more than a whiff of age-ism (the contempt some ignorant newspaper writers, avoiding the need to discuss the music, display for 'ageing boomers' - some monolithic sheep-like demographic - like 'X-ers'- who attend Stones concerts to allegedly re-live their youth. Music isn't like athletics - should Hubert Sumlin retire? I mean what will his new one sell, 3 or 6 thousand?

Well said John!

It will go on until one of them drops. It's their life.

John r, you are right about the retirement.. the argument based on those great 'play until you drop' blues artists is convincing.. but...

But I think that as a musical unit or 'artist', the Stones do belong to a different league, or at least are a bit more complex to be easily compared to those solo artists. If the Stones will split up, why should that a musician and individual called Keith Richards also disappear? Why can not he carry on doing music, and being artist called "Keith Richards" like all his heroes he is referring? Jimmy Rogers made his name being a guitar player in the "original" Muddy Waters r&b band in the 50s in Chigago; Hubert Sumlin was Howlin' Wolf's partner. Johnnie Johnson was for years only a sound in Chuck Berry records, now a name of its own..

Maybe Keith and the rest of the Stones really reflect themselves being a part of the bigger entity called "The Rolling Stones" and not really a personal, individual musicians or artists. Not a bad thought, though At least Keith seems to define himself in terms of 'being a Stone"; Mick unwillingly seems to be fated to have that stigma (although he seems to enjoy the fruits of it), for Charles it seems to be a good day work. Ronnie, the luckiest bastard in the world, made the deal with devil, and is paying his musical creativity for that..

I don't know how in future, when all is said and done (not very far!), the legacy of the Stones will look like... maybe this endless massive touring and milking out their first 20 years will look like a herous act, or will be neglected totally (despite the fact that the most of material available comes from these late years tours). But at the moment I keep insisting that it would have been braver and more stylish and would have left of them a better image if they would have call it off around 1983.. But in that case I would never had a change to see my heroes live... I don't know..a dilemma..

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2005-02-17 10:50 by Rorty.

Rorty Wrote:
> I don't know how in future, when all is said and
> done (not very far!), the legacy of the Stones
> will look like... maybe this endless massive
> touring and milking out their first 20 years will
> look like a herous act, or will be neglected
> totally (despite the fact that the most of
> material available comes from these late years
> tours). But at the moment I keep insisting that it
> would have been braver and more stylish and would
> have left of them a better image if they would
> have call it off around 1983..


I think the question is, do the Stones want to add something musically to their legacy, or are they now just looking to top-off their kids' inheritances? I don't think they have anything else to say with their live shows, unlike say Louis Armstrong or even Muddy Waters in the latter stages of their careers. I do believe however that they can still create (record) new music with something to say. It is of course their legacy and they will do what they want. I just hope they don't end up like Tiny Tim - dying in-concert.

well this took on some life.

By Swan Song I was not implyiny they quit anything, albums, tours, et. I truley believe they like to record and perform and all the power to them and the fans. They will continue to surprize, they will amaze.

But will they mount such a comprehensive crossection of material, venues, DVD's, CD's or were they putting something down on this tour knowing in the back of their minds....hey this could end at any time.

mark Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> well this took on some life.
>
> By Swan Song I was not implyiny they quit
> anything, albums, tours, et. I truley believe they
> like to record and perform and all the power to
> them and the fans. They will continue to surprize,
> they will amaze.
>
> But will they mount such a comprehensive
> crossection of material, venues, DVD's, CD's or
> were they putting something down on this tour
> knowing in the back of their minds....hey this
> could end at any time.


"....hey this
> could end at any time.
"

That's always been the case, hasn't it????

Regards,

Ian.

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Stikkyfinger....sure it could happen any time. I'm turning 50 next month and I thought I better get off my butt and write that screen play I've always wanted to...why because 'it' could happen anytime, I've been lucky so far but this might be a good time to get it done.

Same for Licks. Once they have layed down a 'swan song' it opens them up to be more creative.

mark Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Stikkyfinger....sure it could happen any time. I'm
> turning 50 next month and I thought I better get
> off my butt and write that screen play I've always
> wanted to...why because 'it' could happen anytime,
> I've been lucky so far but this might be a good
> time to get it done.
>
> Same for Licks. Once they have layed down a 'swan
> song' it opens them up to be more creative.


Write that screenplay Mark......

Regards,

Ian.

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