Doom and Gloom is awesome, and so is the 2017 tour...

I've already quoted from this clowns review days ago-I'm over it.

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DoomandGloom
Some people are fools.... All of us understand the age of our Rolling Stones and the facts that go with that. This is a throughly enjoyable tour by our favorite band. Sometimes they play great sometimes not...

That's only two times. You say nothing about the rest.

What the hell is wrong with reality?!? I was not there.....but I have read the comments, watched the vids, read the reviews..... it sounds dead on. Ron is has been carrying the load for a while. Keith IS diminished. Wow! He really nailed the first 15seconds of PIB!!!!! Stop the press! I love the Stones, but I friggin HATE denial. The lack rational thought makes us look like foolish zealots;"Mick looked at Keith! Best tour ever!" If they tour in the fall, I will take my son and go, but I will know, I am witnessing the equivalent of fat Elvis. I will go to give my respect to the GRNRBITW, but it will not be close to the shows I have seen. So please, enough with the, "Mick Taylor pissed, greatest tour ever!" BS, it's in all honesty, uninformed and condescending. Now you may kill me for living in the known reality, or better yet, tell me to leave because we disagree...

I've said elsewhere after attending this show that I don't think this tour is the best ever. I saw the Stones in 05, early '06 as well, and they were tighter than they are now - contrary to what some folks are saying on here that they are playing better than since Licks, Babylon, Voodoo, etc.

I think Keith IS diminished - to a degree. (He needs a little coke or speed to sprite him up a bit - though he isn't hunched over like the reviewer said. Not a lot of hunching Sunday night.) But I thought the reviewer was carrying it way too far, and I posted about Paint It Black because the reviewer was saying something specific that was wrong.

By the way, seeing Jagger again live, and viewing those Detroit 81 vids, especially those parts where we see him stretching and making sure he'll be a human dynamo, my admiration for him is unbounded (that doesn't mean I think most of his of solo stuff doesn't suck - parts of Wandering Spirit excepted). And I have to say that I think flat out that he's maybe the best human that ever lived. Socrates and Jesus close seconds. And this is coming from a Keefian.

With you....I'm a Keith guy too, but give Mick his due....he has worked hard. Funny, I have supposed the same thing about Keith, say what you will about drugs, the "bump" makes you an easy ten years younger, so if you quit, wait another 5-6 years to tour, you are effectively 15-20 years older...so...

From the point of view of nightly consistency, their last real peak was right before Keith's accident. Saitama 2006 is widely available on bootleg, and basically, it's the live concert feed without any overdubs or edits. And, it sounds great, Keith included. Things got a little bumpier after that, but there were some great instrumental performances (Atlantic City? London 2?). Even in 2012-2013, while Keith may struggle at times and Mick may get a bit "pitchy", it's still a @#$%& amazing show. I'm sure that most people on the Forum have at least seen the pay per view show from Newark - did that look like "fat Elvis"? If so, fat Elvis must have kicked some serious ass.

I find it incredibly presumptuous of the Montreal writer to assume that since he's the only one that didn't enjoy the show, that the other 14,999 people had "made their minds up" before entering the arena. That can't be right - I somehow doubt that he's the only smart guy in the room. Maybe he's wrong and the rest of the people in the arenas across the continent (not to mention the two sold out shows in Hyde Park) are actually making an informed decision.

In fact, one recurring pattern with the Stones over the years (and it's true for this tour as well) is that if they play a second show in a particular venue, it always is harder to get last-minute tickets for the second show than for the first show - basically, word of mouth is always strong, and people who go once decide that they want to go again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-12 08:52 by drbryant.

With you on the fall....definitely a turning point. You and I have both read enough posts to know some people DO have their minds made up.

And I am sure, even Fat Elvis cooked on some nights.

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Eleanor Rigby
by B. Perusse

MONTREAL ROLLING STONES REVIEW
MONTREAL — Trotting out a set almost entirely made up of vintage hits and fan favourites at Sunday night’s Bell Centre concert, the Rolling Stones pulled off the tightrope-walking feat of providing evidence for both sides in the debate of whether time is still on theirs.

Mostly, the conventional wisdom of recent years held true. Mick Jagger remains a force of nature at almost 70, one whose physical energy onstage can only be looked upon with slack-jawed admiration. Charlie Watts, still with the most dependable left-hand snap in the business, makes everything look so easy. Ronnie Wood really does do almost all the hard work on guitar, with Keith Richards having become a bit of a joke as a musical presence. Richards — stooped and slow-moving, looking like Yoda in a fright wig — is clearly more comfortable now with the ragged Chuck Berry riffs he injects into It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll than with his spotlight introductions to Gimme Shelter and Paint It, Black, both of which he barely managed.

There can be no doubt that most of the 15,000-plus fans in attendance had made up their mind going in: they howled deliriously at the outset of every song, with the exception of last year’s just-OK Doom and Gloom and One More Shot — questionable inclusions, to be charitable. Even the icy lack of interaction between Jagger and Richards probably went unnoticed by them.

For reasons not everyone can fully grasp, Stones fans need to believe their boys have still got it, that they never sounded better and, most of all, that they’ll always be the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band. But anyone who has seen the group in their prime would be hard-pressed to argue that Sunday night’s concert was primo Stones. It was mostly respectable, adequately done retreads of their oldies: apart from the aforementioned 2012 tracks, the most recent song on the set list was Start Me Up, released 32 years ago.

Nonetheless, there were enough grin-inducing moments to make the event, at the very least, good fun — if nowhere near worth the $635 top price. (And truly, what live act could be?) The choice of Get Off of My Cloud as an opener, singer Lisa Fischer’s powerhouse vocals on Gimme Shelter, a spry Dead Flowers (by request from Montreal fans via a vote on the band’s website), a winningly joyous take on The Last Time, with special guest Win Butler of Arcade Fire trading vocals with Jagger, a blast of tenor sax from Bobby Keys on Emotional Rescue and Jagger’s hammy audience-baiting on Honky Tonk Women as he prowled the catwalk around the “tongue pit” in front of the stage — these were irresistible.

Moments of pure musicality were rarer in the high-octane nostalgia fest, but a few were there for the taking. Consider Wood’s solo during You Got the Silver or special guest and one-time Stone Mick Taylor — all but impossible to recognize, but still a devastating guitarist — leaving his trademark lyricism at the door and going for speed and stock riffs on Midnight Rambler, but pulling it off nonetheless.

You have to give it them, but it was a squeaker. Fifty is a good, round number. Let’s politely forget the “and counting” threat.
bperusse@montrealgazette

Thankfully a fresh, honest read compared to the never ending tired clichés that we read on these pages from those who appear to me that they need to get their hearing checked, probably ASAP.
Finally someone else sees Richard's guitar skills in 2013 for being what they are & NOT the constant harping of "Keith's back, he's on fire, he's awesome, he knocked it out of the ball park".

I'm constantly reading Wood is equally on fire but to my ears WHICH AREN'T the aural equivalent of Rose Coloured Glasses it's plain to hear that he is a still producing out of tune solos accompanied by endless bum notes as he has since the Licks tour or earlier.
Of course those who still think the Stones guitarists are practicing the ancient art of weaving will not agree with me, I'll just be considered one of those "crazy complainers".
Better than being a "deluded listener".

To sum up those of us who are not a member of the biased "best ever & on fire" crew see this B. Perusse person as having summed up the 2013 tour in a nut shell but personally I am of the opinion that he was still being way too kind.

This review has been posted 3 or 4 times in the Montreal-thread.

That goes for the whining as well

The review slags Taylor as well ("leaving his trademark lyricism at the door and going for speed and stock riffs on Midnight Rambler") - so maybe a Jagger solo-tour is what you'd prefer?

This review is edited, though. The part about Taylor ("it's like he's trying to fit in all the notes he didn't play since 1974 in one songs...) is omitted.

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Thrylan
With you....I'm a Keith guy too, but give Mick his due....he has worked hard. Funny, I have supposed the same thing about Keith, say what you will about drugs, the "bump" makes you an easy ten years younger, so if you quit, wait another 5-6 years to tour, you are effectively 15-20 years older...so...

The way Mick AND Keith have prepared for this tour is simply admirable.

Mick must have done a lot of exercising to stay in that good shape.

And Keith has gone from almost not being able to play the guitar - to being able to make it swing again. This is the proof that on good nights, he still can lead the band:

Damn right Dandelion.

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DandelionPowderman


This review is edited, though. The part about Taylor ("it's like he's trying to fit in all the notes he didn't play since 1974 in one songs...) is omitted.

...ahAA!! OFF with their masks, already... (finally?!)

I saw the May 15 Anaheim show and agreed completely with the review from the Orange County Register (below):

ROLLING STONES RETAIN YOUTHFUL VIGOR IN O.C.

PETER LARSEN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
05/16/2013 9:17 PM

ANAHEIM – Picture that instant when the Honda Center lights go dark, the crowd roars, and slipping from the shadows the Rolling Stones arrive on stage. It's electric, a jolt, but for a moment, just a second or two, you have to wonder what you're going to get with a band, even one as legendary as the Stones, on the road to mark 50 years of music.

Turns out there's no need to worry. For by the time singer Mick Jagger gets to the first "Hey! You!" of the opener "Get Off of My Cloud," you're singing along and thinking that despite how old they might look – and they are well-weathered – they mostly play like the bright young English lads they were way back when, and they still sound very good indeed.

There's been plenty written about how pricey the tickets for this 50 & Counting tour are and that's certainly true. But despite the cost, you'd be hard-pressed to find many in the all-but-sold-out Honda Center who weren't thrilled to have been there Wednesday for these 22 songs in a show that ran nearly 2 1/2 hours.

That opening song found the four core Stones – Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, and drummer Charlie Watts – blazing through at a fast and precise clip. Fans who have seen them often in these latter years of the band's career tend to say the group seems tighter now than it did during their wilder days of the past, and that certainly felt true on Wednesday.

It's a show and a tour built around their hits, with all but two songs coming from albums released in 1981 or earlier. And so after the mid-'70s tune "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll," which saw Jagger strutting to the sides of the stage to fire up the fans in the furthest reaches of the stadium, it was back to the '60s for "Paint It Black," its original opening sitar riff played here on guitar.

Even though – or perhaps especially because – many of these songs long ago became staples of their live shows, it's remarkable how fresh they can feel in concert. You might imagine a song such as "Gimme Shelter" would be drained of the haunting menace with which it arrived on 1969's "Let It Bleed," but at Honda Center that brooding opening guitar riff from Richards built and built until Jagger came in, eventually joined by vocalist Lisa Fischer to wail away powerfully on the "It's just a shot away!" choruses.

Highlights during the first half of the set included the first appearance so far this tour of "Waiting on a Friend," which featured lovely contributions from keyboard player Chuck Leavell and tenor sax player Bobby Keys, both longtime touring members of the band. Another came with the arrival of this stop's celebrity guest appearance: John Mayer, who came out to sing and trade blues licks with Richards and Wood on "Champagne & Reefer," a Muddy Waters tune the Stones picked up years ago.

The midpoint of the show offered up the only new songs, "Doom and Gloom" and "One More Shot," both recorded for a 2012 greatest-hits album, and both sounding like familiar Stones songs with which you're not actually familiar.

After a break for Jagger, during which Richards sang lead vocals on "Before They Make Me Run" and "Happy," another nice bit of this anniversary tour unfolded with the appearance on stage of Mick Taylor, the Stones' lead guitarist from 1969 to 1974, for a version of "Midnight Rambler" that ran close to 10 minutes and featured all three guitarists roaring away.

The main set wrapped up with a long run of much-loved songs: "Miss You," which served as a dance-y bookend to "Emotional Rescue" played earlier in the night, "Brown Sugar," which had everyone in the crowd singing along, and a terrific take on "Sympathy for the Devil," on which Jagger's strong delivery of the lyrics was matched by the jagged, distorted blasts of sound Richards wrenched from his guitar.

As has been the case throughout the tour, the encore opened with a choral ensemble on stage to kick off "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (in Anaheim the singers were from the USC's Thornton Chamber Choir). As for most of the night, it felt like anything but going through the motions: Jagger sang it with commitment, Wood's solo was typically concise, and the band and choir together took it to a gospel-inflected peak.

Then, more fun, more classics: "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," with Richards, in particular, tearing off one muscular riff after another, and grinning cheerfully at his band mates.

That Richards is alive at 69, given all the bad things he cheerfully acknowledges he did in his younger days, is no small miracle. But you look around the stage and you see Wood, 65, no stranger to drug addiction in his past and now proud to show off his well-toned arms in a sleeveless shirt, and Watts, 71, always the most elegant and reserved of Stones, and you think, why should this be their last tour, as they've sometimes hinted.

As for Jagger, well, he's just impossibly fit for 69, with the energy of a guy half his age, bounding around the stage and its protruding tongue-shaped ramp nonstop, strutting, throwing shapes and striking poses, and generally doing all the things you expect of him. He's clearly having a fine time on stage still.

And you think: This could be the last time, maybe the last time, but really, there's no reason why it should be.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7787 or plarsen@ocregister.com

One of my first posts on here regarded bitchiness here toward the Stones "decline." >>> [www.iorr.org] (There were bitches even back in 1969.)

Quout Montreal:
"The choice of Get Off of My Cloud as an opener, singer Lisa Fischer’s powerhouse vocals on Gimme Shelter, a spry Dead Flowers (by request from Montreal fans via a vote on the band’s website), a winningly joyous take on The Last Time, with special guest Win Butler of Arcade Fire trading vocals with Jagger, a blast of tenor sax from Bobby Keys on Emotional Rescue and Jagger’s hammy audience-baiting on Honky Tonk Women as he prowled the catwalk around the “tongue pit” in front of the stage — these were irresistible."

- Sounds like a sober view. Ain`t that just the way a Stones concert would appear to a 50-something`s educated ears these days?

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Thrylan
With you....I'm a Keith guy too, but give Mick his due....he has worked hard. Funny, I have supposed the same thing about Keith, say what you will about drugs, the "bump" makes you an easy ten years younger, so if you quit, wait another 5-6 years to tour, you are effectively 15-20 years older...so...

Yes, you are right, I'm not speaking for drugs but if you take the stimulative drugs off and add a few years at that age it certainly has some kind an effect. That is maybe why Keith seems to be sometimes a little tired and not very inspired looking. Jagger on the other hand is truly amazing.

As i can see around, thanks to the Internet, the huge majority of Press reviews are really positive reviews. And the rest reviewers? The generality of them arrive (even ... half- heartadly) at final conclusions like "it was a good show", "decent", etc, despite their various reproofs witch are sometimes inconceivable, judging from what my own ears tell to me. Because, sorry, PIB's intro (Montreal) didn't sound bad to me. Not at all. I'm not claiming that the particular reviewer is a malicious "Stones -hater", just because he has a different opinion. I 'm just saying that the particular review is very shallow, IMO...

Another time, on other thread, i will explain why exactly i really like the current band's performances. For the time being, i make do with a comment - personal opinion: My friend Thrylan, i think Prisley's fans would be the happiest persons on the planet if Elvis was able to performing, at the end of his career, at the 70% of the level the Stones have at their 70s. IMO the only likeness between "fat Elvis" and the current Stones performances is Mick Taylor's fat...

ROCKMAN

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DandelionPowderman

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Thrylan
With you....I'm a Keith guy too, but give Mick his due....he has worked hard. Funny, I have supposed the same thing about Keith, say what you will about drugs, the "bump" makes you an easy ten years younger, so if you quit, wait another 5-6 years to tour, you are effectively 15-20 years older...so...

The way Mick AND Keith have prepared for this tour is simply admirable.

Mick must have done a lot of exercising to stay in that good shape.

And Keith has gone from almost not being able to play the guitar - to being able to make it swing again. This is the proof that on good nights, he still can lead the band:

Agree Dandelion. Fantastic performance.
Rock and roll,
Mops

Was i lucky? Maybe... But every Stones gig i had attended in 2006 and 2007 was better than "just decent". Ronnie was "the man" on the guitar work. Keith was OK or something more, on the particular gigs. Judging from boots from other ABB gigs, yes, Keith had some completely "off nights". I don't know how many...He probably had serious health problems then. But, hey, good team -work always have been one of the advantages which made the Stones the most charming live act. Ronnie can cover Keith's mistakes or Keith's moments of puzzlement. (The opposite- Keith saving Ronnie's ass - sometimes happened on B2B tour). And the final result is good, atleast.

My opinion as for the current tour: Mick and Charlie are doing fine job (as usualy do). Ronnie is really MVP of the band. Keith plays better compared to ABB tour. I think people are often judging him basically from how old he seems to be, not from how exactly his guitar does sound.