It was only a "take a moment and listen to what the band we love still can do-post", Witness

Who's the second keyboard player next to Chuck seen on 3:12 ?

Tim Ries.

"Risk" is what Elvis Costello and the Imposters do every single night. That band knows hundreds of songs and they have to be prepared to play any one of them at any given time. Elvis often turns around during the end of a song and tells the band what song to play next and they follow him. Fans come onstage and ask for songs which are often quite obscure. On a personal note, I once asked EC about an outtake from the albun "Trust" at a party. He said they hadn't rehearsed it. They then did it that night for the encore, with him telling a story about how someone just asked him about this song. That's taking a risk. And they do it without scarificing their "warhorses" - of which there are many.

I am not suggesting the Stones can do this at the same level, but they have chosen the course of a big production show (with all of the predictability that entails) over doing something much more musically daring. They have their reasons. The band would have to rehearse much more to offer up something more artistically challenging, but the bottom line is they choose not to.

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71Tele
I am not suggesting the Stones can do this at the same level, but they have chosen the course of a big production show (with all of the predictability that entails) over doing something much more musically daring. They have their reasons. The band would have to rehearse much more to offer up something more artistically challenging, but the bottom line is they choose not to.

chuck suffers for us, too.

Risk....good name for a drug...."Hey man do ya wanna take a risk?"



ROCKMAN

Witness, that last post of yours reads like a school essay.

Rockee, you are brilliant tonight. "I don't care what anyone says I'm gonna be up all night on...RISK!"

StonesTod, you are so thoughtful and considerate. Poor Chuck and all those "binders" that will never see the light of day. He probably goes to sleep sobbing.

Rockee, you are brilliant tonight.....you should see me after midnight...



ROCKMAN

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71Tele
"Risk" is what Elvis Costello and the Imposters do every single night. That band knows hundreds of songs and they have to be prepared to play any one of them at any given time. Elvis often turns around during the end of a song and tells the band what song to play next and they follow him. Fans come onstage and ask for songs which are often quite obscure. On a personal note, I once asked EC about an outtake from the albun "Trust" at a party. He said they hadn't rehearsed it. They then did it that night for the encore, with him telling a story about how someone just asked him about this song. That's taking a risk. And they do it without scarificing their "warhorses" - of which there are many.

I am not suggesting the Stones can do this at the same level, but they have chosen the course of a big production show (with all of the predictability that entails) over doing something much more musically daring. They have their reasons. The band would have to rehearse much more to offer up something more artistically challenging, but the bottom line is they choose not to.

+1 Risk would be if they say change some songs every night, just a few, and drop SFTD. One night theres a real version of (not the Florida or Vegas-version) Can I get a witness, the next night that spot is Backstreet Girl and the next Let it Loose or Parachute Woman. And no Florida versions, real rehearsed versions.

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71Tele
They then did it that night for the encore, with him telling a story about how someone just asked him about this song. That's taking a risk. And they do it without scarificing their "warhorses" - of which there are many.

I am not suggesting the Stones can do this at the same level,

I don't think Keith is a busker, he needs to rehearse.

Remembering lyrics is also a problem as well.

Some people can busk anything, they hear it in their head and play it.

I have a friend who can do that, it's amazing.

McCartney is a busker, Costello as well probably.

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Redhotcarpet

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71Tele
"Risk" is what Elvis Costello and the Imposters do every single night. That band knows hundreds of songs and they have to be prepared to play any one of them at any given time. Elvis often turns around during the end of a song and tells the band what song to play next and they follow him. Fans come onstage and ask for songs which are often quite obscure. On a personal note, I once asked EC about an outtake from the albun "Trust" at a party. He said they hadn't rehearsed it. They then did it that night for the encore, with him telling a story about how someone just asked him about this song. That's taking a risk. And they do it without scarificing their "warhorses" - of which there are many.

I am not suggesting the Stones can do this at the same level, but they have chosen the course of a big production show (with all of the predictability that entails) over doing something much more musically daring. They have their reasons. The band would have to rehearse much more to offer up something more artistically challenging, but the bottom line is they choose not to.

+1 Risk would be if they say change some songs every night, just a few, and drop SFTD. One night theres a real version of (not the Florida or Vegas-version) Can I get a witness, the next night that spot is Backstreet Girl and the next Let it Loose or Parachute Woman. And no Florida versions, real rehearsed versions.

They do change some songs every night, but I guess you're talking about more changes.

Anyways, what a beautiful rendition of MM last night! How was Whip?

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71Tele
"Risk" is what Elvis Costello and the Imposters do every single night. That band knows hundreds of songs and they have to be prepared to play any one of them at any given time. Elvis often turns around during the end of a song and tells the band what song to play next and they follow him. Fans come onstage and ask for songs which are often quite obscure. On a personal note, I once asked EC about an outtake from the albun "Trust" at a party. He said they hadn't rehearsed it. They then did it that night for the encore, with him telling a story about how someone just asked him about this song. That's taking a risk. And they do it without scarificing their "warhorses" - of which there are many.

I am not suggesting the Stones can do this at the same level, but they have chosen the course of a big production show (with all of the predictability that entails) over doing something much more musically daring. They have their reasons. The band would have to rehearse much more to offer up something more artistically challenging, but the bottom line is they choose not to.

Ha ha, that's amazing!

He is ten times more spontaneous than the Stones have ever been

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Rockman
Rockee, you are brilliant tonight.....you should see me after midnight...

i've seen him after midnight, SR....not for the faint of heart...

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stonesrule

"I don't care what anyone says I'm gonna be up all night on...RISK!"

Hung in there one long night with some friends in college who would often stay up all night, aided by various chemicals, to play the board game Risk. The regular moon breaks were the only thing that kept me going.

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24FPS

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ThatsWhatISay
I will never get used to this unmanly falsetto...

So...you hate the Stones, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys? That's a hat trick of falsettos right there.

How do you equate "never get used to" with hate?

it is very nice that they play this song. I have always liked very much about and I never - that is; for years and years - thought they could play it live. I thought it is just one of those album tracks that it is forgotten by the band minute after it was recorded (okay, El Mocambo, etc.)

But that said. A risk?

Yeah, in a way it is - I can see DandelionPowderman's point.

But then... what makes it as a risk?

I see two possible reasons.

(1) The band can't deliver it very good, since is not a regular number.

(2) The audience do not recieve it very well, since it is an "oddity".

Wait a minute. What does this mean?

A side point: it is a band we call as "the greatest rock and roll band in the world"- so this is to say

(1) The band can't play it.

(2) The band is afraid that their audience don't like it.

Are these typical problems we would ask from "the greatest rock and roll band in the world"? That:

(1) They are not able - do not have a competence - to deliver their songs.

(2) They are afraid that they can't entertain their audiences good enough by a track from an album that has sold some 6 millions copies or so.

Huh? A "risk" is very, very relational concept...

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-16 20:43 by Doxa.

i've seen him after midnight, SR....not for the faint of heart...

Disgusting behaviour .... You peeping Tod



ROCKMAN

jagger took a calculated risk in 1989 by selling out and going vegas. he wanted to maximize money by making the shows appealing to as many people as possible. he tossed the smaller number of hardcore fans aside for the larger number of lightweight fans. now that vegas stones has been done and established, he is not about to mess with the formula, gotta give the lightweight fans what they want: songs that they know, & slick, professional performances.

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Slick
jagger took a calculated risk in 1989 by selling out and going vegas. he wanted to maximize money by making the shows appealing to as many people as possible. he tossed the smaller number of hardcore fans aside for the larger number of lightweight fans. now that vegas stones has been done and established, he is not about to mess with the formula, gotta give the lightweight fans what they want: songs that they know, & slick, professional performances.

I wonder what this Rolling Stones that reunited in or just before 1989, that had been through years of conflict probably also especially what to do musically by the band, and that had stadia and other large venues where they would play concerts, alternatively might have done. Probably alternatives existed. However, they were not easy to identify and grasp. "The lightweight fans'" wishes were probably much easier to understand. The wishes of hardcore fans most certainly were more heterogenous. To try to follow those, might have resulted in loss of both "lightweigt fans" and the hardcore ones. To follow the band's own plan, the one most intellectually and artistically satisfying, could also lead to loss of fans, and a repeated rift in the band as to direction. And which role had the increasing conservatism of fans as to what kind of new music they would accept? So the cynicism, as always allotted to Mick Jagger, is not the only possible explanation of the choices that were made. Maybe, this was an outright compromise solution that was chosen. As it was, the turn to recreate originals as such was a choice that at the beginning signalled a change and a development.

I would like to ask: What alternative routes and how could this band really have followed? With what probable consequences?

[Latest edit: starting with the quote.]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-17 15:04 by Witness.

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Witness


I would like to ask: What alternative routes and how could this band really have followed?
[Latest edit: starting with the quote.]

The Rolling Stones should have remained true to their own artistic standards they had in the golden era. They simply just didn't and turned into a visual show. It seems to pay off in dollars and euros though. Living Madame Tussaud dolls.

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kleermaker

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Witness


I would like to ask: What alternative routes and how could this band really have followed?
[Latest edit: starting with the quote.]

The Rolling Stones should have remained true to their own artistic standards they had in the golden era. They simply just didn't and turned into a visual show. It seems to pay off in dollars and euros though. Living Madame Tussaud dolls.

It is not given what kind of music those artistic standards gradually would have resulted in at a later point in time. When did they start to deviate from them, and was it possible to continue to follow those standards at the highest level? And, in the next instance, the question is if the more and more conservative buyers would have wanted that music. And, all the more imposing, into 80's the dividing ideas between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as to musical directon had lead to the rift.

By 1989 the issue was instead to restart the band with a partially healed conflict. That is the context that cannot be avoided for the evaluation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-17 15:47 by Witness.

Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges To Babylon and A Bigger Bang are very different albums. The only album TRYING to capture some of the feel from the 1968-1972-era is Voodoo Lounge. IMO, it's a good album, but it fails sonically, in particular.

Bridges To Babylon is far from my favourite album, but the band should get credit for trying to break new ground, after the retro-approach with VL. At times they succeed creating magic (How Can I Stop), other times the songs simply fall to the ground (Gunface).

Live, the Stones already have tried DIFFERENT concepts:

- In 1999 they toured arenas only on the No Security tour
- In 2002/2003 they delivered three different shows in major cities (way different setlists in stadiums, arenas and clubs)
- In 2012/2013 they have cut back on backing musicians, tour arenas and bring guest as a celebration of the band's 50 years career.

When a band gets as big as the Stones, it's hard to please everyone. I agree they could have taken a different direction in 1989. At the time I thought it was a good idea, since it was a sign of the times with stadiums, the biggest show possible etc.

However, you get tired of stadium concerts, and I think it's wonderful that they tour arenas again, and I like the concept for the 50 & Counting tour.

In my evaluation, too, Dandelion Powderman, BRIDGES TO BABYLON is their most ambitious album since, say, UNDERCOVER, and I like it very much, too. Or possibly one must seek even further back in time as to ambition, only that UNDERCOVER is such a great album. The more safe A BIGGER BANG I like perhaps even more than BRIDGES TO BABYLON.) As I have written in other posts, I see VOODOO LOUNGE as their necessary and needed reinvention of themselves, something I think the band did not manage to achieve by STEEL WHEELS.

One might wonder how much improved BRIDGES TO BABYLON might have been with better personal relations between Mick and Keith than there were, according to rumour.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-17 16:32 by Witness.

Or, turning things around a bit; how things became more versatile BECAUSE of the Mick and Keith conflict at the time. Rumours say that the album practically is their two solo albums...

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DandelionPowderman
Or, turning things around a bit; how things became more versatile BECAUSE of the Mick and Keith conflict at the time. Rumours say that the album practically is their two solo albums...

Well, I think that the best tracks in BRIDGES TO BABYLON - it is very uneven album - are so good because they are mainly solo efforts by Mick and Keith, That is, no cheap compromise solutions artisticwise or that creativity-killing box thing that goes under "this is going to be a Stones track". Me thinks that since Mick and Keith separeted and The Stones was not any longer, especially, Mick's main artistic medium (after UNDERCOVER), the best things these two guys did are from their solo albums. The best of Mick Jagger/Keith Richards solo albums would be much better album than best of The Rolling Stones since, and including, DIRTY WORK (expect those some BRIDGES TO BABYLON songs).

That is, both Jagger and Richards do better music without the presence of the other.

If they really have wanted to follow the muse they had called the quits the Stones, and go their separate paths after the 80's. But instead of that they wanted to make a helluva lot of money and enjoy the status of being superstars by rather little risky. That's why the Vegas Stones. Within the umbrella notion of The Stones, I don't see much other option than what they did. That's my radical answer to the good question made by Witness.

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-17 20:42 by Doxa.

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
Or, turning things around a bit; how things became more versatile BECAUSE of the Mick and Keith conflict at the time. Rumours say that the album practically is their two solo albums...

Well, I think that the best tracks in BRIDGES TO BABYLON - it is very uneven album - are so good because they are mainly solo efforts by Mick and Keith, That is, no cheap compromise solutions artisticwise or that creativity-killing box thing that goes under "this is going to be a Stones track". Me thinks that since Mick and Keith separeted and The Stones was not any longer, especially, Mick's main artistic medium (after UNDERCOVER), the best things these two guys did are from their solo albums. The best of Mick Jagger/Keith Richards solo albums would be much better album than best of The Rolling Stones since, and including, DIRTY WORK (expect those some BRIDGES TO BABYLON songs).

That is, both Jagger and Richards do better music without the presence of the other.

If they really have wanted to follow the muse they had called the quits the Stones, and go their separate paths after the 80's. But instead of that they wanted to make a helluva lot of money and enjoy the status of being superstars by rather little risky. That's why the Vegas Stones. Within the umbrella notion of The Stones, I don't see much other option than what they did. That's my radical answer to the good question made by Witness.

- Doxa

Only a preliminary answer at this junction, made so spontaneous, that I might have to revise some of the thoughts here:

That is really a new stance on your part, Doxa, but at the same time sadly a relapse into the easy moneymaking motive as the leading motive.

You are aware that you now think it would be right for Jagger and Richards to do what you have more or less scorned Mick Jagger for first having sought to do in the '80s and then (once again) more or less crept back to the Stones?

Why did he do that? One alternative answer could be that, even if he would not be unknown, an advantage, all he ever was to trying to do, would always be compared to the Rolling Stones. It would have been rather demanding to come on top of that. When the Birthday Party split, Nick Cave managed to enter on a larger career with the Bad Seeds. Rowland S Howard can hardly be said to have obtained that with Crime and the City Solution. I guess the latter is a more typical fate for a musician that breaks out or is compelled to go his own way. What may have made Mick Jagger turn back, I think, is less the big money (even if he is not reluctant to making money). I think it might instead be the risk to stop being a musician. Then I don't think about being a rock star, but the possibility never to be acknowledged for what he might be doing in rock after being a Rolling Stone. Then possibly to have to stop being a musician and become gradually a "has been" musician. To have to seek other activity.If not as a producer, outside rock. To avoid that possible transition and ensuing end, I think more could be a main motive. And as a Rolling Stone, new trends might follow later on, laying the ground for new developments . But then he might have become more engaged than before in what would make the Stones survive as band. As such, preferably a major band. However, earning money as a means and as a measuring stock that the band could survive, much more than enriching himself as the lead motive. And if possible, Mick Jagger would be as disposed as before in making good music, only provided that it would be embraced by music buyers and audieneces. But probably Mick Jagger became more obsessed with having control as a conequence.

And then, Doxa, you even state that to do what the band did, was the only option available within the band. However, that involved some action that meant at that stage a development and creativity as well. Playing live, it implied the recreation of the studio songs. In the studio they tried to reinvent themselves to walk out from there in another direction, however, made complicated by the badly functionning working relations between the band's song and music composers. But the wish seemed to go on to be creative, had it not been for the indifference and reluctance from music buyers and fans to the bandmembers' urge to achieve something as a repeated motivational downer when they made efforts anew.

However, Doxa, you have cricized the Stones for what they did as such. Now you will instead become one of those who say that they should have stopped years ago. When it did not happen, what is your attitude to the same question now?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2013-06-17 22:31 by Witness.

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
Or, turning things around a bit; how things became more versatile BECAUSE of the Mick and Keith conflict at the time. Rumours say that the album practically is their two solo albums...

Well, I think that the best tracks in BRIDGES TO BABYLON - it is very uneven album - are so good because they are mainly solo efforts by Mick and Keith, That is, no cheap compromise solutions artisticwise or that creativity-killing box thing that goes under "this is going to be a Stones track". Me thinks that since Mick and Keith separeted and The Stones was not any longer, especially, Mick's main artistic medium (after UNDERCOVER), the best things these two guys did are from their solo albums. The best of Mick Jagger/Keith Richards solo albums would be much better album than best of The Rolling Stones since, and including, DIRTY WORK (expect those some BRIDGES TO BABYLON songs).

That is, both Jagger and Richards do better music without the presence of the other.

If they really have wanted to follow the muse they had called the quits the Stones, and go their separate paths after the 80's. But instead of that they wanted to make a helluva lot of money and enjoy the status of being superstars by rather little risky. That's why the Vegas Stones. Within the umbrella notion of The Stones, I don't see much other option than what they did. That's my radical answer to the good question made by Witness.

- Doxa

I believe you are spot on Doxa, Mick and Keith's solo efforts have been a great deal more satisfying than their work within the Stones post UNDERCOVER, despite there still remaining for me within those solo projects, many shortcomings.

My thoughts have always been that the band should have called it a day after the 81/82 tour.

Mick brought in Babyface and the Dust Brothers. That was his way of trying to develop and come up with something entirely new - nothing wrong with that.

Keith, on the other hand, seemed to go even further back to his roots than usual - bringing in Wayne Shorter and develop songs with a soul, blues and reggae flavour.

I'm not so sure about their relationship being as bad as reported. However, the clash of musical styles was probably even bigger on B2B than on Undercover...

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Edward Twining

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Doxa

I believe you are spot on Doxa, Mick and Keith's solo efforts have been a great deal more satisfying than their work within the Stones post UNDERCOVER, despite there still remaining for me within those solo projects, many shortcomings.

My thoughts have always been that the band should have called it a day after the 81/82 tour.

My impression is that a major part of this picture is, first, more or less in this phase to save the Stones, that Keith with TALK IS CHEAP "burnt up" material he normally would use on a Stones album, in order to show Mick that he himself still had much to offer to the band. Then, secondly, more as my guess, that this made Mick as long time reaction want one time to display towards both Keith and the world that he, without Keith, also was capable of making a Rolling Stones record on his own, in addtion to his more different studio albums. Consquently that Mick even as late as 1993 made use of good songs of his of a Stones kind of material to a solo album, that is, WANDERING SPIRIT.

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Witness

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Edward Twining

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Doxa

I believe you are spot on Doxa, Mick and Keith's solo efforts have been a great deal more satisfying than their work within the Stones post UNDERCOVER, despite there still remaining for me within those solo projects, many shortcomings.

My thoughts have always been that the band should have called it a day after the 81/82 tour.

My impression is that a major part of this picture is, first, more or less in this phase to save the Stones, that Keith with TALK IS CHEAP "burnt up" material he normally would use on a Stones album, in order to show Mick that he himself still had much to offer to the band. Then, secondly, more as my guess, that this made Mick as long time reaction want one time to display towards both Keith and the world that he, without Keith, also was capable of making a Rolling Stones record on his own, in addtion to his more different studio albums. Consquently that Mick even as late as 1993 made use of good songs of his of a Stones kind of material to a solo album, that is, WANDERING SPIRIT.

OK, good points.

What the hell was the excuse for Main Offender or Goddess in the Doorway then, to try and show each other they actually, truly in fact needed each other?