It's interesting that the ABB CD is being labelled as "back to basic Stones" or "stripped down Stones"... this may reflect on the current tour.

The Forty Licks tour of 2003 was for me the greatest level of overall MUSICAL VIRTUOSITY that the band as a whole could really ever expect to achieve. IMO the 40 Licks had such a high level of musicianship that in some cases "Each Song was a Concert in Itself"... that's how good AND COMPLEX that tour was.

Any attempt to really "duplicate" or "exceed" Forty Licks in technical perfection and complexity, as well as "venue diversity" would really be an effort in futility.

ABB on the other hand kind of comes across as "basic Stones"... a guitar, a beat, a songline, and a dash of supporting musicianship. Not as complex or as ambitious as Forty Licks...

This "back to basics Stones" on the ABB Tour so far I feel in the lower chakras... more legs & hips than mind and arms...

And the reason this is so is that the ABB Tour tends to really focus on the CORE RHYTHM... We find ourselves "rediscovering" the basic versions of such incredible classics as "Satisfaction" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash", as we experience them on a very primal level on this current tour...

Nothing will probably ever reach the Forty Licks for total band involvement, but ABB so far does a great job of bringing the fans in the audience back to the core dancing rhythms which ultimately is the "transcendent purpose" of the songs in the first place !



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2005-09-14 12:16 by CreedenceLives.

Another very unmistakable difference between the ABB Tour so far and Forty Licks is the completely different feeling after a show...

Notice how many people are not even writing reviews the night of the show this tour. How many comments you read of "exhausted", "drained", "still recovering", etc. after gigs on this tour... how often have we read from a fan "I'm off to bed..."

Jagger said of himself after the Milwaukee show "... I was beat..." in the New York Post interview....

Whereas with Forty Licks you heard of "afterglow" and "post-concert high"....

This tour just dances your legs right out from under you and pounds away at your sacral, groin, and solar plexus chakrahs.... very basic rhythms... just as the ABB album does in a way....

....vs. 40 Licks which was such a cerebral treat and "mind buzz"



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 2005-09-14 12:36 by CreedenceLives.

Well I guess I will have to wait to see an ABB show to answer this, but as far as what I can hear from boots, Licks and ABB sound very much the same to me.

C

ABB tour: Guitars higher on the mix.

stickydion Wrote:
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> ABB tour: Guitars higher on the mix.

From the arena shows on the Forty Licks Tour, I don't see how the guitars can really be any higher in the mix...

At the United Center for Forty Licks it was as though you could distinctly hear every swipe at the guitar from both Keith and Ronnie. In fact that was one of the things that made the tour so special for me... you could easily appreciate Keiths guitarwork because the sound was so immediate and clear...

On the ABB I think it's more that perhaps some of the backup musicianship is toned DOWN than the guitars are more up, if that makes any sense.

But just to say I got a full dose of guitars on 40Licks, I don't think that's the key difference in the experience between ABB & 40L.

I hate the way you say "they'll never reach what they did on the 40 Licks tour". There's always these people that tell a story, and the basic thing they're saying is that they're okay, but not as good as in the past.

Reptile Wrote:
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> I hate the way you say "they'll never reach what
> they did on the 40 Licks tour". There's always
> these people that tell a story, and the basic
> thing they're saying is that they're okay, but not
> as good as in the past.


Personally I don't mean it that way... each tour has it's unique character, and so far from the shows I've seen some of the numbers sound even "better" on ABB than they did on 40 Licks.

It's just that 40 Licks was very AMBITIOUS from the point of view of 3 venues, 3 kinds of setlists, and the sound mix seemed to be "every instrument on maximum".

I just think 40 Licks was a tremendously complicated tour musically at that ABB strikes me as "more basic, straight ahead rock". Neither is better or worse, glad I've had a chance to catch both of them.

EVENTUALLY, if this band keeps going we'll catch the "old bluesmen in rocking chairs tour", so there's alot of permutations for the Stones yet, they needn't run out of tour ideas.