This is how Rolling Stone covered the start of the tour:

I think maybe a point that is being missed here is at that point, 1989, the biggest tour in years had only the company of Metallica, Def Leppard and The Cult (there might be more but those are the three that come to mind at this point - oh, my bad - Guns'N'Roses and Aerosmith) making a dent in terms of actual people playing instruments.

Because a majority of music from that era is so bad, so fake - the Stones came back and let it rip.

Still, one of the worst songs from that era is Rock And A Hard Place, only preceded by Mick's Let's Work.

As a Stones fan who has seen at least two shows on every concert tour since 1972 (I purposely skipped the Bigger Bang tour as for me it was getting to the point of "Been There Done That" too often), I've always felt that the Steel Wheels tour got bashed unnecessarily because it was deemed "too slick". Aside from that claim, the Stones as a band never sounded so sharp and focused. Keith and Ronnie's playing were at the top of their game. Jagger was actually singing and not barking out the lyrics (aka Stones 75 & 76 tours), and the setlist for the time was pretty amazing (Paint It Black, Play with Fire, 2000 Light Years From Home). From many tapes I have from Steel Wheels shows,the majority of the shows sounded inspired and energetic, which cannot be said about other Stones tours...

... namely 94, 94, 97, 98, 99, 02, 03, 05, 06 and especially 07?

They aged 5 years after Steel Wheels - and it really showed.

Steel Wheels was the last honestly great tour without need for heaps of fan-boy apologetics when describing their performaces. YES - there have been moments of greatness since - but lets all be honest here... they couldn't pull off those kinds of shows anymore - it was almost 20 years ago!!!

[thepowergoats.com]

Yes, it was slick. Yes, the guitars were a bit clean, and we now know that it was the beginning of the big production style that has been with us since....but..

The band played and sang very well, the set list was adventurous and I liked almost every song. I don't find it "over-rehearsed" because there was still passion in the performance.

I think Mick was at his best as a singer when he was younger. Others say that he's actually at his best now. 89 can be seen as sort of a mid point -- a compromise, of sorts. A little too controlled for some, but not "barking" and screwing up the lyrics like he did for a couple of tours, and not as studied (and nasal) as now.

I think it's toward the middle...somewhere...

Once again, I agree with you texasfan!

[thepowergoats.com]

While I agree that 1989/90 was a triumphant return, the latter-day tours are still being analyzed. That deserves a separate thread.

rolling stone did a very good article on the steel wheels tour of 1989.seems to me it was very well researched , as if they actually sent people to cover the show and write there review as opposed to all the HATERS who bash the 1989 tour without actually ATTENDING the show .very good review indeed

IMO it's not about "bashing" the Steel Wheels tour at all. It's just about assessing and comparing it from TODAY'S point of view. I saw them in Munich in 1990 and loved it. But it's a whole different thing to listen to the shows on record and then with hindsight the perspective changes once again. To me it was a perfect show then. But from today's point of view, I'd hardly ever call it my favourite.

...and of course even back then, we couldn't discuss Michael Cohl without greed becoming an issue (from Rolling Stone):

It's also the first album and tour when they started to change the Tongue And Lips logo on everything, not just a single. Voodoo was Keith's cat and Bridges was way different. I like how they've played with it over the years.

How the London Sunday Times covered the opening gig:

45 year-old men are going to put on a completely different show than 65 year-old men.

If they're going to bother touring again, I really hope they take things down, focus on blues & soul. They can be a high-octane rock band anymore and still sound like the awesome rock power-house they once were.

They can't - their age isn't letting them anymore.
It pains me, but I've gotta be honest.

[thepowergoats.com]

can you believe they were considered old then, almost twenty years later and the same energy level

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melillo
can you believe they were considered old then, almost twenty years later and the same energy level

I saw them for the first time in '75 and thought they were old THEN!

I liked Steel Wheels but it WAS a tad Vegas-like. Voodoo was better with more varied set-lists, a better album and more real on-stage interaction (even if Bill was gone). Every tour since has been cut from the Voodoo template.

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melillo
can you believe they were considered old then, almost twenty years later and the same energy level

I saw them for the first time in '75 and thought they were old THEN!

I liked Steel Wheels but it WAS a tad Vegas-like. Voodoo was better with more varied set-lists, a better album and more real on-stage interaction (even if Bill was gone). Every tour since has been cut from the Voodoo template.

i can see your point - but you could argue that the B2B tour and its b-stage introduction have been the framework used ever since, too

Looking back to a time in the UK when it seemed that video really HAD killed the radio star, the release of Steel Wheels was as welcome as it was surprising. It was also surprisingly good, with even the UK’s music press taking the decision to bury their collective hatchet by greeting the album with a unanimous thumbs-up.

Of course, we all thought we’d lost them, for up to that time, the more authoritative word on the street was that the Stones had basically called it a day and thrown the towel in; to quietly disappear into the annals of rock music history without even a murmur; finally beaten to death by all the synthesised crap that the eighties had bestowed upon us.

Not that I had much faith in their ability to cut it again out on the road, mind.

Somehow, I just didn’t think that they had the inclination to seriously overhaul or transform their live sound from the kind of ramshackle train wrecks that their 1981/82 tour had at times resembled, to one which was capable of rivalling the more recent big productions of Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna.

I was even too sceptical to believe any of the glowing reports that were beginning to appear in magazines and newspapers about how brilliant they sounded and how they were managing to faithfully re-create some of the sounds that they’d achieved on record.

In fact it wasn’t until I saw them in the UK the following year that I got to find out for myself just how brilliant this version of the Stones actually was, with Ronnie at last, coming of age as a fully fledged Rolling Stone. I thought him and Keith were magnificent on that tour, and again on the Voodoo Lounge jaunt a few years later.

All in all, Steel Wheels was a great show, involving some creative and intelligent exploitation of the newly-available technology which helped bring alive certain sections of the performance, particularly the Satanic Majesties segment. They’d never sounded better.

Only by the time of the Licks tour, did the whole big band sound start to get stale, to the point nowadays, where the backing musicians are more of a safety net than anything else.

jamesfdouglas, your envy as a wanna-be is getting tiring. You STILL use this forum to promote your band (for free), yet have the nerve to say the Stones can't cut it anymore. Your self-aggrandizing agenda is painfully apparent.

I'll say this to ANY musician who co-opts a fan site to promote themselves: it is in extremely poor taste.

The Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour fitteted exactly in the decade, and it was again another milestone for the Stones. To get back with such a tremendous success in time nobody thought that they'll be tour again.
You can't compare this tour with any other, 'cause the time the drug based shows from the 70's were over and we got healthy band which showed us that you can rock the world also in the mid 40's. It was unique for those days.

Keep on rollin'
Gangster

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T&A

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melillo
can you believe they were considered old then, almost twenty years later and the same energy level

I saw them for the first time in '75 and thought they were old THEN!

I liked Steel Wheels but it WAS a tad Vegas-like. Voodoo was better with more varied set-lists, a better album and more real on-stage interaction (even if Bill was gone). Every tour since has been cut from the Voodoo template.

i can see your point - but you could argue that the B2B tour and its b-stage introduction have been the framework used ever since, too

Personally,I argue that the 2003 Licks Tour of Europe (the shows in Spain,the last five shows in Europe that year starting 9-22-'03 etc.) and its " let's see how few songs (without causing a riot) we can get away with performing for the audience who paid x hundreds of dollars/euros for each ticket " ending has been the framework used ever since.

jamesfdouglas has a band? I've never noticed.

The main beef about this tour is always that's its too slick and that is true. But look at the trade-offs that make it great. Three main things:

1. The Guitars- Ron and Keith played WAY better than they do now. In my opinion, its not even close. They were razor sharp still. And their energy level was WAY higher. Again, not even close to now.

2. Mick's moves/dances were not as "scripted" as they are now. When he came out to Start Me Up, he couldn't control his energy and just went with it.

3. Bill Wyman... enough said.

Steel Wheels tour... maybe a little slick... but I'll take it!

"You'll be studying history and you'll be down the gym. And I'll be down the pub, probably playing pool and drinking."

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bassplayer617
jamesfdouglas, your envy as a wanna-be is getting tiring. You STILL use this forum to promote your band (for free), yet have the nerve to say the Stones can't cut it anymore. Your self-aggrandizing agenda is painfully apparent.

I'll say this to ANY musician who co-opts a fan site to promote themselves: it is in extremely poor taste.

Maybe if you looked around more beyond this site you'd see that it's quite commonplace in 2008 to run signatures with links/widgets to one's own band sites, podcasts, livejournals, myspace pages, etc.

If that's frowned upon here, I regret it.
I also must say that those frowning might want to step into 2008 though.
I'm not the only one who enjoys posting here but finds a lot of the personal sniping/$#!t-slinging a bit catty.

But hey - I say something that you don't agree with about the Stones, or you might (I said 'might') be like others here and feel like they 'own' or are 'part of' the Stones, so anything less than worshipping is some kind of slam on you, personally.

I have no quarrel with you, but believe me, I'm not really that concered what you think about me or my band. You flicked the first pea my friend.

Now let's get back on topic...

[thepowergoats.com]