January 4, 2013 8:00 AM ET
"Everyone was trying to get the
band really on,"
Mick Jagger says in a still-revved-up voice, describing the best and most important thing about the
Rolling Stones'
shortest and most intensive tour ever: their five 50th-anniversary
concerts in London, Brooklyn and New Jersey. "Keith concentrated on
holding his parts together," the singer says of guitarist
Keith Richards, "and I wasn't letting the vocals take second place. We wanted to put the music out in a good way, not just be flash."
With stripped-down arena production, career-spanning set lists and a
renewed focus on their natural kinetic-blues drive, the Stones
reasserted their right, at these gigs, to the title of the world's
greatest rock & roll band. And they will keep doing it on the road
next year. "There have been quite a few offers," Jagger says, two days
after
the final show in Newark.
"I'm going to see what's on the table and discuss it with everyone,"
referring to Richards, guitarist Ron Wood and drummer Charlie Watts.
"We'll announce it when we've figured it out."
Rolling Stones Cap Anniversary Tour With All-Star Blowout
"Really, all you're going to have to do is wait for an announcement,"
Richards confirms with a raspy laugh. The birthday shows "went like a
dream, at the same speed, man. But we barely got off the starting
blocks," he insists. "It would be dopey to bring things up to this level
and say, 'Well, that's that, 50 years, bye-bye.'"
The closing show – December 15th in Newark, shown on pay-per-view
television – had the tour's highest concentration of guest-star power: a
blues-guitar fusillade featuring
John Mayer and rising star Gary Clark Jr.; the Black Keys pumping up the Bo Diddley beat in a rare Stones cover of "Who Do You Love";
Bruce Springsteen turning on his Jersey-bar roar in "Tumbling Dice"; and
Lady Gaga
going toe-to-toe with Jagger in "Gimme Shelter," the former in
outrageously high heels. "She had big heels on for the rehearsal,"
Jagger notes. "But when it came to the show, they got even larger."
A
recurring highlight in London
and Newark was ex-Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, soloing in vintage form
with Richards and Wood in "Midnight Rambler." But when they had the
stage to themselves, the Stones – with pianist Chuck Leavell and bassist
Darryl Jones – stuck close to "the band's natural feel," as Richards
puts it: the rough heat and tight grind of their early-Seventies LPs and
tours. "Everybody talks about how they like the sloppiness of the
Rolling Stones," Jagger says. "But there's a difference between having
swerve and being too sloppy."
Drummer Patrick Carney of the Black Keys says the first thing he
noticed at rehearsal, the day before their guest spot, was that the
Stones "were so friendly and down-to-earth. It wasn't nearly as scary as
we anticipated." The second revelation: "There was nothing nostalgic
about them. The way Keith and Ronnie play together – you don't see that
kind of realness. Every song is a living, breathing thing."
"Nostalgia is not this band's strong point," Richards affirms. "It
was almost kicking and screaming to get us to this 50-year thing. We
eventually realized it was a good time to put things together again.
'Hey, 51 years? Don't give a shit.'"
Close to a year of rumination, discussion and planning went into the
brief anniversary tour. "Mick took the longest to come along," Richards
claims. "He was there with it, but it was always 'Give me another
reason.' I know Charlie didn't need persuading. He just wanted to make
sure Mick wanted to do it."
"It wasn't really a debate," Jagger counters. "I originally said, 'We
can do anything. We can do one club show, if you want.' But I always
imagined it was going to be brief." Jagger says the Stones added the
12-12-12 benefit in New York to the itinerary at the last minute
"because we were there."
Despite extensive rehearsals in Paris, plus two club shows there, the
band left some decisions to chance and the last minute. The Stones
practiced "I Wanna Be Your Man," the
Lennon-
McCartney
song they cut in 1963, at different tempos before settling on one
closer to "Start Me Up," "with a lot more power and funk to it,"
Richards says. The Stones and the Black Keys didn't pick their Bo
Diddley song until the Keys got to rehearsal, straight from the airport
after finishing a British tour. And Springsteen nailed "Tumbling Dice"
in practice right away. "We just did it once," Jagger recalls, "and he
said, 'I think that's really gonna be good.'"
Rare and Intimate Pictures of the Rolling Stones
The first hint of 2013 Stones concerts came the day before the second show in Newark, when the band's iPhone app
listed an appearance next April at Coachella.
That info quickly disappeared from the official schedule, and Jagger
swears he doesn't know how it got there, that he had not been approached
about playing at the festival. "I always said that we'd see how this
would go, and then we'd think about doing more – or not."
It's his turn to laugh when asked about Richards' standard optimism
on Stones shows: that there is always more down the line. "Keith and
Ronnie say things to the press," he says, "because that's their line.
They don't say, 'Oh, I think about it carefully.' But they think about
it as carefully as Charlie and I do. The reality is they are as
tentative as anybody else."
Richards concedes there are serious questions to be answered about
live work in the Stones' 51st year: how much to do, how to do it. "That
will definitely come into the equation," he says. "At the same time, a
gig's a gig. The curtain opens and there you are. I just get the feeling
– they're itching at the bit now." There's one more laugh. "This thing
wasn't enough."
