Anton Corbijn/Virgin Records
Forty licks. Twenty-one songs. Four Rolling Stones. Nine additional singers and musicians. 45,000 screaming fans. A two hour and ten minute rock show. Chance to see the Stones in a stadium venue for the first time: Priceless.
The Rolling Stones, one of the longest running rock and roll bands on the market, recently finished up their stay in the City of Brotherly Love after shows at Veterans stadium, the First Union Center and the Tower Theater, touring behind their newly remastered CDs, covering the first decade of their career, and a new, two-CD greatest hit compilation called, “40 Licks.” The new release, which will be released in the United States on Oct. 1, will include four new tracks.
Touring the U.S. since 1964, the Stones rose to popularity and started holding stadium shows. Over the last 10 years, the band has put on several shows in Philadelphia’s Veterans stadium for their Voodoo Lounge and Bridges to Babylon tours. On Sept. 18, the rock and roll hall-of-famers hit the stadium again.
The parking lot alone held an atmosphere of excitement. The fans were decked out in their old Stones shirts, even some with jean jackets carrying patches and misplaced rips. There were tailgate parties throughout the parking lots of Veterans stadium, the First Union Center and the First Union Spectrum.
The opening act was The Pretenders, a group that achieved success with songs such as “I’ll Stand By You” and “Working On The Chain Gang.” While their playing was excellent and their stage presence carried them through their almost hour long performance, portions of the crowd, some who sat in traffic, were in no mood to deal with the wait to see the headlining act.
The huge stage was set with a banner, lights and towers surrounding the floor area. When the lights went out, the crowd was in frenzy as Keith Richards hit the opening guitar riff of “Brown Sugar.” Mick Jagger, the lead singer, was his usual self, strutting around the stage while doing his unique dance moves, the finger pointing and a move where Jagger turns his hands as if he is loosening a light bulb. He did not, however, do the rooster dance.
“Brown Sugar” was followed by “It’s Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It),” then the show got interesting with “Start Me Up,” as a giant screen unlocked behind the band transforming them from small stick figures in the vast stadium to literally larger than life rock stars, now eight stories high. The screen was split in four parts for this song, coming together and showing off Jagger, Richards, Ron Wood and drummer, Charlie Watts.
Jagger then strapped on his own guitar to play one of the new songs featured on “40 Licks,” “Don’t Stop.” The song, though unfamiliar to most of the crowd, is a return to the old Stones style of music and kept the crowd going.
The classics kept coming with “Tumblin’ Dice,” from one of their best CDs, “Exile on Main Street.” Followed by “Undercover of the Night,” a lesser known song from a lesser known album, but still the performance was one of the highlights of the evening. The song introduced a new screen change when the big screen went under a blue spell, showing off Jagger playing the guitar.
After slowing the show down with “Wild Horses,” a trumpet player hit the stage for the opening of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” from the “Let It Bleed” album. Before the tour began, the Stones made the decision to theme each show with one particular album. On this particular evening, “Let It Bleed” was the feature of the night. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” was followed by “Midnight Rambler,” which was highlighted with stop and go rhythm and a blistering harp from Jagger.
After stepping off of the stage to throw on a long white coat and a fedora, Jagger led the band in through a cover of “Love Train,” from Philadelphia’s own OJays.
Jagger stepped off of the stage after giving introductions of the extended band, with Watts and Richards getting the two biggest cheers. Then, Richards took center stage and played two of his songs, “Slipping Away” and “Before They Make Me Run.” Richards looked like a shy schoolboy before and after the songs, smiling and saying as little as possible about his work.
Jagger rejoined the band when fire eclipsed the video screen and the pieces above it, giving it just the right demon feeling for “Sympathy for the Devil.” The pyro continued throughout the song, with smokes crawling across the night sky.
Like previous shows, the Stones headed to a smaller stage on the floor, closer to the crowd, to play three songs. To keep things moving, they played “You Got Me Rocking,” from the “Voodoo Lounge” album. Continuing with the theme of “Let It Bleed,” Jagger put on an acoustic for the title track, “Let It Bleed.” Closing their stay on the small stage, they played the Bob Dylan classic bearing the band’s name, “Like A Rolling Stone.”
After the walk up the ramp, slapping the hands of the onlookers, the Stones ended their featured album songs with “Gimmie Shelter” and “Honky Tonk Women,” which appears on “Let It Bleed” as “Country Honk.” During “Gimmie Shelter,” one of the background vocalists, Lisa Fischer, soloed, giving Jagger the chance to further strut his stuff. A pornographic cartoon of a woman piercing and then riding the long-time Stones tongue symbol accompanied “Honky Tonk Women.”
The show closed with “Street Fighting Man” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” and the band left the stage. The crowd, still in an uproar, broke out into screams to get the band back on the stage. After a few minutes wait, Richards hit the opening chords of “Satisfaction,” the Stones’ first U.S. No. 1.
The encore finished and the band made a run for the door. The crowd was going nowhere as the band pulled out in their transport, police lights flashing. It took a few minutes for the crowd to get the point that the show was over, but as long as the Rolling Stones are alive and breathing, the show will never come to an end.
