The Rolling Stones, Beira Rio Stadium, Porto Alegre, 2 March 2016

This show was the last of the Brazilian leg of the Rolling Stones 2016 Ole tour and, if I understood Mick Jagger's Portuguese correctly, the first time they had played Porto Alegre.  60,000 Brazilians turned out to see them play this magnificent stadium on an absolute dog of a night.  You might imagine Brazil is all sun kissed beaches, but this was more like a Tuesday night away game at Accrington Stanley.  It rained from start to finish and there wasn't a lot to be cheerful about, weather wise.

But the spirits of the crowd were not dampened by the rain and neither did the Stones treat this fixture lightly.  They put out a full strength team and, all told, played eleven top ten hits plus Gimme Shelter, an extended Midnight Rambler, Sympathy For The Devil and You Can't Always Get What You Want.  There was plenty for a boisterous crowd to sing along to, and sing along they did.

From the opener Jumping Jack Flash through It's Only Rock'n'Roll, Tumbling Dice, Let's Spend The Night Together, Ruby Tuesday, Paint It Black and Honky Tonk Women, the Stones opened their treasure chest of a back catalogue and rolled out hit after hit.

Only Out Of Control, the fourth song in and (for me) still an inappropriately placed slow song this early on, didn't have the crowd singing along as fervently, but they cheered Mick when he stood toe to toe with Keith and riffed on harmonica.

When Mick introduced the band, the crowd began a chant of 'Rich-ards! Rich-ards!' which was only ended by Keith reminding the audience 'I have a show to do.'  He then gave them You Got The Silver and a heartfelt Before They Make Me Run.  In the pouring rain I was particularly affected by the line 'only a crowd can make you feel so alone.'  Keith, who increasingly seems to relish his fifteen minutes in the spotlight, is all smiles during this spot and throughout the evening.

The 'warhorses' inevitably conclude a Stones set and we get Midnight Rambler, Miss You ('do you feel like singing?'), Gimme Shelter with Sasha Allen escorting Mick to the end of the thrust stage to wail like a banshee and invoke the spirit of Merry Clayton, a pumped Start Me Up and a rousing Sympathy For The Devil. Before the gig there were around one hundred Jehovah's Witnesses outside the stadium.  From the mass singalong to Sympathy, with the crowd enthusiastically 'woo wooing' along to the chorus, I doubt there were many in the audience who were going to be walking out of the stadium to sign up for a subscription to Watchtower.

They finished with You Can't Always Get What You Want and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, but I must admit to missing these numbers.  Soaked to the skin and unable to see without my rain splattered specs, I left the stadium to the opening riff from Brown Sugar to grab a cab back to my hotel.  Porto Alegreans were still bouncing up and down to Mick Jagger as he led them through the chorus of 'yeah, yeah, yeah - whoo!' as I collapsed into the warm cocoon of my taxi.  The Stones first performance in Porto Alegre and one that will stick in the mind - once I've dried out.

The Rolling Stones, Morumbi Stadium, Sao Paulo, 24 February 2016

This gig was never going to disappoint, as the band which pioneered stadium gigs and which (still) has the best front man in the business has been doing this for over fifty years and knows how to put on a show. Throw in a buzzing South American crowd, a slightly delayed start while the water was mopped from the stage after the early evening rain, a support band that was clearly well known to large sections of the audience and had them fist pumping along to several tunes (even if your correspondent had never heard of them) and throw in a warm and humid evening, and the sense of anticipation was palpable.  This one was nailed on from the start.  From the opening chords, we were off and running with 60,000 Paulistas singing along to Start Me Up.  The band were wreathed in smiles, clearly glad to be here (or, as Keith would have it, 'glad to be anywhere') and the atmosphere was unlike any I've ever experienced at a stadium gig.  

It's Only Rock'n'Roll and Tumbling Dice followed, and then we entered a bit of a cul-de-sac in terms of maintaining audience enthusiasm, as Out Of Control, Bitch, Beast of Burden and Worried About You follow, the last sung by Mick in a faltering falsetto that makes me Worried About Mick, so frail did he sound.

Things kicked back into gear with Honky Tonk Women.  Then Keith sang You Got The Silver and Happy.  The latter sounds a little threadbare without Mick on backing vocals, as that was part of the original song's charm.

But the Stones always unveil their nuclear weapons in the second half of the set.  The undoubted highlights are Gimme Shelter and Sympathy For The Devil.  Sasha Allen has replaced Lisa Fischer for this tour and whilst she may lack Lisa's physical presence she certainly has the pipes and duets with Mick on the thrust stage, bringing Gimme Shelter to a steamy climax. The latter, which was dropped from the Stones set list for a while, is now firmly entrenched as a centrepiece, with Mick in his L'Wrenn Scott cape and a new visual on the video screens to accompany the number.

The crowd sang heartily along to Miss You, responding to Mick's calls, and joined in on the chorus for You Can't Always Get What You Want.  Then it was the traditional romp to the finish line with Satisfaction.  Satisfied?  60,000 Brazilian fans certainly were.

The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, 6 July 2013

Hyde Park was basking in a glorious evening's sunshine and when the Rolling Stones' lead singer Mick Jagger suggested that London in summer was the best place in the world to be, few in the 65,000 strong crowd assembled to see the band return to play the central London park 44 years after their celebrated free concert were inclined to disagree.

From the opening riff of Start Me Up through to the closing bars of ( I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, the crowd sang along and if Jagger had to glance occasionally at his autocue to remember the words of some of the most famous songs in the rock canon the faithful gathered at his feet had no such need.

Like their O2 gigs last year, this and the following Saturday's Hyde Park gig were criticised for the price of the tickets but both sold out in minutes and from the number and variety (and vintage) of tee shirts on display, the concert goers gathered in central London were afficiandos who would have come to see the band whatever the cost.

That tickets for this gig started at £99 says more about the business model for rock music than it does about the avarice of the Stones. Musicians don't make much money from selling their music any more and ticket sales from concerts is the big revenue stream.

Not that the Stones had skimped on staging.  The set was bedecked with two large oak trees from which were hung the speaker stacks, slightly obscuring the giant video screens. But a central walkway meant that at different times Mick, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood advanced into the masses and gave the crowd packed in at the front (some of whom had queued overnight to get in) a close look at the nearest thing Britain has to rock royalty.

As a seasoned Stones watcher I have a couple of gripes. The high resolution big screen revealed Mick to be glancing at the autocue on a far too frequent basis and you wonder if he really struggles that much to remember the lyrics.  And I wouldn't have played All Down The Line (my preference in the fan vote was for the Temptations cover Just My Imagination, which they stripped down and rebuilt as their own on Some Girls). But that's democracy for you.

I saw Springsteen play at Wembley Stadium a few weeks ago and was distinctly underwhelmed by his choice of material. And, let's face it, a band that can release Gimme Shelter (with Keith in thunderous form), Sympathy for the Devil (with the audience 'woo-wooing' along) and  You Can't Always Get What You Want (with full choral backing) towards the tail end of a set that is packed with a clutch of memorable chart topping singles (Paint It Black, Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, It's Only Rock'n'Roll, Miss You, Tumblin' Dice and Jumping Jack Flash) is always going to have the edge when it comes to killer songs.

The Stones playing Hyde Park was a celebration of a band that has been a part of people's lives for over 50 years.  The grey hair, the wrinkles and the occasional falling out between friends tells the story of the band but also most of the 65,000 too.  That's why their fans love them and why they were, on Saturday night, once again the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world.

Rolling Stones - Crossfire Hurricane

Crossfire Hurricane
Director:  Brett Morgen
Cert 15

Crossfire Hurricane, the new documentary about the Rolling Stones, premiered at 300 cinemas worldwide including The Odeon, Preston.

It is difficult to find something new to say about a band which has probably featured in more books, magazine articles and TV programmes than any other.  But director Brett Morgen has managed it in this fasicinating trawl through the vaults of TV stations across the world.

Culled from TV and cinema footage, much of which is previously unseen or unshown since it was first broadcast, the film is both a treasure trove for hardened Stones followers and an education in the band’s history for the uninitiated.

The heavy bias towards the 1960s reveals the chaos of the early days of the Stones, when the band strummed Popeye The Sailor Man because the girls at their concerts screamed so loudly that the audience could not hear a note that was being played.  So too are the darker days of the group, including their descent into serious drug abuse in the late 1960s, with the death of guitarist and founder member Brian Jones touchingly remembered.

The horror of the Altamont concert, when an audience member was stabbed to death by the Hells Angels hired by the band to provide security at the gig, and guitarist Keith Richards' arrest for heroin possession by the Canadian police in 1976, are also examined in detail, giving a warts'n'all picture of the self styled greatest rock'n'roll band in the world.

The current day opinions of the band are voiced over the soundtrack, interspersed with the more youthful images of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards et al, and only at the very end - with an outtake from Martin Scorcese’s Shine A Light which featured the band in concert in 2008 - do we get to see the wrinkled old rockers in anything like their present state.

What carries the film along is the music, from Route 66 by way of I Can't Get No Satisfaction and Honky Tonk Women through to Miss You, with contemporary footage of the band performing numbers on TV shows that in some cases has not seen the light of day in more than 40 years.

Crossfire Hurricane will be available on DVD before Christmas.  Stones fans unable to make it to view the film on the big screen should start writing that letter to Santa now.