It’s only rock’n roll and I like it

Bruce Montgomery

I’VE got mates who are younger than Mick and Keith and they’re already little old men. They’re falling to bits. I know Keith looks like he’s falling to bits and he’s supposed to have fallen out of a palm tree or been hit by a coconut in Fiji, but he keeps sticking the bits back on. In New York he’s more popular than Jesus Christ.
“Well, I made it,” he told the 40,000 fans at this concert in the Giants Stadium and they went bananas. With those four words, Keith of the long black coat, the St Vitas dancer, brought the house down

According to the pundits, this concert was one of their best ever. Does this mean that Mick, at 63 years and four months, is singing better than ever? Is Keef, at 62 years and 11 months, playing better than ever?

I should paint you a picture.

Remember Fat Bastard in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me? It seems everywhere I went on this New York trip I kept running into Fat Bastard.

On the plane between Melbourne and Los Angeles, Fat Bastard was spilling out of his seat into mine, flesh and gut pouring over the arm rest into my seat for 16 hours.

At Yankee Stadium, Fat Bastard was sitting in front of me after I had paid a king’s ransom for a good seat behind the catcher for the Yankees’ game against the Baltimore Orioles. Fat Bastard was so big he couldn’t sit in the seat, so he perched on the front lip, blocking my view of both pitcher and batter. But he was a nice Fat Bastard.

The Giants Stadium, home of the New York Giants football team, is across the Hudson River from New York in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It’s an amphitheatre seating 49,000. When there’s something big happening here, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in NYC lays on special buses from the Port Authority bus depot on 42nd Street. For $7 return they take you through the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson and out to the stadium.

Two and a half hours after I climbed off the bus, Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie arrived in two helicopters. Above them, jets screeched their descent to Newark, La Guardia and JFK. As dusk turned to night, the stadium came alive; a coliseum exploding with sound and light, fireworks, waving arms, pointed fingers and spotlights trained on a slender nymph of a man, a Jumping Jack Flash, as overhead the planes continued to arrive, cabin lights dimmed, passengers looking down on the glow below.

I had paid $A235 for a good seat to the right of the multi-storey stage, about a third of the way down the stadium, two rows above the pit. This was less than I had paid for a similar seat in Melbourne in 2003 for the Stones’ Forty Licks concert. It was close enough to almost, almost, reach and touch Mick or Keith when they ventured my way.

Then Fat Bastard and his twin brother arrived. They wore Stones’ tee shirts and red bandanas. Good ol’ boys. They parked two seats away, with a seat between them, and proceeded to stuff themselves with beer, bagels and burgers. When other fans arrived to take their seats, Fat Bastard squeezed in next to me. He was so big he had to put his arm around me so he could fit in the space. This made us instant buddies.

“Australia?”

“Yes.”

A high five with his spare hand.

“Steve Irwin?”

“Yes” (inferring I knew of him and what a dreadful thing it was that had befallen him even though I side with Germaine Greer on this one).

More high fives.

Beyond that, I couldn’t understand a word Fat Bastard said. His voice seemed obscured within the depths of his neck. His lips never moved. Just every five minutes, “Australia”, “Steve Irwin” and a high five. This took me back to Sarajevo 1970, stranded in a Yugoslav village in a Kombi with a broken crankshaft. While waiting days for assistance, I engaged in conversation, chess and soccer with the curious locals. The only words exchanged were “Spassky”, “Fischer” (who were playing chess at the time) and “Georgie Best” and “Bobby Charlton” (who were playing soccer at the time).

Drink more beer

Fat Bastard and his mate were huge Stones’ fans, literally. When the show started, they were up out of their seats, returning only occasionally to rest their giant ham bones and to drink more beer.

I’ve never been to a bad rock concert. That’s because I live in Hobart and am just grateful that people stop by to play — Dire Straits, Joe Cocker, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan. While everyone else panned Dylan at the DEC, I loved him. Dylan is bigger than JC. Yes he was muted, but he was Dylan and he was there. Many years later I saw him at a concert in a basketball stadium in Auckland. He was sensational.

People say, and I’ll go on to quote them, that this concert in New York was one out of the box. This was the set list (the B stage is when they wander up the causeway to a second stage to give the punters in the bleachers a better look):

1. It’s Only Rock’n Roll
2. Live With Me
3. Monkey Man
4. Sway
5. Far Away Eyes
6. Streets Of Love
7. Just My Imagination
8. Midnight Rambler
9. Tumbling Dice
10. You Got The Silver (Keith)
11. Little T&A (Keith)
12. Under My Thumb (to B-stage)
13. Rough Justice
14. Start Me Up
15. Honky Tonk Women (to main stage)
16. Sympathy For The Devil
17. Jumping Jack Flash
18. Satisfaction
19. Brown Sugar (encore)

I thought they were amazing. Jagger was having a ball. He didn’t stop moving. Nobody moves like Jagger. I’ve finally worked out the walk. He steps as if crossing a stream at a ford of stones. He sets himself down on his toes then his heel follows. It’s an exaggerated step, but it’s how he gets that prance, the gait of a pacer. He’s still stick thin — no hips, no bum. The hair has never changed. Only the crags in the face deepen, and visibly so as the show unwinds.

Keith and Ronnie smoked. The audience took their cue. The air was filled with the distinctive smell of pot. It fired them up. They danced and sang. They knew all the words. They were smoking. I thought the Stones were stunning that night but my views count for little. This is what reviewers wrote on the Stones’ European fan club (It’s Only Rock’n Roll) website (http://iorr.org)

“Last night’s show was hands down the most enjoyable, and probably the best, Stones’ show of the 20 I have seen over the past 34 years (including all five NY shows since last September),” wrote Russell Rowland.

“First off I kept asking myself is this even the same band? I have never heard Keith and Ronnie so dead on and tight. Never! The sloppy and sometimes crappy guitar playing that I complained about at various times over the past few tours was GONE. Get a bootleg of the show and listen for yourself. You will hear the band in top form.

“These boys can still kick major ass. God love ’em.”

Robert Bagel:

“The new song Streets of Love was excellent with Mick’s focused intent on making the song stand up in the company of rarities and classics. Mick’s vocals were every part a blues singer laying down his soul, so Otis Redding or Muddy Waters could not have done better. Anyone used to the studio version will be in awe of the way this song is played live.

“The band and the people of New York and New Jersey clearly appreciated Mick’s effort. It was a fitting conclusion to an evening that proved to be like a homecoming for a band and a crowd that are still very much in love with each other.”

You hope that a night like this will never end. It took three hours to get back to the Upper West Side after an hour in the bus queue and a long wait in the subway. It was almost 3 am before I got off the uptown train and put the key in the front door, but hell, it’s only rock’n roll and I like it.

The Rolling Stones
A Bigger Bang World Tour
Giants Stadium, New Jersey, September 27 2006