Rolling Stones, MetLife Stadium, 23 May 2024
Even though the boys are ancient, and AARP is sponsoring them, they still know how to put on a show
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We saw the Rolling Stones last night (23 May 2024), at MetLife Stadium in The Meadowlands of northern New Jersey. It was a loud wall of sonic rock & roll chaos, and we had a blast.
There’s an undeniable thrill when Keith Richards slams those chords of Start Me Up to open the concert and Mick Jagger struts out toward the crowd. We’ve made fun of that song for years, using it to make snarky meta-comments about the band’s ages, but it’s still a great banger and everyone was instantly on their feet.
Yes, the boys are old. But they still put everything they have into it – everything they have left in the tank, that is – and they know how to deliver the goods.
Originals Jagger and Richards are 80. Relative newcomer Ron Wood (who joined in 1975) is 76. Jagger and Wood look their age, especially when they are moving around trying hard not to look their age.
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Richards looks his age too, but he always appeared like an ancient goblin come down from the mountain, one who didn’t give a crap where he was or who was in the audience since he was there to just play some unforgettable chunky syncopated chords for a while and then chill out. He remains on brand.
The band behind them is, as you would expect, top-flight professionals. Two keyboards, two saxophones, two back up singers including Chanel Haynes who has a voice on her and it roars during Gimme Shelter, drummer Steve Jordan replacing the late great Charlie Watts, and of course Darryl Jones on bass since 1993 when he replaced Bill Wyman.
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That band does much of the heavy lifting, tight and focused. The boys, on the other hand, still play like a bar band that maybe should have practiced a bit more, which is absurd of course since the Stones have been Stonesing since 1962. They know exactly what they are doing, it is all part of the mystique and the rock vibe. I said to my wife in the car afterwards that sometimes it sounded like Wood and Richards weren’t in the same key; she said it sometimes sounded like they weren’t even playing the same song. But they hit every break and key moment in every song. They work hard, I think, at being professionals who specialize in acting like they’ve never been fully tamed by stuffy notions of professionalism. There’s a genius to it, obviously.
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The set list last night:
Start Me Up
Get Off of My Cloud
Shattered
Angry
It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll
Wild Horses
Mess It Up
Tumbling Dice
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
You Got the Silver
Little T&A
Sympathy for the Devil
Honky Tonk Women
Miss You
Gimme Shelter
Paint It Black
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
For the encore they did Sweet Sounds of Heaven from the new album, and then an intense and epic version of Satisfaction that probably could be heard in Montreal.