ROLLING STONES
I’m sneaky as a snake
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Whoa–down, boy! That’s not from some novelty song, please note: that’s from the supposed-to-be-dangerous grinder, “Terrifying,” from Steel Wheels. Its rather strained chorus goes, “I get these strange strange strange desires.”
Jagger has had five years between albums to come up with new songs. For Voodoo Lounge he has a germ of a song idea: his love is–what? What might be just the right mot to capture the intensity of his lustful emotions? Aha–he thinks–how about fire?
Sparks will fly
If you knew nothing about the Stones, the show would tell you this: that the band has a new album, from which they played some songs just so the whole operation wouldn’t feel too much like a Frankie Valli oldies show; that the band’s previous album was 1978’s Some Girls, from which they played three songs (“Miss You,” “Beast of Burden,” and “Shattered”); that their record before that was 1972’s Exile on Main St, from which they played four songs (“Rocks Off,” “All Down the Line,” “Tumbling Dice,” and “Happy”); and that prior to that they’d had some 60s hits. With the exception of the new songs, which everyone involved could have done without, this abridged version of the Stones’ career is unassailable. The Some Girls songs, particularly, were pleasantly close to what a band like the Stones should be doing: catchy, memorable tunes teeming with hooks and riffs, each brandishing a potent bridge and touching on mature and substantive lyrical themes. But of course, that was all 16 years ago. Where the band’s calamitous show at Alpine Valley in 1989 was heavy on novelty numbers (“Ruby Tuesday,” “Dead Flowers”), the surprises this year were more substantive. “Monkey Man” didn’t live up to its initial promise but was nevertheless a treat, and while “Wild Horses” hasn’t stood up terrifically in the 25 years since Richards wrote it for Gram Parsons, neither did Jagger’s reading of it slide over into lugubriousness.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Karen A. Peters.
