By Brian Tarquin
I’ve always been a British Invasion baby boomer and The Stones are on the top of the list as my favorite band during that period. I remember in school there seemed to be two camps of fans, Beatles and Stones. Of course, I belonged to the latter because Jagger & Richards had that real snarling rock star attitude as opposed to The Beatles’ persona as clean cut lads. Plus, The Stones had the same DNA as us in America whereby they were so blues/rock oriented with their music and lyrics that we considered them one of us. On the other hand, Lennon/McCartney were very English in their music structure especially the subject matter they sang about in the songs. Now The Rolling Stones have had several lineups in the past 50-years. The band was originally founded by the multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones in 1962 with Charlie Watts on drums, Bill Wyman on bass, Keith Richards on guitar and Mick Jagger on vocals. This was the golden period for the band however they kicked out Brian Jones and replaced him with Mick Taylor in 1969 first appearing on Let It Bleed. Taylor was then replaced by Ronnie Woods, ex-bass player for The Jeff Beck Group in 1976 and Ron has been in the band ever since the album Black & Blue. Later on, Bill Wyman left the band to pursue other musical interests in 1993 and was replaced by jazz bassist Daryl Jones. Sadly, Charlie Watts died on the drum throne in 2021 being replaced by jazz/fusion drummer Steve Jordan.
Some years ago, when my son was 15 years old, I took him to see The Stones when the stadium was still called The Citrus Bowl and Charlie Watts was still alive. So, keeping with tradition, I took my 15-year daughter to see them on June 3rd when they arrived in Orlando. The band line-up is currently Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Woods, Daryl Jones and Steve Jordan. They kicked the night off with “Start Me Up”, a song that I know well as my high school rock band used to play it for dances and pub gigs. As you can imagine they played their iconic songs as "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", "Get Off of My Cloud”, "Paint It Black", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Honky Tonk Women", "Sympathy for the Devil", "Street Fighting Man”, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Gimme Shelter". But they also performed tracks from their new release Hackney Diamond which I quite like, in fact it’s the first Stone’s album I have bought since the early 80’s. It really has a throwback vibe and the songs are very well. The new selections they played were “Angry”, “Get Close” and the Keith Richard song “Tell Me Straight”. One track from the new album I wish they had played was “Bite My Head Off” which featured Paul McCartney on fuzz bass-great track!
I have to say I was very impressed with Jagger’s energy at 80 years old and his stamina on stage to still give an outrageous performance. Richards was less energetic and seemed to have a bit of trouble staying in sync with the new drummer. I am very familiar with the new drummer Steve Jordan as he was in the contemporary jazz band The Yellowjackets, but I think this type of drumming may have been too simplicist for him. I mean, Charlie Watts was like a metronome and was really the backbone of the band’s rhythm section. I think the problem was more noticeable to me when the band ended songs, they seemed to have an issue to end all together on a beat. Richards and Woods petered out while Jordan and Jones would hit on a final beat. But with that said it was a great show, especially considering their age and history together. Yes, “Long Live Rock!”