Rolling Stones: New York City

After having perhaps the weirdest and probably the worst Thanksgiving dinner I’ll ever have, I found myself on the “F” train headed towards midtown Manhattan to see the biggest thing since the Beatles at Shea — the Stones at the Garden. The night before I had gotten a ticket through a broker for ten dollars above cost. (Either you knew someone who knew someone, or you were on line in the first four hours of sales a month before, or you paid through the ass for it. A lot of people are walking around with bulging pockets and smiles on their faces because of that concert, and it isn’t down on paper.)

You walk out of the subway and the Garden looms in front of you a block away^. Your stomach begins churning as you join the small pilgrimage of heads walking towards the huge lit up bowl. A slight echo of Woodstock . and Washington. We were gathering again — gathering to welcome back one of the few things we have lived with and by in the last five years. They were going to be there, live, on that stage — reaffirming their presence in the flesh. That fact alone was very important. I was beginning to see from another angle v)hy bullshit like the McCartney thing could happen so easily.

Inside, the place isemense. The seats just keep going up. They managed to pack 12,00 people or so into the seats viewing the stage which was stationary this time — no Hendrix-Blind-Faith shit where, if you wanted to hear the entire concert, you had to walk around with the revolving stage.

Looking about before the first set, 1 started getting a schmaltz feeling. Bleed 12,000 people a little and then jam them into a dingy auditorium and expect them to enjoy a Concert. I’m sure anyone sitting in at least the top two tiers went home a little dismayed at what they had half-seen and half-heard.

Terry Reid had his set first. It was slow and he never managed to get it off the ground. He was trying too hard and the audience didn’t really seem to care. His material was repetitious enough to hurt — variation vocally would have helped, also. Where a Jeff Beck brings it off in that area, Reid falls short. (One' place where he certainly doesn’t fall short is the people he must know — he’s been touring with some rather big names.) Just to make-things worse, two songs before the end of the set, he took on a static problem which continued, into -B.B. King.

And-the King was cool. The minute he walked on stage with Lucille the audience was interested. There were still a few rough edges here and there — shouts for the Stones from the upper tiers — sort of insulting — they belonged in $3.50 seats. But the King was cool. What I just said about Reid’s repetition could have been said about King a few years ago. Once back then I got to see him and James Cotton in the same week — I was never so sick of blues in my life. King’s material hasn’t changed much it probably never will but the man is So much tighter. That is phenomenal because three years ago the man was tight as. hell. He backs himself with drums, bass,, piano alto and tenor sax, and a horn — each of them a master. Lucille cuts through -all of it smoother than ever. And when it all stops behind heiyshe keeps on going'— jumping up and down, pausing, smiling,.sighing, and then crying as B.B.’s head bounces along — his face pantomiming her story — both bringing the other and the band into the next number. Cleanand beautiful. The next to last song he raps mainly to the men and grabs a few laughs. Everybody is beginning to enjoy himself, and King winds into Why l Sing The Blues. The band builds beautifully in this — a two-time Wake Me, Shake Me beat — Lucille reaches her fullest, and the King splits, the band still coming on home as the tenor saxman with arm extended says, “The King of the Groove, Ladies arid Gentlemen, (he King of the Groove.”

Where King left the audience feeling fine, Ike and Tina Turner left them standing on their feet yelling for more. Halfway through their set I felt that the tickets bought for cost had already exceded their worth. 1 really can’t understand the price hassles I’ve read about,. Three of the .bands 'are top-billers. Would you rather pay eight dollars to see Man of La Mancha?

The first thing you notice is Tina, or more precisely, Tina’s thighs. You see all of them, too. She’s incredible. The Revue is tailored on the same lines as King’s except of course for Tina and the Ikettes. The music in back, the .choreography and vocals up front are well executed and fast £ speedy at times. Tightness suffers but when you see what they’re working with, it makes sense. They don’t have the experience that a King has, they're working-with more and they’re that far already. Only one other small weakness - the material could use a little more originality, if hot in . subject, then in arrangement. The Beatles Come Together just didn’t make it. (I must admit I’ve never been happy with any rendering of the Beatles.) But these are only complaints from my own head — they were heavy. .About midpoint in the set, Tina soloed some blues. I’ve Been Lovijig You Too Long can be sung that well by only one other person. She paid the man the greatest tribute I’ve ever heard for him. The first few bars practically-, trill for trill, were him. Nearing the end of the song, she got into, herself a little more as Ike joined .In vocally echoing each of her lines 'before: she sang them. The ■innti.m m \ is puleU Ac-the.backup became more prevalent, she brought her body into play — adding it to her voice which had captivated everything up to that point. The audience sat stunned-.

Next comes a rap-thing, this" time geared for the women; and then into Land Of The 'Thousand Dances* — Tina starts belting' it out, the band gets into it, she brings the audience into it, the dancing gets, feverish, people, start., jumping, Tina rushes back to Ike -waves. to the back'— starts to the right wing, the whole place is moving inside the beat' and Joplin, joins Tina — yeap Joplin — uproar — people rush the stage as the two women do a dance — and. then it’s over faster than it began, the audience going wild. It was hard to tell whether it was wild about what just happened or what seemed to happen. The strobe thing worked for maybe the first ten rows.

The preshow was over and the emotions of the place had already been tapped soundly. A long half hour or so went by before the Stones came out. People started filling the aisles on the floor and along the box seats. The house guards gave up trying to’ get things together after five minutes of hassling. Some British cat came out and began introducing the Stones and then all you heard was 12,000 voices rushing them onto the stage.

They were tense and serious — this best read on the faces of Wyman, Watts and Taylor. Richards was cool, looking a little thinner and a lot like a slut from the Bronx with his hair in a feathered tease.. Mick’s eyes were glistening — no more Academy of Music on 14th Street. His long, torso, which se^ms to shorten his legs, walked across the stage as if he owned the place. He’s tense, too, but he can’t hide his excitement — “Ooopo New York!” And he’s a fucker who likes to come on cute — fixing his pants: “You wouldn’t want my pants to fall down, now would you?” — and later: “Would you like to live with fifetgMjS like to live with you.” A couple of things like the last threw me off. It was too much of a showline directed at teenyboppers — a Conceivable result of a three-year absence. Just in those three years the music has become as important or more so than the main figure in the spotlight — at least in the production end. Jagger seems to have a little trouble with that concept. For the portion of the crowd that dug him in that-light, he was more than beautiful — I just wanted to hear that voice and see the man move.

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They went through the same set that’s been reported from the beginning of the tour down to the very clothes they had on. (“Go with a winner’? Ballsless?) All the previously reported stage tricks — Mick kneeling, mike in crotch, singing Love in Vain — Mick beating the stage with his belt during Midnight Rambler — Mick have the lights turned on before Queenie — it all happened like clockwork. They did have trouble with the first two song — Jack Flash and Sympathy For The Devil. They seemed sluggish. But their playing was very clean and enabled them to rise above the preshow — not as erratic as the Turner Revue and not as calm as King. Their general tempo was fast and easy and strong — uniquely theirs. It was that rhythm, boosting them above anything that happened before, which was convincing me that they deserve every bit of their success.

I’d like to include one strong note on Taylor. I’ve heard next to nothing about him. He’s much more than I anticipated. That night he seemed to do the heavier share of the lead work. (I say ‘seemed’ because the spotsman didn’t know what he was doing. I wasn’t hearing things — more than fifty percent of the leads were coming from the dark side of the stage.) Both Richards and Taylor shared the bottlenecking and Taylor carried most of the hard rock. During Live With Me, he executed some beautiful different-from-the-record licks — one feedback thing stolen from CS&N’s Pre-Road Downs quite difficult and quite perfect. Richards seemed down. The microphone was waiting for him all night and he never touched it until Honky-Tonk, the next-to-last song. He shared the spotlight with Jagger on two acoustic songs — the first a little sloppy, the second very good. On Queenie his guitar really opened up, but by then it was a bit too late tor me.

The Stones are the best rhythm and blues group I’ve ever heard. I found that for all the shortcomings of a Madison-Square-Garden presentation, I had a good time. It was great to see them again. It was great to be surprised by Taylor. And it was great to be captured by their rhythm — live. But I was really only half-captured which puzzles me. During the last four songs, when the lights were on, I felt that everybody should have been dancing in their seats and a lot were — but a lot weren’t, also. I think Madison Square Garden should stick to sports, the Ice Capades and Barnum & Bailey.