Watching the Rolling Stones in the Pasadena Rose Bowl was the closest I’m ever likely to get to seeing the Royal Family reinstated in the land of the free. Over 90,000 people gathered in a shrine to American Football to celebrate English icons. And the best bit was that for the first time in several years I think I brought down the average age of attendees.
The Rose Bowl is a grand old stadium that is celebrated as a National Historical Landmark and will be 100 years old in 2022. That means it is just 15 years older than Stones founding member Bill Wyman who turns 82 this year. It’s extraordinary to think that Bill left the band more than 25 years ago but even more so to learn that Darryl Jones stepped in immediately and has been the bass player ever since. Who knew?
From Street Fighting Man to Jumping Jack Flash the concert was a reminder of the immeasurable contribution made to modern music by English bands. The lineage from the Stones, through Led Zeppelin, to the Clash and onwards to Oasis is distinct from the impact of the Celtic nations. At a parochial level it was a great pleasure to be an Englishman in an arena where 90,000+ Americans were idolising and pouring adulation on my countrymen.
Anyone who wants to see the power of the Stones and their hold over the American psyche should watch the launch of Windows 95 video. It is also the ultimate solace to anyone who has ever been accused of Dad dancing. Watching Gates, Allen et al dancing to Start Me Up as if they having a shared session of electro-convulsion therapy is both joyous and deeply troubling.
But as you listen you realise that the most famous songs have lyrics that are about everywhere and nowhere. Shakespeare has universal appeal because he wrote about the human condition. The Stones may have universal appeal because they mainly write about a world which is, at one and the same time, human but beyond reach.
We may be able to just about relate to the notion that ‘sleepy London town is just no place for a street fighting man’ but ‘Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields’ and ‘gin soaked bar room queen in Memphis’ are from a different world. It may be that ‘we can’t get no satisfaction’ but I doubt many were ‘born in a crossfire hurricane’. Which may be why the song which sits calmly at the centre of the chaos, darkness and sleaze is the plaintive recognition that ‘you can’t always get what you want’.
The lyrics seem a strange paradox because there is something quintessentially English about the Stones. For all their international presence, global sales and foreign homes they are recognisably wannabees from the Home County suburbs near London. Hillingdon, Kingsbury and Dartford are close enough to the bright lights to feel part of the city but far enough away to be desperate for recognition.
A difference between the Stones and the Beatles is that the latter seemed much more parochial in writing about Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields and range of saccharine love songs. Even when they used the American ‘meter maid’ to sing about Lovely Rita it was only because traffic warden didn’t scan. The schism between little Englanders and global citizens was played out again in the 1970s between The Clash and The Jam and, in my view, there was only ever going to be one winner.
But when they gathered round to do an acoustic set interlude of Sweet Virginia it was just possible to imagine them in any country pub in the South of England. Particularly one where the landlord didn’t want the amplifiers up too loud or any of that aggressive rock nonsense. No matter, because they posed and postured, preened and performed with total self-assurance.
There were, however, plenty of differences to an English pub setting and $16 dollars for a very average Mexican lager makes sure that nobody gets too drunk. But that didn’t stop the guy in the seat next to me parting company with his nachos half-way through Sympathy for the Devil. It may have been linked to do with the overpoweringly sweet smell of legal but increasingly strong weed.
When you see the Stones you are reminded of the power of story-telling and myth. They are characters that you think you know and about who you form opinions which may be totally at odds with their real personalities. But they are as venerable and venerated as those on the Civil List and it struck me that comparisons were reasonable.
Charlie Watts reminds me of the slightly dotty uncle who talks to vegetables and frets about deteriorating architectural standards so he must be the Prince Charles of the group. He looks vaguely embarrassed to still be behind the drums at his age and as if he would much prefer to be home with a cup of cocoa and his slippers on. Difficult to reconcile that with the story that he once punched Jagger in the face for daring to demand, “where is MY drummer?”
A relative latecomer, although in the band since 1975, Ronnie Woods’ spiritual home has always been the Stones. The passing resemblance to Keith Richards has faded with time (and Keith’s receding hairline) but Woods epitomises the younger brother who is full of energy and mischief. Ronnie doesn’t carry the burden of being the monarch or next in line for the crown so, like Prince Harry, he wants to appear useful but is subsidiary to the real power in the Firm.
If there was no Keith Richards there would be no Brown Sugar, Satisfaction, Honky Tonk Woman or Angie and the Stones would be a footnote in history. Keith may no longer ‘eat iron and piss rust’ but he has always set the musical tone for the band while being content to work with guitarists of greater technical flair and flamboyance. As the spiritual leader Keith is akin to the Queen because his influence pervades the stage and the mood of the band without needing to do more than embody its history. And, from time to time, he asserts himself like an absolute monarch with an immortal riff or a rude, swampy lick from his spiritual home in the Mississippi delta.
And that leaves Sir Michael Jagger – his Satanic majesty and the model for every starstruck lead singer of a rock n roll band since the early 1960s. A complete package of manufactured south London accent, snake hips, amphetamine energy, crazy good voice and nearly sixty years of stagecraft. He is totally mesmerising and delivers the message of the band while rarely standing still, let alone alongside them. I doubt any modern royal has carried themselves with such a sense of omnipotence and my metaphor rather fades.
But, in having sympathy for the old devil, I am reminded of Prince Philip being hospitalised at the age of 95, after standing in the rain for three hours during 2012’s Diamond Jubilee Celebrations. He paid the price for delivering, almost recklessly, what his position demanded, out of a sense of duty and pride. Mick Jagger’s recent heart surgery is a similar reminder of inevitable human frailty and what will be lost eventually, but his performance was a joyous and inspirational celebration of what it means to be forever young.
Image by Arthur Halucha from Pixabay
