Last chance to see the Stones? Probably
Let’s get something straight right off the bat: critics have been putting the nail in the coffin of the Rolling Stones since the mid-70s, speculating that whatever the-then-current tour was would be their last. It seems a bit ridiculous now, given the band spent the better part of the next four decades plus on the road, but it somehow made sense at the time.
Now, the situation has flipped – it defies all logic the group is embarking on yet another trek across the States, which is set to commence next spring.
The 15-date run, dubbed “No Filter,” will stop at Lincoln Financial Field June 4, with tickets going on-sale Friday at 10 a.m. It will mark the first time the Stones have played Philly – almost to the day – since a two-night stand six years ago at the Wells Fargo Center in 2013 as part of the “50 & Counting…” tour.
Yet, as the band closes in on 56 years together, the end is closer than ever. Mick Jagger will be 75 when he struts onstage at the Linc; as will guitarist Keith Richards. Drummer Charlie Watts will have just turned 78 while the youngster of the group, guitarist Ronnie Wood, will probably still be getting his ID checked at 72. Between the four of them, that’s a staggering 300 years old.
It’s not a fun thing to think about, but no one can out run the reaper. Look at the icons we’ve lost just in the past few years; David Bowie, Aretha Franklin, Jefferson Airplane’s Mary Balin, Tom Petty, Gregg Allman … the list goes on. And while the joke that Keith Richards and cockroaches would be the only thing to survive a nuclear holocaust, reality will set in at some point that someone is going to pass away.
And if it’s not death, something’s got to give – right? It’s likely the so-called “greatest rock and roll band in the world” have passed the point where bitter infighting will split them apart, as it did for a time in the 1980s when they released two albums without a tour to support them and spent seven years without hitting a stage in the United States.
“I’ve thought that the band might stop a lot of times,” Watts told the NME back in February. “I used to think that at the end of every tour. I’d had enough of it – that was it. But no, not really. I hope [when it ends] that everyone says, ‘that’ll be it.’ I’d hate for it to be a bloody big argument. That would be a real sad moment. But to say this is the last show wouldn’t be a particularly sad moment, not to me anyway. I’ll just carry on as I was yesterday or today.”
The Steel Wheels run that began in 1989, which coincidentally kicked off in Philadelphia, saw them come back stronger than ever and they haven’t really stopped since. A farewell tour would be laughed out of the building, because really, when was the last time an act said goodbye and meant it?
Retirement or someone up and leaving the band seems improbable but is one option; fans will recall bassist Bill Wyman splitting in 1993, frustrated with the pressures that came with being in the group.
“I think if Mick or Keith retired then it would be (over),” Watts said. “But they could get another drummer, another guitar player. If [bassist] Daryl (Jones) didn’t want to do it anymore, we’d have a nightmare finding another bass player but Mick and Keith would or could carry on. If Mick said ‘I’m retiring’ I don’t know how we’d do a show without him, or Keith.”
At their core, the Stones are a blues band, with the bandmembers weaned on a steady diet of Chicago-based, Chess Records artists like Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf and Willie Dixon. Thoses blues masters played gigs right up until their death – almost all of them in their mid-70s – but they also weren’t performing in stadiums where they had to entertain a crowd of thousands on a stage nearly 200 feet wide. And seeing Mick and Keith in some dark, dank club is out of the question at this point – those days are long gone.
“I haven’t really thought about this set of gigs being our last tour, to be honest,” Jagger told the Sunday Post before the UK leg of “No Filter” kicked off this past summer. “There is going to come a point when we don’t want to do it any more, for whatever reason – but I’m not thinking about that this summer.”
Richards, whose playing has been on the steady decline due to age, a fall from a tree in 2006 that required brain surgery and arthritis which has him less nimble than ever, somewhat echoed his singer’s sentiments to Rolling Stone this week.
“Maybe this will be the last one, I don’t know.”
When it comes to the Rolling Stones, no one really does. Rock Music Menu would love to end up with egg on its proverbial face by saying that this will be the last time to catch the current lineup onstage in town, but the law of averages is the favor of it being the case. Whatever your thoughts, picking up tickets Friday morning would be a smart move.