You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Rolling Stones in Nashville.
The Rolling Stones are simply the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the History of the World.
Did you hear what I just said?
THE GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL BAND IN THE HISTORY OF HISTORY!
They have more hits than Pete Rose.
They are more memorable than Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate.
They create more excitement than a Playboy model visiting a Maximum security prison.
50 years of rocking and rolling.
50 years!
A lifetime of creating and playing and performing and simply blowing the doors of this Earth bound Mutha!
They are to Rock and Roll what Jesus is to Easter.
Mick. Keith. Charlie. Ronnie.
They were one named superstars before the pretentious likes of Gaga or Madonna or Bono.
The Stones formed in 1962 in the tumult of revolution. They are the musical fabric of time that have been the soundtrack to Wars and disco and oil shortages and the fall of communism.
“When the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank.”
“Pleased to meet you hope you guess my name.”
The Stones are not just a rock group. The Stones are royalty, a musical juggernaut that fires across the ions like a mushroom cloud of three chord angst.
The Stones are history, passed down on vinyl from father to son. The band reinvents, is rediscovered, and is passed down on CD from Father to son.
This band has been reconstituted, digitally remastered, re-released.
A millennium comes and the band turns the page becoming even more important in the chronology of all that is cool.
JUNE 17TH 2015.
The Zip Code Tour enters LP field in Nashville and once again I am reminded that I am going to witness something remarkable that will be talked about for generations to come.
Where were you when….
I cross over the Cumberland River using the John Seigenthaler pedestrian bridge that the Metro Public Works department has so kindly and creatively illuminated in a bouquet of red lights.
As I cross the bridge, I look back at Music City. It’s buildings are smiling. Lower Broad seems proud, anxious to welcome its guests.
Four long-haired boys from England who have conquered the universe of bad ass.
At noon Wednesday, the city comes to a screeching halt as Twitter announces that Mick Jagger is at the Parthenon in Centennial Park.
What?
It turns out Jagger rented out the entire Parthenon in Centennial Park so he can post instagram and twitter pictures.
Who wants to be interrupted when they are taking photos in front of a replica of greatness.
In this case, Mick is more historic than the faux Parthenon off West End.
The power, the insane majesty of supreme cool.
The concert begins at 8 pm.
I’m walking to the stadium, and it’s hotter than a Vietnam fire fight.
Sweat is rolling down my back. I am a filthy salt lick of anticipation.
I see old rockers sporting concert T shirts from the 70’s.
How many coronaries has that guy had?, I wonder as I walk into the stadium.
Country Music superstar Brad Paisley opens for the iconic rockers from England.
Paisely is a helluva entertainer. Paisley is about as big as it gets in the country music world.
But in the shadow of the rolling stones, Paisley is a Wal Mart Greeter.
He’s a country guy opening for a classic rock crowd.
What’s that they say about oil and vinegar?
I look at the crowd and it’s half assed, barely paying attention to a guitar player who deserves attention, who deserves respect.
The seats are empty. The crowd milling around. It’s a parking lot.
This superstar of country, laying down ferocious licks on his ax, blasting his country rock across the stadium, is playing to a house that doesn’t care, is barely aware.
People in my row are talking like he’s a lounge act.
It’s Brad F***ing Paisley, I’m thinking.
Nobody cares.
Compared to the Stones, he’s carpet lint.
It’s not Paisley’s fault.
Opening for the Stones is like giving a sermon prior to the Pope.
It just doesn’t compare.
Suddenly the lights go down and the excitement level boils.
It’s 90 plus degrees in a cauldron of pumping enthusiasm.
I’m lathered up like a race horse rounding the quarter pole.
Suddenly the 1st chords of Jumpin Jack Flash fill my ears and I am transported to a place in my brain that is full of color and wonder.
I am a teenager and driving in my 240 Z and my whole life is ahead of me as I crank up the Stones on my new stereo.
I feel the pulse of energy as Mick showcases the moves of Jagger up and down the cat walk.
The man is in his 70’s and he looks 50. He has the energy of an open fire hydrant as he delivers the delightful warble of a generation.
Suddenly my ears are filled with classic, timeless rock and roll. My nostrils fill with the sweet smell of reefer floating down from above.
The stage is enormous, but the show is not about the stage.
It’s about the music and the song catalogue, so precious it should be locked in Fort Knox and put on display at the Smithsonian Institute.
The hits are machine gun fire pumping into the crowd. One after another, anthems like Jumpin Jack Flash, It’s only rock and roll, wild horses and honky-tonk woman blast across the frenzied, sweaty throng.
2 hours of spectacular entertainment so energized at one point I wonder how the band can maintain this pace.
I was tired just dancing at my seat.
Someone told me that prior to the show, the band was in the bowels of LP field, the home of the Tennessee Titans, working out on the exercise machines.
Can you imagine?
70 year old rockers, about to play for 2 hours in sweltering ball busting heat and they are hitting the weights prior to the show?
wow.
And then the meat and potatoes of the show.
Midnight Rambler, Miss You, Gimme Shelter, Start Me Up, Sympathy for the Devil, Brown Sugar.
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Everybody got to go
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
The one that shut the kitchen door
He don’t give a hoot of warning
Wrapped up in a black cat cloak
He don’t go in the light of the morning
He split the time the cock’rel crows
Talkin’ about the midnight gambler
The one you never seen before
Talkin’ about the midnight gambler
Did you see him jump the garden wall
Sighin’ down the wind so sad
Listen and you’ll hear him moan
Talkin’ about the midnight gambler
Everybody got to go
Good night Nashville.
The boys leave the stage. We know they’ll be back.
The crowd swells like a gigantic throbbing love muscle in the darkness.
The sweat is palpable in the energized stew pot of rock and roll.
“We love you Mick!”
And suddenly the encore is upon us in a shower of pyrotechnics and more rock and roll that makes every other group on the planet seem like an opening act that is barely a valet run to get my car.
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Mick Jagger walks down the cat walk and extends the microphone to us telling us to sing.
And sing we do.
You can’t always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes.
You just might find.
You’ll get what you need.
Wow.
Doesn’t that sum it up?
Think about the simplicity. It’s about finding something great right where you are.
And finally, the time-tested anthem: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.
According to the hardly trustworthy WIKIPEDIA.COM The song is considered by most critics to be one of the all-time greatest rock songs ever recorded.
And In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine named Satisfaction the #2 greatest song of all time.
OF ALL TIME!
According to legend, Keith Richards, the guitar pirate, recorded the rough version of the riff in a hotel room. He ran through it once before falling asleep. He said when he listened back to it in the morning, there was about two minutes of acoustic guitar before you could hear him drop the pick and “then me snoring for the next forty minutes”.
How could Brad Paisely compete with this?
He was like gum on the bottom of the Rolling Stones’ shoe.
The greatest rock and band in the world came and blew the Freaking doors off of Music City.
I sat in the stands for 10 minutes following the final salvo.
As I watched folding chairs being packed up, and old rock and rollers meander up the steps, I knew that I had just witnessed something for the ages.
These guys are 70 years old.
I can’t imagine they’ll ever tour again.
But then again, who knows.
I saw them 12 years ago, and they were better tonight.
Sympathy for the devil was a masterpiece.
Mick in the middle of the stage dressed in Satan’s cloak, surrounded by video waves of fire.
OMG.
On the way out, we talked about how we had just experienced something celestial, special.
If only we could bathe in this moment forever my life would be different.
For 2 hours, Nashville had become a cathedral of rock and roll, the focal point of a musical nuclear blast that only 4 guys named Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie can create.
It’s Only rock and roll, but I like it.
Life’s Crazy™