The Rolling Stones blew through the Metropolitan area over Memorial Day Weekend, and I was fortunate to be able to catch the first of their two shows at MetLife Stadium.
This concert review breaks down the the entire show - whether you're a lifelong Stones fan or just know their music, you will feel like you were right there with me, amidst a sea of Stones t-shirts watching rock and roll legends who continue to re-define the limits for great rock-n-roll bands. Don't miss this celebration of a band and their fans, who are still rolling on together after more than 60 years. This week on the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!
The Rolling Stones blew through the Metropolitan area over Memorial Day Weekend, and I was fortunate to be able to catch the first of their two shows at MetLife Stadium.
This concert review breaks down the the entire show - whether you're a lifelong Stones fan or just know their music, you will feel like you were right there with me, amidst a sea of Stones t-shirts watching rock and roll legends who continue to re-define the limits for great rock-n-roll bands. Don't miss this celebration of a band and their fans, who are still rolling on together after more than 60 years. This week on the Rock-N-Roll Show Podcast!
Alex Gadd:
Welcome to the Rock and Roll Show podcast. I'm your Alex Gadd, and this week, in my never-ending quest to celebrate live music, I've got a concert review for you. I was happy to get tickets to see the first of the two Rolling Stones shows last week at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and I'm excited to tell you all about it. So stick around for my Stones concert review this week on the Rock-N- Roll Show Podcast. The Rolling Stones show last Thursday was my seventh, dating back to 1981 on the Tattoo you tour. I love the Stones so much so that I took them. Literally. The only tattoo I have is the Stones logo. Now I saw them on the next three tours they did.
Alex Gadd:
That was the Steel Wheels tour in 1989 at Shea Stadium. I saw them twice on the Voodoo Lounge tour at Giant Stadium in August of 94. And then the Bridges to Babylon tour, which I saw twice, once at Giant Stadium in 97. And then again the following winter at the Garden. That last show was the one that made me swear off seeing them anymore, because it was the first time I had ever paid more than $100 for a concert ticket and that was sitting in the upper section of the garden. Since then, I've skipped tour after tour and I've always missed seeing them, but never enough to break my boycott. However, with Mick and Keith turning 80 this year and a new record that is actually good that they just released it's called Hackney Diamonds I broke my vow. My friends Ruby and Mike asked me last year if I wanted to go with them to see the Stones this year and I said yes, went all in for tickets and I realized I have a different perspective now. Our motto here on the Rock-N- Roll Show Podcast is life is short, so get those concert tickets. So I did.
Alex Gadd:
We had a great time tailgating before the show. My friend Russ joined me and I even ran into one of my old friends from high school in the parking lot Stacy Jo, great to see you. And then we made our way into the stadium just as opening act Jon Batiste was starting his set. The most obvious thing I noticed was that I was definitely below the average age for the audience overall. There were also a lot of parents with their adult kids there, and that makes sense because the Stones are a multi-generational band. They're a foundational band for rock and roll and for many people as an entrance point into rock and roll. I've never seen a show with as many people wearing band t-shirts as I did Thursday night. Almost everyone had a Stones t-shirt on from one tour or another. I wasn't wearing this one. I wish I had been, because I felt out of place. I don't normally wear shirts of the band I'm going to see but clearly that wasn't a rule for anyone else.
Alex Gadd:
It was quite impressive and the merch was really starting to get sold out before Batiste was even halfway done with his set. It's just what a headliner wants - an opening act who allows or encourages or doesn't keep people in their seats enough that fans don't go out to start buying merch during the opening set. And these fans were like locusts. That's not slighting Jon Batiste in the least. He was very high energy, did some covers, did some originals. Couldn't have been more enthusiastic. He was great as an opener for the Stones. Then they took about a half hour to do a set change. The lights finally went all the way down and the Stones opened up with Start Me Up.
Alex Gadd:
Now that seems like the obvious opening song. It's written to be an opening song, it feels like, but the Stones have generally resisted using it as an opener. They usually go with Jumping Jack Flash or Street Fighting Man. Those have been the go-to openers for them for years now, and occasionally they would open with start me up, but most of the time it was those two songs. But on this tour the set list has been fairly fixed and start me up every night, first song, just as it should be.
Alex Gadd:
From there they tore into get off of my cloud and then rolled out shattered, which was a tour debut. It's a great song from their late 70s album some girls, girls. It's about New York City, so it was a must play. That led into the first single from their new album, which is the track Angry, and if you haven't heard it yet, check it out. I think it really fits in well with the rest of their catalog and I think it went over great. Take a listen.
Alex Gadd:
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. A few things to point out in that clip. One, the sound was really clear for an outdoor venue. Two, the use of their video screens was helpful, given that I was sitting more than halfway back from the stage, and they used those screens really well to project multiple images and other graphics. In this case, it was the video that they made for the song. The other thing to note is that since Charlie Watts died in 2021, steve Jordan has taken over as the Stones drummer and he's in that clip. There you can see him for a few seconds. He's a great drummer. He played in Keith's solo band, the Expensive Winos, in the late 80s and early 90s and he's played with tons of other people. He's a great producer and his playing added a different energy and groove which fit the older songs really well. He was a great addition.
Alex Gadd:
After that, they played it's Only Rock and Roll and Wild Horses, and then they played their second new song, mess it Up. This is where I felt that the set list kind of got messed up. Um, a lot of people used it as a bathroom break song? I didn't, because I knew the next song was my favorite song, tumbling dice, which they played. And then they played.
Alex Gadd:
You can't always get what you want, but sadly those songs both came across a little bit phoned in or it's. It seemed like the band was kind of bored. It was an odd vibe at that point and Mess it Up really lived up to its name After you Can't Always Get what you Want. Mick introduced the whole band and then Keith had his traditional two-song featured set, allowing him to sing songs that he sang lead on originally. It also allowed Mick to go and take a break, did a costume change. Keith sang you Got the Silver from 1969's Let it Bleed album and then Little T and A from Tattoo you. They were both fun songs. I love Keith so I'm fine with anything he plays. But I did miss not hearing Happy or Before they Make Me Run. Those are the songs that I really want to hear in that spot when he plays. But after that the show picked right back up, starting off with an excellent Sympathy for the Devil.
Speaker 2:
Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and state.
Alex Gadd:
Sympathy led into Hockey Tonk Woman, then Miss you, then Gimme Shelter, which allowed the band to feature their new backup singer, chanel Haynes. Now this woman can flat out sing, which you would expect. The Stones have always had great women backup singers, primarily to sing the solo part in Gimme Shelter. That was originated in the studio by Mary Clayton and I commented to my friend Russ that this singer had a real Tina Turner vibe. See what you think it turns out. It's not surprising that she gives off a Tina flair. She was a star of the Tina Turner musical in London. She and Bernard Fowler, who was Stone's longtime male backup singer. They made a great duo all night.
Alex Gadd:
The set ended with Paint it Black and then finally Jumping Jack Flash, which was a huge success. I didn't record more of that because I wanted to really enjoy it without looking at it through a screen. Also, I'm not a fan of Paint it Black personally, but my buddy Russ let me know that it's the number one most streamed Rolling Stones song on Spotify. I don't get how that is, but it explains why it took the penultimate spot on the main set On Apple Music. By the way, paint it Black is only the fifth most popular song Give me Shelter and Sympathy are the top two, and that makes more sense to me. When we hit the encores, quite honestly they were underwhelming. The first song was Sweet Sounds of Heaven from the new album and there was a palpable anticipation in the audience that Lady Gaga, who sang that song with Mick on the new record, might come out and sing it live. But she didn't and the song just isn't that dynamic and I felt like it really kind of meandered a bit. And then they ended with their signature song, satisfaction, and they were out 19 songs on a beautiful May night in the swamps of Jersey with the Rolling Stones Pretty good. So here are my takeaways.
Alex Gadd:
One Mick Jagger is a freak in nature. He looks and moves and sounds just like he did 30 years ago Now. He was never the greatest singer, but in my opinion he's the best front man of all time. He's the archetype for a rock and roll lead singer. He's still as slim and fit as ever. He has a great dye job that keeps his hair looking brown and fantastic, and he still runs all over the stadium along the catwalks and the runways Not as much running as he used to do, but hey, he's 80. He was incredible. Second takeaway Ben still sounds great. Keith and Ronnie complement each other's playing so well and they sounded great playing together as they always do. No disappointment there.
Alex Gadd:
As I mentioned previously, steve Jordan sounded really good playing all the Stones songs and his rhythm section partner, daryl Jones, has been the Stones bass player since 1993, yet he's still not considered a full member of the band. He held it down all night, including playing an amazing bass part during the song Miss you that put the appropriate funk in that disco-era tune. They had Chuck LeVall on keyboards. He's been playing with the Stones even longer than Daryl Jones, since 1982, that's 42 years, and he fills out parts originally played by Ian Stewart, by Billy Preston, as well as parts he recorded with the band. Starting in 1985 with the Undercover album. They had another keyboard player, they had two horn players, carl Denson and Tim Reeves, and, as I mentioned, the stadium sound was excellent. Kudos to everyone involved with that. Third takeaway video elements were really well done, added to the experience, not distracting from them, especially for those of us too far away to see more than the basic movements of the band as they played. Each song had its own visual elements, the most impressive of which were the coordinated visuals across all the screens for Sympathy for the Devil and the black and white cityscape for Shattered.
Alex Gadd:
Now the fourth takeaway is the only thing that keeps me from calling the show a total success, and that was the set list. Here's a list of amazing Rolling Stones songs that were not played Midnight Rambler Street, fighting man, happy, all Down the Line. Let's Spend the Night Together. Bitch Angie, beast of Burden Out of Control, which is a newer song from 1997's Bridges to Babylon it's one of their best late career tracks and definitely one of their best live songs and Brown Sugar those are 10 songs that belong in any Rolling Stones set and it was a shame that they couldn't have fit a couple of more songs in their set list.
Alex Gadd:
Not asking the band to play another 10 songs I don't think that's realistic anymore. But for $500 per ticket and up, they could have played a few more. Now I don't begrudge them playing the few new songs that they played. They bothered to record an above-average new album, so play them away. I know you can't play Brown Sugar right now because the lyrics are very much out of fashion, as are the lyrics to Under my Thumb, which wasn't even in that list of 10 songs, but 19 songs in just under two hours, in my opinion, isn't enough for that amount of money. It's just not.
Alex Gadd:
I love the Stones as much as almost anyone, and they have such an amazing catalog of songs that help to define rock and roll for me and for millions of other people. Leaving all of those songs, and more, out of the set left me considering my old vow Was it worth it to pay that much to see them anymore? In the end, it was still worth it, because they're so great, and seeing them over more than 40 years now has, along with Bruce Springsteen, helped to define my concert-going life. So I leave you with life advice provided by the band themselves. You can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you get what you need, and I needed to see the Stones once more, and so do you. They've got 13 more shows starting in Foxborough, Massachusetts, this Friday, so go see them if you can. It was definitely a blast, blast, blast.
Alex Gadd:
As for our podcast, that's it. Thanks for joining us. Please come back next Tuesday for our next episode and if you like what you heard, make sure to like and subscribe or follow to make sure you get notified about every new episode, and please tell your friends Additionally. We want to know sure you get notified about every new episode, and please tell your friends Additionally. We want to know what you think. Please leave us a comment and we'll try to respond to every one. The Rock-N- Roll Show Podcast is a World Highway Media production. I'm your Alex Gadd, and until next time, I want to remind you that life is short, so get those concert tickets.