<\/a><\/p>\n

Who was here in 1969? asked Mick Jagger, referencing the Rolling Stones historic Hyde Park show, held just two days after original guitarist Brian Jones\u2019 death, at which a crowd estimated at a quarter of a million people turned up to pay their respects. \u201cWelcome back,\u201d he said in response to those who stood with hands raised. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see you again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back then, nobody had paid a penny to see the Stones; 44 years on, some tickets were changing prices for upwards of a thousand pounds. Inevitably, the times, they have a changed.<\/p>\n

The bank manager long ago won the battle for the heart of the Stones \u2013 surveying the baffling number of hospitality packages and \u201ctiers\u201d of general admission at Hyde Park, one can\u2019t help but feel sorry for the poor fan who just wanted a ticket for the gig. But all one\u2019s scepticism disappears the minute the riff of Start Me Up explodes out of the speakers, an awful lot more sure-footed than it sounded on the TV from Glastonbury.<\/p>\n

And while a sizeable section of today\u2019s audience weren\u2019t even born the last time Mick and co ambled through Midnight Rambler here, the fact that they\u2019d turned out in their thousands to tread in their parents\u2019 sandal-steps speaks volumes about the band\u2019s enduring appeal. Things got off to a less than auspicious start. Keith Richards fluffed not one, but two of opener Start Me Up\u2019s opening three chords \u2013 a riff one suspects, given the number of times he\u2019s played it, would be harder for him to play wrong than right.<\/p>\n

Fortunately they proved to be the only bum notes of a near-immaculate set that not just recreated the previous weekend\u2019s Glastonbury crowd-pleasing histrionics, but arguably surpassed them. Richards looked more relaxed and far better dressed, trading licks and cigarette smoke with long-term sparring partner Ronnie Wood.<\/p>\n

Drummer Charlie Watts was the epitome of insouciant cool, providing the rock-solid foundations from which the likes of It\u2019s Only Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll (But I Like It), Honky Tonk Women and an epic Paint It Black were majestically constructed.<\/p>\n

The Stones may no longer be \u201cthe greatest rock\u2019n\u2019roll band in the world\u201d (is anyone?), but their muscle memory and catalogue mean they are still a fearsome force once they\u2019re in full flow. Gimme Shelter has the unstoppable, lumbering force of a supertanker; Paint It Black, an eternal monument to the point in time when blues fans started dropping acid, still sounds like it was written by some sinister, alternate consciousness, then gifted to the band \u2013 the nihilism of the lyric may be cartoonish, but the attack of the music isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The presentation, too, is stunning. There are no fancy props on stage, but the band are enveloped on huge screens, which during Sympathy for the Devil portray the trees of Hyde Park in flames, while firepots belch orange flame and drape the front 30 or 40 yards of the crowd in smoke. It\u2019s thrillingly effective, and only the delighted whoops of 65,000 or so prevent it feeling suitably demonic. And if Jagger\u2019s call-outs to \u201ceveryone at the back\u201d feel forced, given that thousands have paid a good bit extra for the privilege of standing nearer the front, then the explosive force of Midnight Rambler (with added Mick Taylor) or Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash forces one to swallow qualms. A beautiful You Can\u2019t Always Get What You Want and the inevitable (I Can\u2019t Get No) Satisfaction finish the show, and it\u2019s hard to believe, as Keith Richards grins through his fag smoke, that they won\u2019t be back doing it all again soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who was here in 1969? asked Mick Jagger, referencing the Rolling Stones historic Hyde Park show, held just two days after original guitarist Brian Jones\u2019 death, at which a crowd estimated at a quarter of a million people turned up to pay their respects. \u201cWelcome back,\u201d he said in response to those who stood with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concert-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandbizz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}