“This tune is for Manhattan!” Mick Jagger instructed the gang Thursday evening at MetLife Stadium earlier than launching right into a hard-hitting model of “Shattered,” that uptempo ode to late-’70s New York Metropolis that closes the band’s 1978 album, “Some Ladies.” Within the 46 years that adopted, the town modified in some superficial methods, however someway remained primarily the identical – as they confirmed all through an impressively energetic two-hour set, just like the Rolling Stones.
The Stones’ first New York-area stadium present in 5 years was sponsored, and not using a trace of irony, by AARP. It was becoming: At occasions, what was occurring on stage felt like not only a rock live performance, however an indication of the evolutionary marvel that’s getting old into the twenty first century. (Although develop outdated whilst you’re wealthy, with each potential technological and medical benefit at your disposal. I am going to have all of the nutritional vitamins the Stones are taking, please.)
Ronnie Wooden, the infant of the primary group at 76, nonetheless performs guitar with a smiling, mischievous verve. Keith Richards, eighty years outdated and eternally cool, combines his bluesy licks with a humble demeanor that appears to say “I can’t imagine I’m nonetheless right here both.” After which there’s Jagger, who turns 81 simply days after the tip of the Hackney Diamonds Tour in July. After six a long time of inventive profession, he’s nonetheless, someway, the indefatigable dynamo he all the time was, slithering vertically like an enchanted snake, slicing by means of the air as if he have been in a kung fu battle in opposition to a swarm of invisible mosquitoes, and when He wants each arms to bounce, which he typically does, nestling the microphone provocatively above the fly of his pants. Working all around the stage in the course of the rousing “Honky Tonk Girls” – the thirteenth tune of the set! – he conjured up no different rock star as a lot as Benjamin Button, as he appeared to get much more energetic because the evening went on.
Final years “Hackney Diamonds” — the Stones’ first album of latest materials in almost twenty years — was the nominal cause for the tour, however they did not dwell on it and the viewers did not appear to thoughts. Out of 19 songs, they performed simply three songs from the most recent launch, together with two of their greatest: the tense, hovering lead single “Indignant” and, for the primary a part of the encore, the gospel-influenced reverie “Candy Sounds of Heaven.” For probably the most half, it was a sort of truncated greatest-hits assortment, capturing the band’s lengthy transformation from reverent blues college students (Richards’ star on the mellow “You Obtained the Silver”) to countercultural soothsayers (a sing-along-friendly tune). Sympathy for the Satan”) for the company rock big (they opened, after all, with “Begin Me Up”).
Jagger, Richards and Wooden nonetheless exude a palpable pleasure for what they’re doing on stage. However these joys additionally really feel noticeably private and remoted, hardly ever mixing collectively to offer a lot intra-band chemistry. That is most likely a preservation technique – the most secure solution to hold a well-oiled machine operating and to proceed sharing the stage with the identical folks for half a century or extra. However when Jagger completed an enthralling story a few native restaurant that named a sandwich after him (“I’ve by no means had a (expletive) sandwich named after me! I’m very, very proud”), I didn’t purchase his. assertion that he, Keith and Ronnie would hang around collectively after the present.
A part of this fractured feeling is probably going as a result of absence of the good Charlie Watts, the band’s longtime drummer who died in 2021; the Hackney Diamonds Tour is the Stones’ first North American stadium tour with out him. His substitute, Steve Jordan, does nearly as good a job as anybody might – as Watts, he balances the ability of a rock drummer with a jazzy agility – and his presence by no means overwhelms. Though they’re surrounded by many gifted backing musicians, the staging makes it clear that the Rolling Stones at the moment are a trio.
The star of the evening, nonetheless, was Chanel Haynes, a backing vocalist who took the stage to sing with Jagger throughout two of the most effective performances of the evening. Haynes — who performed Tina Turner within the West Finish manufacturing of the jukebox musical “Tina” earlier than becoming a member of the Stones’ touring band in 2023 — ably stepped into the footwear of the highly effective Happy Clayton on a scorching “Gimme Shelter” and changed Girl Gaga on “Candy Sounds of Heaven,” matching the megawatt depth of her cameo on “Hackney Diamonds.” Though Haynes might be velvety when the music referred to as for it, at her most spectacular she sang with a low, growling starvation that always was ferocity, as if she have been taking massive bites out of the songs.
Jagger, for his half, delivered lots of his strains in his signature bark: the second tune, a considerably sluggish and bluesy “Get Off of My Cloud,” was reworked by his nearly scat supply. However in fleeting moments – together with a couple of falsetto runs – he confirmed {that a} sure tenderness in his tone stays intact.
This was most obvious in a fantastic model of “Wild Horses,” the tune that gained inclusion within the set by profitable the nightly on-line “fan vote.” For a lot of this present, the Stones successfully proved that they might overcome age, irrelevance and all the opposite indignities that point brings to mere mortals. However right here they settled into one thing extra contemplative, elegiac and weak, and the present was higher for it.
At a time when their few remaining friends are wrapping up farewell excursions and bands which were collectively half as lengthy are promoting out, the Stones are an anomaly. It is not that their present is devoid of nostalgia, nevertheless it’s not restricted both. They do not seem like the 70s – who does? – however when their sound is solidifying, they can entry some sort of everlasting current. For higher or worse, they appear intent on being the final band of their era standing, on taking rock ‘n’ roll to its logical endpoint. Surprisingly, they nonetheless do not appear to have achieved that aim.
