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Time is on their side
The Rolling Stones tour of 2030
By Jim Sullivan, Globe Staff (Retired)
THE ROLLING STONES
At: Foxboro Stadium last night
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FOXBOROUGH - Will this indeed be ''The Last Time?''
It is a question fans and critics pose every time the Rolling Stones - what's left of them - venture out on tour. This year, hints have been dropped that the Stones's Centrum Cryo Tour may be the swan song for the seminal English rock group. Whether this is a real concern or a ploy to goose ticket sales cannot, of course, be determined, although keep in mind that singer Mick Jagger studied business as a London youth.
Mick Jagger (left) and Keith Richards used to live it up at Foxboro, as seen here in this antique photo from a 1997 performance at the stadium.
(Globe 1900's Photo Archives)
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Never mind. Last night at Foxboro Stadium, which is still in need of structural repair, the Rolling Stones rocked the house. Jagger, looking increasingly like Don ''Barney Fife'' Knotts and using a respirator, preened and pranced with the aid of a walker. Guitarist Keith Richards, wired into his portable, blood-purifying hemodialysis machine and still looking like a pirate, cranked out the classic riff to ''(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'' to start the show, an early-bird special that began at 5 p.m. and ended just as ''Wheel of Fortune'' was airing, a fact appreciated by many in the crowd.
Where Jagger once sneered ''What a drag it is getting old,'' the Stones are now seemingly at home with the aging process. Their implicit point - simply getting up there and doing it - is that rockers have the same rights claimed by the old bluesmen: to wail away and shake their moneymakers till the cows come home.
It's generally agreed that the Rolling Stones haven't made a strong album in half a century - 1978's ''Some Girls'' being the last of the best - but they remain, with the help of four twentysomething young turks (veterans of Chuck Berry's touring band), one of rock's top live acts. Put it this way: Jagger may have undergone a hip replacement, but his band remains as hip as it ever was. Jagger started the show on his feet, scampering about the stage as best he could, but seemingly winded, moved into his now-trademark wheelchair by mid-set.
They played only one song from their latest CD, ''Smoke and Mirrors,'' and that was ''Learning to Crawl (All Over Again),'' a meandering, three-chord blues-rock number. (The Stones are recording this tour for a live album, their 73rd such effort.)
Veteran fans miss the steady metronomic presence of drummer Charlie Watts, long dead but cryogenically frozen and awaiting a scientific breakthrough. Guitarist Ron Wood passed away in 2020, but, not being an original member, the surviving Stones voted not to freeze him, citing the exorbitant cost and the replaceable nature of Rolling Stones second guitarists. (First Brian Jones, then Mick Taylor, then Wood.) Former bassist Bill Wyman is still alive and well; he recently married his teenage sweetheart.
Of course, the young folks dis the Stones because they're old - time waits for no one - but Jagger has some fun with this. Last night, the 85-year-old frontman revamped his infamous quote - ''I don't want to be playing 'Satisfaction' when I'm 40'' - by pushing back the decades. ''I don't want to be playing 'Satisfaction' when I'm 90,'' he quipped, ''but let's rock tonight!'' Richards cranked out the riff and the audience bonded with the band, even as the Stones' sense of dissatisfaction has changed from ''trying to get some girl'' to the recent and widespread nursing home crisis and the punishing nature of property taxes.
Jagger, the pouting icon whose 30-year-plus court battle with Jerry Hall over their marital status and divisions of spoils continues, is a man on a mission: To convince us that the new Stones songs are true classics, that songs like ''Backstreet Girl,'' ''Star, Star'' and ''Rip This Joint'' rank with the last century's finest classic compositions. The mature but well-heeled, soldout audience - benefiting from new drop-down visors with built-in binoculars and a 130 dB sound level (to help the hearing-impaired) - showed its appreciation by hoisting unlit matches (no flames permitted because of oxygen tanks in use) and rattling their jewelry. The Gigantitrons flanking the Stones employed AntiWrinkle Vision, a device which cleans up those unsightly lines.
Jagger, like Frank Sinatra in his final years, used a Teleprompter, but still missed some verses. He struggled on ''You Can't Always Get What You Want,'' and tried to figure out what it was you sometimes did get (what you need). In the still-spooky, syncopated ''Sympathy for the Devil,'' Jagger sang, ''Please allow me to introduce myself,'' and then forgot who he was (a man of wealth and taste; i.e., Lucifer). Still, the crowd was in a forgiving mood. Some of the old songs took on new meanings. ''She's So Cold'' - written about a frigid sex partner - changed shape, as Jagger noted that older folks have circulatory problems and he often felt a little chilly himself. He also had trouble sleeping, he added. There was, however, an added poignancy to ''Let It Bleed,'' as we watched the once-swaggering Richards have his blood changed as he played.
The Rolling Stones have long existed in a bubble, impervious to fads and trends, but smart enough to cop from the hip musical movement of the moment. This savvy sense, coupled to their legacy, made for a potent concoction. They closed the show, as always, with ''Jumpin' Jack Flash,'' with fireworks shooting off over Foxborough and Jagger singing about gas pains.
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