They age like the old black bluesmen they?ve idolized for going on a half-century now. Which is to say, they play until they can play no more, and do it superbly. Yes, The Rolling Stones have gathered moss ? look at the contour map on Keith Richards? face ? but the skinny, 60-something Brits deliver three-chord bliss like no others.
Martin Scorsese?s new concert film “Shine a Light,” which opens nationwide today, captures The Stones as few fans have seen them, through the lenses of 18 cameras that put you on stage, and a CD-quality sound system.
The film, shot during two gigs in 2006 at New York?s Beacon Theatre, shows the band as spontaneous as ever: Front man Mick Jagger leers, prances, preens and pirouettes like a ballerina on speed. Richards and Ron Wood weave interlocking guitar riffs just so, making what was old new again. Drummer Charlie Watts holds these aging schoolboys together somehow. Add musicians like saxophonist Bobby Keys, backup singers who hit notes Jagger no longer can and a director of Scorsese?s talents, and you have all the ingredients for a stupendous concert movie.
And “Shine a Light” delivers as England?s oldest hit makers tear through crowd pleasers like “Start Me Up,” “Brown Sugar,” “Jumpin? Jack Flash,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Shattered” and “Sympathy for the Devil.” The band also manages to surprise and mesmerize, dusting off songs like “She Was Hot,” “All Down the Line,” “Faraway Eyes,” the melancholy ache of “As Tears Go By,” an exquisite “Loving Cup” with Jack White III of The White Stripes on guitar and vocals, and the old blues song “Champagne & Reefer” with the best guitarist alive, Buddy Guy, wailing from way up the neck of his Stratocaster.
The film juxtaposes concert footage with interview clips dating to the 1960s, sometimes with comical effect. Just after the first U.S. tour, Mick tells an interviewer he?s confident The Stones will last, at least another year.
A decade later, Dick Cavett asks Jagger whether he can see himself doing gigs at age 60.
“Oh, absolutely,” Jagger replies, smirking.
?Light? in Baltimore
The Martin Scorsese Rolling Stones concert film opens today at the Senator Theatre in Baltimore and Muvico Egyptian 24 at Arundel Mills.
