The Ancient Gods

The Rolling Stones concert, Gaylord Center, Nashville TN 11/25/2002

Hurry up, get off work early, grab a bottle of wine, a beer for the road and hit the trail for the two-and-a-half hour race to Nashville to bear witness to the Greatest Rock Band in the World.  Or so many people think.  I last saw them in 1981 in Memphis, and I remember all the criticism they got for their last Steel Wheels tour, which many called the 'Steel Wheelchairs' tour.  But you know, this may be the last time, this may be the last time, this may be the last time, I don't knooowwww....oops, sorry....to see these guys.  Of course that's what people have been saying since Altamont in 1969.  Besides, the wife had never seen them, so I smacked my credit card 'upside the head back months ago for some floor tickets.  Three hunnert dang bucks each.

Before I go any further, I just wanna say that if you saw this tour and paid $38.00 to a scalper who was desperate to get rid of some suck tickets then made your way down to the 2nd row and didn't get chased out the whole night like some girl in my office did for the Atlanta show, don't email me with this information.  I don't wanna hear about it. Please.

Things promised to get even better though, as a buddy of mine informed me that a couple of my old friends from the Memphis days were gonna be at the concert, along with the One and Only Jerry Lee Lewis.  They said to look for them.  I had visions of getting back stage with Wilbur, JW, and Jerry Lee and hanging out with the Stones.  I even had fantasies of Mick writing me an excuse for work;  "Please excuse Jimmy for not showing up for work on Tuesday, 11/26.  He was partying with the World's Greatest Rock-n-Roll band.  Yours truly, Mick Jagger."  Sorry to say, it didn't happen.  We never even saw my buddies or Jerry Lee.  I'm pissed, especially since I once saved Jerry Lee's ass by catching him before he hit the ground drunk.  But that's another story.

We fought the traffic and finally found a place to park, several blocks from the Gaylord Center.  We actually had time to go stand in line at Jack Cawthorn's famous bar-b-que joint.  That guy is makin' a killing, serving $7 plates, self service, no waiters or waitresses, on styrofoam plates and plastic dinnerware.  At least the food is absolutely great.  Jimmy's official rating for the food is four stars out of five.  Check it out.

We get walk across the street to the concert hall, smush our way in along with zillions of others and find our way to our seats.  I have to say that they had the most courteous and helpful ushers I have ever seen.  We had a very nice gentleman actually walk us to our seats.  Which were pretty damn good seats, too.  We were about halfway back on the floor and could see the stage just fine.  But the cool thing was we were sitting almost right up against the runway that came out into the middle of the floor of the hall.  I could see drums and keyboards sitting down in the pit, and you just knew the Stones would some out at some point and we'd be three feet (literally) from them.

Looking around at the crowd, I noticed probably the greatest cross-section of humanity ever assembled for a rock concert.  You would expect to see the age range from about 8 years old on up to Gram and Gramps at a Jehovah's Wit-less convention, but at a rock concert?  And it was a veritable Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans cornucopia of people-types, too. There were humans from all walks of life from rock star wannabees (and real rock stars like me...a-hyuck!) to lawyers, bankers, bikers, hookers, school teachers, bass pros, cowboys, Indian chiefs, and nuclear physicists.  You didn't see any Taliban-lookin' guys, but what do they know about 'fun' anyway.  I was goo-in' and gaw-in' and exclaimin' over all the older folks until my wife reminded me that this group included me, too.  Chastised by this cosmic realization, I shut my yap on that subject.

A few seats down from us was an older couple.  Well, the guy was REAL older.  I mean a real Gramps type.  His wife/girlfriend was younger, but at least in her 50's.  He kept talking my ear off telling me how he'd never done anything in his life so he decided to some here, that his wife/girlfriend was gonna flash her humongous titties at Mick, and blah blah blah.  He was also ogling my wife's T and A and telling me that I'd better not leave or he'd have to take care of her and blah blah blah.  I was glad when the people that had tickets next to us came in and filled that space.

I went for (another) beer and some (more) wine before the opening band was to start.  They really had the full bar thing going on with all kinds of mixed drinks and stuff.  The beer was kegged Budweiser, the lowest common denominator of the beer world.  It was my last one for the night and reaffirmed my belief in middle America's utter lack of taste buds.  Likewise, the wine was cheap and 'corky.'  I'll bet if I had tried a martini, it would have been stirred and not shaken.  All this for the modest price of $12.50 for two drinks.  I'll bet if I woulda had an official Rolling Stones hot dog, it woulda been at least ten bucks.

Finally the house lights went down, and without a word of introduction the first band, Lighthouse came on stage.  I only knew it was Lighthouse because I had seen them listed on the Gaylord Center's web site when I went there earlier in the day for directions.  The could have been Shithouse for all anyone in the crowd knew, because the band themselves never even said their name one time in the mercifully brief performance.  I guess because they are really young and totally hip it woulda been, like, way uncool to try to act like they were pushin' product, dude.  They were actually good musically, the guitarist was different and the drummer was smokin', but all their songs were that teen-angst downer drone crap that you can only really relate to when you're in the pimple stage of life.  

Their last song was the one that is on the radio, and it was upbeat and rockin'.  Too bad the rest of their set just laid there.  Yeah, I hear what you're saying ease up on them because they had an uphill battle opening for the Stones because the Stone's audience doesn't care.  But my philosophy is that even if they hate you (and the words "The Jello Room" come to mind) it is your duty and your mission to try to MAKE them care.  Hell, try to win them over.  If that doesn't work, make them hate you even more!  Do SOMETHING!

When the lights came back up, the place was really packed.  Lot's of people came in during the Lighthouse set.  We checked out the crowd and talked with the couple who were mercifully separating us from Gramps who was down there swilling beer.  They were from Virginia and had seen the Stones a couple of times on this tour.  They were nice folks.  I got up and roamed around trying to spot the Jerry Lee entourage but to no avail.

Some great blues was blasting out of the sound system:  Muddy, Wolf, Little Walter and so on.  People were milling around talking, running for a beer, just hanging out.  After awhile, whenever a song would end, the crowd would issue forth a swell of noisy anticipation which grew in volume and stridency as each succeeding song finished.  Finally, what we were all waiting for, the house lights took a dive, the volume level of the crowd made a steep climb, guitars were being chunka-chunka'd onstage, and we knew it was going to happen.

The first chords of Street Fighting Man rang out, the stage lights blazed and the Stones were onstage.  Mick was doing his thing all over the place, dancing around like a much younger maniac, Keith and Woody milling around like some predatory animals jousting with each other until they could find the vein to strike and kill, and Charlie Watts back there driving that beast with his Great Stone Face expression.  I have never figured out how he can put out that much energy and not ever breath through his mouth.  I guess that's what that big nose is for!  Bassist Darrell just kinda stayed out of the way and did his thing, which was laying down some bedrock-solid bottom.

Start Me Up was next.  The huge video screen behind the band didn't get lit up for the first few songs.  I thought that this was great because it made everyone lean into the band, fight to see these legendary guys do their thing.  When the screen finally came on, the video was excellent and the on-the-fly editing was stunning.  Besides the images of the band live and 50 ft tall, there were cartoons, mini-movies, flaming graphics, and general wild shit all mated to the song of the moment.  I have seen lots of these things detract from what was going on on the stage, but all the video stuff here complimented the performance.

Watching this band makes you not only want to play your guitar, but get in shape as well.  When you realize that both Jagger and Richards are 59 years old and still really doing this stuff, it just boggles your mind.  When you see Jagger, you can tell he works out and is in top shape, or he would never be able to move like that, to be that limber and pliable.  Keith, on the other hand probably NEVER works out.  Dave Berry's column in this past Sunday's paper said that Keith's idea of health practice was to go an entire song without smoking a cigarette.  I thought he did smoke a bit less than I'd seen before.  Ronnie has cleaned up his alcoholic act, and was playing great.  I don't know what Charlie does, but the mere act of drumming seems like it would keep you pretty tight.  They are all some skinny guys.

They brought out the backup musicians bit by bit.  Chuck Leavall was on keyboards for almost the entire time, and did backing vocals as well.  The horns led by Bobby Keyes came on and off and for me I could take 'em or leave 'em except for Bobby's solos in a couple of songs, but that's just my personal taste.  They had a fiddler on a couple of tunes that looked like he belonged in a symphony, and was good but wasn't much to watch, but hey that's why you have Mick.  The three backup singers were really happening, with the standout being the black girl (I'm so bad with names) who did some awesome wailing on Gimme Shelter.

The band did about four songs from Exile on Main Street, I thought matching the Nashville flavor very well.  Mick's voice was in really good shape.  I have seen several live performances on video where he wasn't singing well, but last night it was great.  About in the middle of the set, Mick introduced all of the backup musicians and all of the Stones individually, then took a two-song break while Keith stepped forward and did a touching job on The Worst.  Everyone knew what was coming next, and he laughed and said, "if you guessed Happy you'd be right!"  All those cigs have really done in his voice, but you just gotta love Keith.  He is the original loveable rogue.  As long as he's alive and playing, I will never feel old, because inside he isn't.

Mick back on stage and they blasted into Sympathy for the Devil, Honky Tonk Woman, and Satisfaction among others.  After Satisfaction the part of the show I was looking forward to came on.  The band all walked out on the runway and made their way down to the small stage.  As they were walking towards it, the 'pit' rose up with keys, drums, and some tweed Fender Twin amps on amp stands, along with a little antique-looking Apeg bass rig for Darrell.  They were, no shit, three feet from us.  They lit into It's Only Rock n Roll followed by Howlin' Wolf's Little Red Rooster and ended up with Brown Sugar as Bobby Keyes came up through the crowd and joined them on stage to do the sax solo.

All this time there were bras and panties being thrown at Mick, who gathered them up and put them on Chuck's keyboard.  I just have to say this:  if you have to work for a living, WHATTA FUCKING JOB!!!  It is hard to imagine getting underwear thrown at you by young girls (and it was the young ones that were doing the throwing) when you're 60 years old.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is what rock-n-roll is all about:  music and sex.  The Rolling Stones, what more can you say?

After this short 3-song set, the guys walked down past us surrounded by a squad of guards and took the long way back behind the big stage.  As they were passing me, Keith personally handed me one of his guitar picks.  Well, actually he had thrown it right to me from the stage.  Okay, okay!  If you want the real truth I bummed it off one of the guitar roadies who had a handful of the things.  I like to think that if Keith really knew it was me out there, he'd have invited me up to play a number there at the end.  Hey, I think a healthy fantasy life is good for the mind!

Right beside us they were loading up the gas-propelled confetti spewers so it was evident that the band would come out at least one more time, and that they did rocking the holy shit out of Jumpin' Jack Flash while the confetti-spewers blew red paper rose petals that we're still finding in our clothes.  The band just rocked it for all it was worth, and then they were gone.

Some younger skeptics on the way out commented that they didn't feel like they got $300.00 worth, more like $100.00 worth.  They were obviously idiots and probably fans of the opening band.  I felt the Stones proved it all night long that they are still a viable rocking force in the universe.  What it was not was a dinosaur show.  You wonder how much longer they can keep this up, deliver with conviction and energy like they did tonight.  Obviously, it can't last forever.  But nothing can.  I think we have to dig it while it's here and celebrate what was when it's gone. 

I am thankful that I got to see a band that cares so deeply about what they are doing that they have the courage and conviction to lay it all on the line and live or die by the moment.  Of course they're rich and famous and all that.  They could probably never play another concert again and remain very rich until the end of their lives.  But there's no face-lifts, no pretense they're still youngsters, no piped-in guitar riffs.  It's real.  This is ALL about the music, the show, the excitement, the sex, the Big Party.  This is what rock-n-roll is all about.

Jeez, I'm jonesin' to play.......

JimmyR  11/26/2002