...has been posted as it coincides with me digging out 'Sticky Fingers' and 'Goats' Head Soup' today, and watching that '25 x 5' documentary for the first time in years.

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed hearing those albums- I think it's become easy to actually forget just *how* great The Stones were back then and as David said, how hard they rocked! 'Bitch' and 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking' have some truly brilliant guitar work and a great 'groove' too. I continue to gain a lot of enjoyment from 'Exile On Main Street' too, which I played earlier in the week.

Watching 25 x 5 on VHS, I was less enthused by hearing 'Rock And A Hard Place' or 'Mixed Emotions' at the end, which smack me as remarkably pedestrian when played alongside all the older songs. They are the sort of songs, like almost all of their recent output, that stay in the set list for that album's tour and then are forgotten by everyone but the die-hards.

Although, David, I personally thought 'Undercover Of The Night' was probably the last genuinely great piece of rock they've put out- had a real bite about it that's lacking from more recent, forced stuff like 'You Got Me Rocking' or 'Oh No Not You Again'. And don't get me started on that cringeworthy attempt at social comment, 'Sweet Neo Con' (I seem to remember it rhymed 'hypocrite' with 'crock of shit'!!).

I am tempted to go and see that 'Shine A Light' film though, as hardly anything from those recent albums are featured.

...that later version of 'Jumping Jack Flash' is awful. Lacks any kind of groove.

a bunch of nervous, drugged up youngsters who still can't believe their luck and are holding it together for all they're worth, the second is played by career rockstars who are so familiar with their shtick (sp?) that barely any effort is required to make an approximation of the same noise.
As such it's a great advert for the "Squad system" proposed in the last podcast!

That it all went wrong between November and December 1981.

This, quite clearly, rocks:

This, the same song performed a month later, clearly doesn't.

What caused this, I have no idea.

but I'll have a stab at it.

Firstly, back in 1969 the Stones were still a band, not a corporation. They were at the epicentre of a cultural sea change for which their music provided the glorious, hedonistic soundtrack. They were still engaged with the wider social and cultural landscape, drawing inspiration from then current events for their songs (the student riots in 1968 for example), those songs then feeding back into the wider culture once more. Life influencing art and vice versa.

They mattered. And their performances from that time show that they knew that they did.

Musically speaking, they had a lot to prove. Free from the seemingly endless rounds of drug busts and court appearances, their first shows for three years (an eternity back then) to my mind show a band just getting off on playing together again. The addition of a new member in Mick Taylor also focused their minds and their chops.

But the most important element for me is Keith Richards. In 1969 he was yet to become 'Keef - Super Junkie' and was first and foremost a songwriter and guitar player. His head and heart were full of the sounds of delta blues men and rock n' roll, he was young and full of ideas. He lived for this music, reimagining those lascivious grooves in a new sound for the Stones that was very different from the pop records they'd been making just a few years before. He was at his peak as a musician and that clip of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' proves it.

Also, a word for Bill Wyman. Within every great band one finds a great bass player, and his contribution to the Stones should not be overlooked. He and Charlie Watts laid down the deceptively simple rhythmic foundations over which Keith could let his riffs roam free. When Wyman left the Stones, something was lost. They've never really sounded the same since.

What about the singer? Perhaps the hardest job. It must be difficult to sing lyrics you wrote nearly 40 years ago and still sound convincing. Back in 1969, he meant it, maaaan. Now, well he probably thinks he still means it, but he is a grandad with an extensive property portfolio.

But the most significant aspect to this is that I think these days the band members are acting the part of being in The Rolling Stones. Very convincing performances, by and large, but acting nevertheless. Mick, Keith and Charlie have had 40+ years to practice their respective roles, but unfortunately when you act for that long your onstage character starts to resemble a caricature of what it once was.

For me, it's also about scale. In 1969 the Stones played to big crowds but their music sounded intimate. It was basically the sound that five mates would make rehearsing in a basement, only with a bigger PA. Nowdays that intimacy has gone. Even when they try to get back that spirit, that sense of togetherness, they cannot. Despite the fact that they play together each night for 100+ dates on a big tour, they have lost that undefinable magic that makes the truly great bands great. Now their music is somewhat soulless, like the vast stadiums they have tended to ply their trade in over the past 25 years. When one reads about them these days, it's all about numbers. Biggest crowd, highest-grossing tour, most elaborate stage set. The sound the band makes nowdays is a reflection of that change. Even when playing in a room together sat a few feet apart, they sound like they are spread across a giant stage in an enormodome.

Once that intimacy and warmth has gone, it seems it's almost impossible to get it back.

...is from that film 'Let's Spend The Night Together', I think. I saw it early in my appreciation of The Stones...and I was monumentally disappointed by it- I haven't really seen much of it since. It's so slick, all the rough edges that made their sound so brilliant have been ironed out. It's probably something that comes from playing ever bigger stadiums and arenas and to their credit, they have still played smaller venues too, but as Patrick says, the intimacy is gone because the band are so used to the stadiums.

I'd also be stunned if they ever bother to put out a new album again. It seems to me that, aside from some music critics who call everything they've done since 'Steel Wheels' the 'best since 'Some Girls' (and comically, Jann Wenner lavished 5 stars on the weak Mick Jagger solo album 'Goddess Of The Doorway' which sold a pathetic 649 copies on the first day of release!), the general public have written them off as vital recording artists.

I totally agree with David's piece. The Stones stopped rolling for me around the time of Some Girls, and have you listened to that lately? I think the most revealing thing about the Stones is the shocking decline of the Jagger/Richards songwriting partnership (last decent song,arguably "Beast of Burden, Mmmmm maybe). Compare this to the recent output of veterans like Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Ray Davies Richard Thompson (and the Bonzos!!!!) and you truly find how decrepit their songwrting has indeed become. Maybe its time Keef had a stab at a solo alb... errm maybe not!!! Goodnight Mick and Keith, retire gracefully but unfortunately for us, thirty years too late.

Anyone want to make a shout for the effect of Keith and Ronnie's balance of guitars? Both refer to their interplay but for me one of the missing magic elements is the guitar sound. Mick Taylor, anyone?

...for a musician's diagnosis. I suspect it's something to do with the tempo.

I remember Elvis Costello talking about the difference between his original bassist Bruce Thomas and the Imposters bassist Davery Farragher - according to him they both rocked but only Farragher rolled. The earlier comment about Bill Wyman has relevance - I dont think they have been the same since he left. However bland their studio albums have become I still think they can have relevance as a live band. I saw both their Voodoo Lounge and Bridge over Babylon tours and there were times in both gigs when the guitar interplay between Richards and Wood was truly astonishing - when they get it right it is pretty bloody good.

They've been phoning it in for so long now its become second nature. The real shame is the audience turn up to each stadium show and let them get away with it. Both the band and audience are so drunk on the spectacle of the whole thing - the size of venue, the number of people, the years in the business etc - that its like 2 winos trying to entertain one another. Bill Wyman knew it was as good as dead so moved onto brighter things and kept his dignity intact. Didn't he write 'Jumping Jack Flash' too but was denied a credit? I can't think of another act with less dignity and such half-arsed interest in their music or audience.

And I think I am qualified to comment here having seen the Stones at least two or three times on each tour since 1982. Despite the rush of seeing them for the first time in 1982, I was sufficiently grounded to appreciate that the playing was poor. This was a band that were barely speaking at the time, and the support act - George Thorogood - was allegedly being lined up to replace Ronnie. The clips that Fraser put up - maybe a month apart - are probably a fair reflection of how fast it was falling apart at that time. They called it a day, and probably rightly so.

All the points made so far are valid: there's a lack of intimacy in the larger venues etc etc. There is a physical distance between performer and audience but also an emotional one too. The audience have an expectation, that has to be satisfied by the delivery of the key 10 or 12 tracks that have soundtracked their lives. If they didn't serve these up you would ask for your money back.

As for the clips that DH put up - well, you're not comparing like with like. As Patrick says, in 1969 this was new, they had something to prove. There was an immediacy to the whole experience. In 2008 that song means a thousand different things to the people in that crowd. I saw McEnroe & Borg play each other recently. It was great but it was the Wimbeldon final that we were watching in our heads. We knew it, and they knew it too. The expectation and response of the crowd can't help but change the performance.

Just as when you're 50 you can't hit a ball like you're 23, it's not humanly possible to play the same songs night after night for 40 years and invest each performance with the same fire and energy as when they were freshly minted.

The Urban Jungle and Bridges To Babylon tours were by the numbers. Flashy spectacles, with only glimpses of the old fire.

The next time out though they did something odd. They started digging just a little deeper into the back catalogue. Of course they still have to play the crowd pleasing hits and set pieces, 'Jumpin Jack Flash' and 'Sympathy ...', but they began to play album tracks, changing the setlists each night by 4 or 5 songs.

And that's when they rock, not on the songs they have to play, but on the songs they want to play.

In 2008 the Stones may still have something to prove, but if so I suspect that it's primarily to themselves and they're not going to do it with 'Jumpin Jack Flash', and not with 'Satisfaction' and not with 'Brown Sugar'.

I saw them in Boston for two nights in January 2006 on their second visit on the Bigger Bang Tour, and I've never seen - or heard - them play better. The key tracks were 'Memory Motel' (never played before), 'All Down The Line', and 'Rain Fall Down'. Often it's the cover versions that stand out on a particular night, that lift the game, and that allow them to get past the expectations of the crowd, to where I suspect they would rather be.

Have you heard the version of 'Champagne & Reefer' with Buddy Guy? It absolutely soars!

....Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have been playing their old warhorses for almost as long and are presumably just as bored with them but nonetheless those songs don't come out sounding like a flaccid approximation of the originals when they play them.
On his recent tours Paul McCartney and a band made up of people who grew up listening to his classics has made an excellent fist of his side of the Beatles catalogue.

The good clips posted, for me, have a kind of sonic purpose. The way Richards' guitar and Watts' drumming (at its best when he's slightly behind the beat) gently nudge the song into what can only be called a groove: that abstract notion that makes you want to move, basically. What Eddie Cochran was talking about when he said that "when you hear the music you just can't sit still". (Although, I have to say, I don't think Jagger is much to do with the reason any of the above clips are good or bad. He seems pretty ridiculous most of the time, willing the songs to work through a variety of strange physical tics. The difference is that it seems a bit more justified if the song rocks.) As pointed out, The Stones can still cut it on bluesy numbers like the Buddy Guy example cited above; I also remember Midnight Rambler being the absolute high point when I saw them at Wembley in 1990. But the uptempo numbers seem essentially out of their reach now. Unfortunately, they still have to produce them because it's required. But hearing them churn out Satisfaction or any of their most celebrated hits is a pretty dispiriting experience these days. Such songs were great because of a certain attitude, and often nastiness - just listen to Aftermath for a reminder of just how mean some of their songs were. Under My Thumb is a nasty little song: the attitude is all. If only they could lose the uptempo hits and stick purely to the blues and country songs that they still suit. Unfortunately, that ain't stadium rock, and there are far too many people who demand the rock 'n' roll; uncaring, as I said, that it's essentially out of their grasp and has been for decades.

Springsteen cares, and so do his band. He enjoys it. That means everything. I don't see or hear any purpose or enjoyment in the music or live performances of The Rolling Stones. Not any more. The great thing about being called The Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band In The World means that, like a driving test, you'll never have to prove your status by taking the test again, no matter how questionable your abilities become.

Apart from the title summing up exactly what many feel about the Stones now, a line jumped out at me that makes me wonder if they knew, even forty years ago, that the music wouldn't be around for ever:

"Our love is like our music: it's here, and then, it's gone"

...a really interesting debate. I certainly agree with the points raised about Mick Taylor; a genuinely brilliant player. I've always found his interplay with Keith Richards more interesting as I think Keith had to up his game when playing alongside Taylor.

Glad David raised Paul McCartney too. I haven't seen him live but I have DVDs/CDs and the like and the old hits never sound like it's a chore for him to play- it actually seems like Paul and the band are enjoying playing the classics and enjoying watching the audience's love for those songs. And for me, Paul's recent output has proved itself to be far more enjoyable than The Stones'. I played 'A Bigger Bang' last night and I couldn't even make it to the end. Interesting, that, as I enjoyed that one when it came out but these days I don't find that much on there that really does it for me.

For me it started going wrong in the mid 70's when this waste of vinyl came out. Coincidentally Ron Wood's first, but I'm not pointing the finger at him. Signs of lethargy had been creeping in in the previous two releases. In the next 10 years there was the occasional good track but then even those stopped.

I seem to remember that in Ronnie Wood's book there was the suggestion that he was to be offered the guitar slot before Mick Taylor but there was a breakdown of communications. Would those classic tracks that Archie refers to have been the same? We'll never know.

On the subject of rock star biographies/autobiographies does anyone have the same response that I do? I enjoy the early stuff about background and how they got started but when they hit success I give up. I know their lifestyle is bound to be very different to mine but the repetitive tales of drug taking, stupid behaviour and constant cheating on wives/girlfriends have no appeal. Maybe that somehow links to the loss of creativity and drive that's been discussed? Or am I just being naive again?

... about the peak period of the Stones - live and in the studio - being the Mick Taylor years. For all that the critics, and even Keith, bang on about the interplay between Keith & Ronnie being the definitive sound, the songs that are now most closely associated with the band are those that feature Taylor's lead work cutting through the riff. My point is that when they get the chance to escape the audience's expectations they can still pull off some great live performances.

Even 'A Bigger Bang' contains its moments. It's too long, and has at least two too many Keith tracks, but you need to accept that they are simply never, at 60, going to produce another 'Exile ...'. How could they? You don't expect Clapton to write another 'Layla'. With the exception of Dylan, name any of their contemporaries producing anything to compare with their peak. The last Who album was simply an embarrassment. Van Morrison hasn't produced a decent album for 20 years, although for some reason he keeps trying, and I keep buying. McCartney has had a sort of resurgence but I think it's over stated.

I've seen McCartney half a dozen times since the mid-80s and his current band is probably the best of that period. There's no doubt that they love playing that stuff - and why wouldn't they as they probably grew up listening to it!

I think my point about the Stones raising their game when they play what they want to play, to an extent also applies to McCartney. He seems to really get off on pulling out the album tracks - 'Helter Skelter' (at Live 8!), 'Mother Nature's Son' and 'She's Leaving Home etc.

He seems to love the reaction these songs get, from a crowd that never thought they would hear them played live. He could play 4 or 5 hit singles and fill the rest of the set with (Beatles) album tracks and the crowd would go home happy. The Stones simply couldn't get away with that approach!

could be that the E Street Band have a leader and Springsteen feels responsible for the overall performance. I can imagine Bruce listening back to tapes of shows and telling Clarence or Steve if they're not quite hitting it. I can't imagine Mick telling Keith or Keith telling Mick or Charlie if they weren't up to scratch. They've probably had so many fights over the years they just can't be bothered any more.

.. there's no mystery why the Stones aren't what they used to be. They've got older. I'm 53 and I don't have the energy and vigour I had when I was 23. I assume that a lot of fellow members of the Word community are in the same state, and I'm sure it applies to rockstars too.

First the loss of Mick Taylor who made Keith raise his game. Second Ron Wood was on a wage for years and treated like a junior partner. His playing palpably suffered because he was so dominated by Keith. Listen to his work in the Faces. Miles better than anything he's done since. And of course, the smack. Keith was great despite the smack not because of it. When he swapped smack for booze it was all over for the band as a creative force. And Bill Wyman was a great bass player. Always played the barest minimum but always great. And of course now businessmen pay tens of thousands of dollars to get their picture taken 'backstage' with the band. It really has become a machine to churn out dollars.

Easy answer .... they were never the same band after Mick Taylor left and Rod Wood joined. Taylor's contribution to the band was always underated because he didn't fall into the hedonistic image.
I've seen the Stones once live, Knebworth 1976, and it wasn't impressive. They came onto stage over four hours late, just before midnight when most of the audience had been up since 5.00 am. Not a word of explanation as to what caused the delay, which was an extreme version of the contempt that many bands showed for their audience back then. Were they any good? Don't really know; like half the audience me and my mates were half asleep and left so we could catch a late train rather than sleep in a field without tents all night.

Joni Mitchell's "Furry Sings the Blues", which documents the Memphis Blues bars of the 70s and how Beale Street had become an exploited and tainted shadow of its past, made flesh in Furry. DH's post captured something of the following lyric:

"Old furry sings the blues,
You bring him smoke and drink and he'll play for you.
Its mostly muttering now and sideshow spiel,
But there was one song he played,
I could really feel"

(Of course to compare Furry, who has a missing leg, with Keef who is reputedly legless would be to besmirch a favourite song. Oh bugg..)

Agree with everyone about the Taylor years but thought I might mention Stewart who played live with them during that period and a bit after, albeit hidden from the audience. Could it be that he kept them connected to their past a tad more effectively than say Chuck Leavell? I would also argue that having Nicky Hopkins around didn't hurt much either.

For me they both differ from what I feel is THAT song - the original. Both the vocal melody line and the guitars on both versions vary from the original - in my view because they are bored of playing/singing it. Also the backing vocals on the later clip are too precise and Las Vegas.

I am not a big fan of the Stones but if Mick Jagger deviates from the vocal line like that in the whole of their live set, I'd be very tee'd off.

Keef's guitar is clipped and choppy on the first, lazy and lingering on the second.

I'm sure there's much more musicology to it than that, but the riffing on the first makes me want to do the old chicken strut, while the second makes me dash off for a coffee.

it's like you hear all the separate component parts and they just don't gel - they are just kind of rather disconnected fragments. However, I do believe The Stones still have moments when it comes together - on the tracks that haven't been done to death, as has been said. Perhaps they are all too much in their own separate worlds and lives to be like a proper band much of the time. I also do feel that Keith and Ronnie are much affected and damaged by their addictions - truly shattered. Keith comes and goes it seems to me, from slurry and out of it speaking and playing to momentarily sharp and clear. You can't ignore that factor - he was out of action for much of the 70s, falling asleep while stood up playing. Mick took over the band for a while, well he had no choice.

Also, since the eighties Mick often seems to focus on his look, strutting round the big stadiums, to the detriment of the vocal at times. He could do well to be more still and just sing - it's all shouty and rushed. I am being a bit hard - they still have so much allure and charisma. I do agree about Mick Taylor and the greater emphasis on making music then. He seemed to want out of the circus though - and that's been a lot of the trouble, all the non-musical nonsense getting in the way.

I think that The Rolling Stones is the worst possible band for Mick Jagger to be in. He is indulged to such an extent that he can get away with those ridiculous vocal mannerisms, or thinks he can; put him in a group that wouldn't settle for his laughable pantomime dame impersonation of a rock star, and I think he'd suddenly remind us that he doesn't have to be such a joke. His persona worked fine until the 80s, roughly the point where he turned into a self-parody.(In 1969, the whole "I think I bust a button on my trousers...Charlie's good tonight, innee?" patter worked a treat. But suddenly it didn't.) I mean, has anyone seen that toe-curling clip of him singing Mannish Boy with Muddy Waters? What the hell does he think he's doing?

In the early 90s, I heard him doing Long Black Veil with The Chieftains. And it was shocking. Because it proved that all that empty vocal posturing he does with The Rolling Stones is just that. He can pull it out of the bag (a) when he wants to, and (b) when he's not the chairman of the board and there's no-one to show off to.

http://inhouseradio.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-house-1788-chieftains-in-ida...

Lennon had cast up the fact that Jagger couldn't cut it without the Stones. There were no rock stars over 40 - and I suspect he was more than slightly freaked out by the prospect of creeping old age. Still, it's no excuse. Given the dignity of Muddy Waters it's nothing sort of shameful.

Similarly see also his 1998 performance alongside a rather bemused looking Dylan. Note that he briefly claims authorship of the song too!

Anyway - and I appreciate that I'm pretty much fighting a one-man, losing battle on this thread - as you say, if he (and the band) are allowed to step outside our image of what the Stones should be, then they can still deliver great performances.

That's it, I'll get my coat etc. ...

Possibly the overuse of the "click" track...

In trying to create a live facsimile of studio performance, the entire spontanaeity has been eroded. Aside from any chosen vocal ad libbing, everything is controlled by the click track. Your tempo is stridently controlled and leaves (possibly a good thing in Keef's case) little room to deviate from the template. Once your tied to a metronome, you're emancipated from ROCK - dude...

QED!

PS - As an illustration, the U2 gig I saw on the Elevation tour in NYC was identical to that at the NEC aside from Bono's meanderings. You really couldn't put a cigarette paper between them

I reckon you would need an accountant to analyse the various businesses that the Stones empire owns or contributes to; that's where their fortune is tied up and there are wages and costs to pay to keep it going. I have no idea, but maybe that reached critical mass and they now have to carry on touring in order to keep cashflow going through their business interests?

Personally I reckon they have always had on and off days, so comparing two close performances is not necessarily possible. Love You Live is a bit rough, surely?

Mick's persona also could be a problem. During the early years, he was like a naughty schoolboy saying "balls bum willy", in the middle years he was convincingly more evil than satan's own armpit, then he became a like a dirty old man saying "balls bum willy" (witness the enormous inflatable cock in one of their many live videos of the last 20 years). Anyway there was a certain period where his looks and persona matched perfectly and it just worked.

I wasn't going to reply to this but then I thought...,

"What the Hell......everybody loves a good troll".

Mick Jagger 26/07/1943 aged 64
Keith Richards 18/12/1943 aged 64
Charlie Watts 02/06/1941 aged 66
Ronnie Wood 01/06/1947 aged 60
(Bill Wyman) 24/10/1936 aged 71

David Hepworth 27/07/1950 aged 58

I saw The Stones for the first time in 1982. I was 16 going on 17.

I was brought up on Rolled Gold. I knew the greatest hits. I was really looking forward to the gig but they were a shambles. To my teenage ears these men in their late 30's were rubbish and Keith was completely out of it.

Everyone said "well at least you saw them, they probably won't tour again".

Well everbody was wrong, they are still out there. I haven't seen the new movie but I can say I've seen them every tour and some small venues since 1982. And each time they were better than the last.

I saw The Stones in Wembley and REM in Milton Keynes in 1995, I think within one week of each other. The Stones show and playing simply blew REM out of the park.

Yes you probably can't dance to them anymore but ... really since they got stuck in the country and blues in the late 60's and early 70's (which everyone says is their peak), there hasn't been much to dance to. (apart from the 4 to the floor Miss You.)

We will have to agree to differ on Steel Wheels because I thought that actually was a return to form, (admititly their last true return to form but hey they were coming up on 50). And creatively they were on a roll with the 25/5 documentary which was the first of the Rock Group History Stories and the one The Beatles copied.

I think its unfair to have a go at Christina Aguilera. The girl can sing (its not all Dirty you know) and I've seen the clip of her onstage with The Stones and quite simply she rocks. And sings.

All I'm saying is none of us rocks like we did when we were 22 or 25.

Not even you Mr H. You used to be alot less cynical. (not that thats a criticism just a fact). You just got older like them and eveybody else.

They are up heading towards their 70's and they will never groove like they did when they were hungry.

But I'll alway take my hat off to any group (the Stones for instance) that are constantly better each time I go and see them.

I still love them. Even as a greatest hits show.

..(They clearly do)..it's that they don't swing any more, and they haven't done since before Bill left.
There was a lope that had all the characteristics of a car with a flat tire that they lost somewhere around "Black and Blue"
I personally blame the ever so slightly useless Ronnie Wood myself.

I think the answer as to why the Stones don't rock or swing, or whatever, is there for all to see in 'Shine a Light'. Keith Richards has simply stopped working hard - he just likes to strut, pose and gurn for the camera now, having finally succumbed to believing in his own 'legend'.

He used to work at playing along with Charlie Watts (they were one of the few bands where the drummer played off the rhythm guitarist rather than the bassist), but now he just seems off in his own world and there are too many duff notes. The lifestyle has finally taken its toll and he's no longer in any way 'cool', just a parody of a parody. So, I don't think we should blame Darryl Jones (cruelly shut out of all publicity and decision-making by the Stones' management) or Ronnie Wood (now he's sober, he's better than ever). If the Stones do ever go on the road again (which I don't think they should), then they have to get Richards working for the 'team' again or think the unthinkable and replace him.

I think there have been some terrific points made on this thread, not least the last one about the decline of Keith Richards's actual playing and the earlier one about the complicity between band and audience ("like two drunks trying to entertain each other").

I don't believe this is anything to do with age or the decline of songwriting quality. You could make the same points about Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band but it seems to be widely accepted that when they set about one of their old tunes they do it justice whereas the Stones now sound like one of the weaker tribute acts.

As they say about companies, no band ever outperforms its aspirations and that's the difference. When the Stones play "Jumping Jack Flash" today they no longer have the will to make it sound right. I wouldn't mind betting that the conversation that needs to take place never does. Nobody's going to wave the number to a halt in rehearsal and then say "this doesn't sound right and the reason is that so-and-so isn't playing right".

Bruce Springsteen on the other hand is an old fashioned band leader with an equally old fashioned musical director in the shape of Steve Van Zandt. I've seen Springsteen rehearse and sound check and there's no doubt who's in charge. If somebody's not providing what he wants he has no problem telling them and they're not offended by it. They know that they have to play primarily to please him. He has a sound in his head that they are expected to create. The sound that the Stones make, on the other hand, is a compromise between what happens to come out when they start playing, what they think the audience demands and the best they can get out of each other without actually talking about it.

The standard clichéd assessment of the Stones? It is now, yes, but it's thirty-five years since Lester Bangs wrote that.

...I bought 'Live Licks' on the cheap today and I quite enjoyed it to my surprise. Some of the time-honoured hits aren't really played with much vitality though, it has to be said. The lesser played tracks do indeed stand up better.

This is a short excerpt from Bruce Springsteen's eulogy to his friend and keyboard player Danny Federici:

Let's go back to the days of miracles. Pete Townshend said, "a rock and roll band is a crazy thing. You meet some people when you're a kid and unlike any other occupation in the whole world, you're stuck with them your whole life no matter who they are or what crazy things they do." If we didn't play together, the E Street Band at this point would probably not know one another. We wouldn't be in this room together. But we do... We do play together. And every night at 8 p.m., we walk out on stage together and that, my friends, is a place where miracles occur...old and new miracles. And those you are with, in the presence of miracles, you never forget. Life does not separate you. Death does not separate you. Those you are with who create miracles for you, like Danny did for me every night, you are honored to be amongst. Of course we all grow up and we know "it's only rock and roll"...but it's not. After a lifetime of watching a man perform his miracle for you, night after night, it feels an awful lot like love.

Now, call me naive. Call me a sentimentalist. But I think if The Rolling Stones felt half of the love for performing evident in these words, we wouldn't be having this discussion.