Duncan FaHowell on the Stones beyond mythology
Planets spin and galaxies heave, but the BBC television news never changes. Months into lugubrious Years, the jargon is re-arranged, updated, new statistics announced and mindless percentages extrapolated, the Irish slot, the US slot, the Third World cum military coup slot, the financial crisis slot frequently starring our Brothers in Europe, the TUC slot which might defer to Zsa-Zsa's diamonds stolen again or Lord Lambton makes it With women, the plane, boat or train crash slot, sport, happy note and weather. It is delivered in a dead language constructed from catch phrases which say nothing.
Tilisby way& preamble towhat seemed at the time a miniature revolution, appropriately following the film Ulysses. On Friday night there was a Rolling Stones slot, incorporating action stills from their first Empire Pool concert that night, and a long extract from the new album, Goat's Head Soup (Rolling Stones Records, £2.25). Neat,' you might say, or 'what do people see in them glued all the While?' Anyway, 'Starfucker' was played, one of the best numbers on it. As the music charged forward, moving nearer and nearer to the chorus line (the title repeated over and over) it seemed inevitable that they would fade it out. But they didn't. There it was, beaming loud and clear to the island race, Anglo-Saxon's immortal gift, the global by-word for togetherness. A
friend of mine was so overcome with surprise that he telephoned his congratulations to the Beeb, much to the consternation of the girl on the switchboard who thought she was being importuned by a pervert. I advance this as the first occasion that the BBC news service has used the most uniqui tous word in the language, albeit in modified form, as well as an example of how the Stones can precipitate paranormal behaviour in even the most conventional quarters.
All the old Stones mythology was revived by this incident and even as their first British tour for two years takes wing, Keith Richard has a dope trial in the off ing which may well scotch their chances of playing behind the Iron Curtain (after seeing the Stones perform in Vienna, Russian officials approached them with a view to concerts in Moscow, Kiev !and Leningrad — an inspired and astonishing concept). The use of drugs by pop stars must be as widespread as it is among inter,national politicians and for similar reasons. The pressure, baby. Sometimes the pressure must be intolerable, at others ecstatic. Of course we demand too much from our leaders and cult heroes.
Of course we abuse them when they turn in anything less than an ace. That is why they exist, to be superhuman. It is through their cult heroes that the mass of people. get high. These personalities must take you up. In their chosen area tne stones have done this more certainly and on a bigger scale than anyone else. Their latest show is the most potent product yet in the pharmacology of rock, a sharply accelerating ninety-minute super-pro electrical lift-off to cloud nine.
It begins on the Thursday with an odd party at Blenheim, almost genteel among the box hedges and fountains, fire eaters, acrobats, string quartet and a fortune teller. Since some people who shall be nameless like to space out their gin with tall glasses of Southern Comfort, orange juice and masses of ice, some level-headedness was preserved on this occasion by serving plenty to eat and only champagne to drink. Mr and Mrs Jagger wandered about trailed by exploding flashbulbs, he in oyster, she in frills and bows and little lace gloves holding a riding crop. Perhaps there were rapists about. The other Stones,
some with kids (" Marlon, hold your fork properly ..."), seeemed to be eating all the time, except Mick Taylor visibly losing weight under an arch. Once the photographers had spent themselves it could have been almost any prosperous young man's do, apart from Vanbrugh of course. And this Marienbad feeling, people wondering if anything more abrasive were going to happen. No, sorry, just an evening in the country because the band has to get up tomorrow and go to work.
Sunday was the last of four concerts over the weekend, all at Wembley, and was apparently the best. Maybe I am prejudiced — I didn't go to the others. Never before has their stage excitement been so concentrated, so irresistible, so exactly tuned in all its details. The resonance from it is still with me, helplessly spawning superlatives from every angle. Take the mechanics, for example. A master's hand at work here: a row of arcs behind the group "project thick bands of light on to a batten of mirrors suspended above the audience, reflecting the reflection throwing the group into sharp relief against a black backdrop.
Later this batten is rotated so that the entire arena floods with light. Very simple, visually stunning. Then the band, of course. supplemented by brass, keyboard and extra percussion, playing with taut exhilaration and extraordinary confidence. They have never been this sharp. No nods to old favourites like Chuck Berry:. all the Stones music, and Mick Taylor spinning delicious solos out of his guitar which finally lay the ghost of Brian Jones.
What to say about Jagger? After ten years in public service he has it all. Warden Sparrow called him "handsome animal." Balletic, ibeautiful, bizarre, at thirty he looks like an androgynous teenager and in a year when we have heard a great deal about superstars he is the only one to
unquestionably release the magic vapour. It is hardly possible to take your eyes from him. His stamina alone is alarming. The last number is ' Street Fighting Man.' Jagger clearly cannot pretend to be this any longer, so he casts clouds of flower petals over the audience and as the group, build to a wild roar of a climax, also buckets of water, first over himself then — blowing kisses — the front rows. And bang! A great billow of smoke rolls into the air 'and it is finished, they are gone, no encore. The Stones have left you right at the top, the house lights go up, you look down, there is vertigo.
By car, bus and tube train you slowly descend, memory still incoherent, ears numb, but knowing that something spectacular and unique has exploded in your head. The Stones were always good, even when they were bad, because the myths were on their side. Now their supremacy has been projected far beyond debate to something more like a supersonic state of being. Since it is impossible to walk these ways twice, they have their particular throne for all lime.
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