Sunday, October 22, 2017

Rolling Stones @ U Arena, Nanterre - October 22nd, 2017


Back to the newly minted U Arena for night two of the Rolling Stones Paris "residency".
For the first time on this tour I think, they opened with Jumping' Jack Flash instead of Sympathy For The Devil, which led me to hope there would be some little surprises in the set-list, but those would turn out to be minimal. We did get to hear Dancing with Mr. D., a rare track from Goats Head Soup, which was both funky and menacing, with that aura of dark sleaze that permeated the Stones' recordings of the seventies.
As for the vote song, it was predictably Angie which beat gems like Beast of Burden and Dead Flowers which I would have greatly preferred. Oh, well. Keith was again in fine form mostly, although like every time I've seen them in the last ten year he managed to fuck up the intro to Brown Sugar! How does anyone fuck up that intro, especially when you've written it and performed it thousands of times in the last five decades? He laughed it off, and all was forgiven but those "absences" are very worrying even if he does seem to have it more together than three years ago.

Ronnie was his usual goofy self and really shone on Midnight Rambler, while of course never reaching the heights of his predecessor. Good ol' Charlie was as reliable and affable as ever behind his kit and the rapport he has with Keith on stage is what drives the machine. It is most evident on Honky Tonk Women where each player propels the other.

Once again the MVP was Mick Jagger, the world's greatest frontman. His voice only gets better with age. Last night he was in a playful mood, more than I've ever seen him. At one point he stepped behind Charlie and started hitting the cymbals with one of his drumsticks. During Gimme Shelter he walked to the backing singers' position and started singing with them, all of them cracking up. It was a joy seeing him in such a great mood and cracking the shell a bit.

The backing musicians were all perfect, Chuck Leavell was maybe a little to high in the mix on some songs but that's a small complaint. Lisa Fischer's replacement Sasha Allen of course got her moment to shine on Gimme Shelter, and her duet with Mick is a lot of fun, but her voice could use a little more restraint. She's a powerhouse alright, but a little subtlety wouldn't hurt.
There was a lot more interplay between Mick and Keith, they even joked around a bit, Keith stealing Jagger's harmonica before the blues covers... It's nice to see the tension ease somewhat, as on previous shows you could tell Mick was clearly annoyed at Keith's erratic playing. So none of that last night thankfully, and the show was all the better for it.
The last show of the tour is in three days and hopefully they will change things up again and add some surprises.





























































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