Stones are still on a roll

The Stones, who have been playing us to their tune for the last 40 years, now come wrapped in a new dust jacket. Their story today transcends their age-old tales of notoriety. The drug-induced fugginess of the ’60s, Jagger’s legendary infidelity and his sudden fall from grace as the 20th century sexual icon after he scrapped the UK leg of the 1998 Bridges to Babylon tour as taxes threatened to erode the band’s profit margins have all come to pass now. Even Keith has the time to reason, “It (heroin) was an experiment that went on for too long. I didn’t want to be a star that much, and I could be private in public with that stuff. It’s a tussle, an interesting fight. And if you come out the other end, you know things about yourself that you would have never learnt otherwise.”

The truth is they have come out the other end, and how. In the early days, if the Stones had any ambition it was to be the best blues band in London. Today, they are being celebrated on magazine covers as the billion dollar band structured as a partnership of four and connected through a maze of small companies housed in tax havens like the Netherlands. If corporatising the creative genius and mass appeal of their distinctive brand of rock has been the cornerstone of their success in the age of market economy, it has obviously come at a price.

Some of us may not entirely agree with the way the essentially anti-establishment Stones morphed with the times. Otherwise, why would they even consider a tour of China when days before their scheduled performance the land of the Forbidden City banned them from playing Brown Sugar and Let’s Spend the Night Together? Though the concert was called off due to the Sars health scare, I was taken aback when Keith told me that they “respected the sensitivities of other countries although it was kind of weird to be told what to play or not”. Such a mild, uncharacteristic nudge at censorship would be unthinkable in those best of times.

But hey, the Stones are against war. Thank God for that. Asked about it at their meet-the-press, Keith simply turned around to show his jacket that had “Make Peace Not War” in bold.

If not for all this, there’s yet another simple reason that makes this, the first-ever Stones tour of India, epochal. For, Forty Licks Live is showcasing a quartet of four reprobates delving into their vast repertoire of some of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest songs. Cobwebby classics, maybe, but sounding as good as new. Their legacy is as important to them as it is to us — “there’s no point pretending the Rolling Stones is a new band,” is Mick’s way of putting it.

Watch their weathered, granite grooved faces: Mick and his taut frame doing the James Brown walk — which other grandfather pushing 60 can do that while singing? Keith ‘Human Riff’ Richards and his wicked guitar playing the drunken Medusa to the hilt; Charlie Watts on the drums, wearing the same glum look he’s had since birth; and Ronnie Wood, the baby of the group.

In the end, after the delinquency, youth, shock, sex, drugs, arrogance and business savvy, what remains for the Rolling Stones is their music. Pure, simple and, in their words, It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll. Satisfaction guaranteed, they aren’t out fishing for any Sympathy For the Devil. All they are saying still is, Let’s Spend the Night Together.