By Tom Siebert
I have long known that Mick Jagger has a heart. The mega-rock star once sent my then-wife two dozen roses and secured us press seats for a Rolling Stones concert at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Today, Mick’s heart is making headlines around the world as the legendary Stones front man showed last night that he is fully recovered from cardiovascular surgery.
He sang, skipped, mugged, and mimed during a two-hour-plus show before more than 60,000 fans, again at the historic lakefront stadium, with the majestic Windy City skyline as his backdrop.
The rock titans tore into their opening number, “Street Fighting Man,” from the landmark 1968 album “Beggars Banquet,” as their animated lead singer triumphantly pranced and danced his way down a runway that jutted into the audience, demonstrating that he still has moves, well, like Jagger.
The roaring crowd gave him a heartfelt heaping of cheers, shouts, and fist salutes as the Stones kicked off their 2019 No Filter Tour of North America, three months after the first 14 dates were postponed while Mr. Jagger recovered from a heart-valve replacement.
The storied band was back together, and guitar heroes Keith Richards and Ron Wood––as well as genius drummer Charlie Watts––could not contain their joy, in an emotional performance of still-stunning songs that changed the course of music and culture.
Starting up with "Street Fighting Man" was the Stones sticking their tongues out at the Chicago radio stations that refused to play the single, after demonstrators protesting the 1968 Democratic National Convention clashed with police at nearby Grant Park.
The second number was 1967’s “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” a once-controversial Stones tune that now seemed like just an enjoy-the-evening invitation to the cross-sectional audience that spanned four generations.
“It feels pretty good,” Mr. Jagger told the enthusiastic crowd, only coyly referring to his recent health problems. “We love Chicago so much we decided to start the tour here instead of Miami.”
But it was altogether fitting that the Rolling Stones should be born again in the city that gave birth to them, when schoolmates Mick and Keith met on a train in Dartford, England, in 1961, discovering their mutual love of Chicago blues artists like Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf.
It was hard not to think of that unassuming meeting as the self-described Glimmer Twins, now in the biggest band ever, strummed acoustic guitars and sang harmony during the country satire “Dead Flowers,” from their monster hit album, 1971’s “Sticky Fingers.”
Friday night was the 38th time that they have played in the Chicago area, and the local fans, like those all over the globe, seemed to know the words to most of their songs.
But the official sing-along of the Soldier Field concert was the epic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” with Mick thrusting his microphone at the crowd during the chorus and Mr. Wood performing a brilliantly beautiful guitar solo.
The Stones, who were once called “the bad boys of rock and roll,” are now grandfathers. Mick and Keith, who used to drink Old Grandad whiskey on stage, now get their satisfaction from bottled water.
The showstopper of the night was “Sympathy For The Devil,” whose opening primitive drumbeat was accentuated by a hellscape of real smoke emanating from the massive stage and fake fire burning on the giant video screens, while Mick and the crowd screamed “wooh wooh” in unison.
The samba-tinged song took on mythic significance after the Stones performed it during an ill-fated free concert at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco on Dec. 6, 1969, when Hells Angels fought with hippies and four people died, including a young black man, Meredith Hunter, who was stabbed to death.
But “Sympathy” is more historic than satanic, as it chronicles some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. It is also illustrative of the literate lyrics of Mr. Jagger, who was a history major at the prestigious London School of Economics.
“I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made,” he sang in a sparkly red shirt and tight black jeans. “I shouted out, ‘Who killed the Kennedys?’ when after all, it was you and me.”
Bass player Darryl Jones, who is an indispensable member of the Stones, was spotlighted during the haunting “Miss You,” from the Stones’ biggest-selling album, 1978’s “Some Girls.”
The band paid homage to Chicago blues with practically every number, but especially “Midnight Rambler,” a pulsating horror-show song from 1969’s classic “Let It Bleed” album, with Mick raucously playing a harmonica, while Keith and Ronnie traded distorted guitar grunges.
Mr. Richards, who has survived heroin addiction, drug busts, and brain surgery, was also warmly greeted by the Soldier Field fans, as he stood on the front stage to sing and play “Before They Make Me Run,” in which he wrote his own epitaph:
“After all is said and done, gotta move while it's still fun. Let me walk before they make me run.”
The eclectic crowd not only got what they wanted, they got what they needed: almost every one of the Stones’ classic rock standards including "Angie," “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Paint It Black,” “Start Me Up,” “Brown Sugar,” and “Honky Tonk Women,” which was performed in front of giant Picasso-meets-Andy Warhol females depicted colorfully on the jumbo stage screens.
The first encore was “Gimme Shelter,” a thunderous, earthquake of a song, whose chilling line “Rape, murder––it’s just a shot away,” was screamingly sung by Sasha Allen.
Ms. Allen led a stellar cast of backup musicians that included Chuck Leavell on keyboards and backing vocals; Karl Denson, saxophone; Tim Ries, saxophone, keyboards; Matt Clifford, keyboards, percussion, and French horn; and Bernard Fowler, percussion and backing vocals.
The finale was of course “Satisfaction,” the number one song of 1965 that propelled the English rock group to international acclaim.
A second show at Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears, is scheduled for Tuesday night. Then the tour will head across the continent with scheduled stops in Arizona, California, Canada, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.––and maybe more dates added.
The No Filter Tour began in 2017 and has since grossed $238 million, with an attendance of more than 1.5 million concertgoers at 28 shows in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.
The Rolling Stones have racked up those kinds of stratospheric receipts many times during their decades-long career.
But even if you had never heard of them or their songs, you would have still walked out of Soldier Field on Friday night knowing that you had just seen the greatest rock and roll band in the world.
