Rollings Stones 3 2003 Concert Reviews

Rolling Stones – Concert Reviews

The Stones recently roared into the hub and opened the Licks World Tour in celebration of their fortieth anniversary and the release of a new two CD compilation album (40 Licks) with four new songs on it. The tour is remarkable for its ambitious booking of arenas, stadiums, and theaters. Hitting three wildly different sized venues not just on the same tour but in the same city is unprecedented in rock history and the results were delicious. Here are the vital statistics and high points to top for when they make their triumphant return to the Fleet Center on January 12th .
9/3 Tuesday @ Fleet Center
1. Street Fightin’ Man
2. If You Can’t Rock Me*
3. It’s Only Rock & Roll
4. Don’t Stop
5. Stray Cat Blues*
6. Wild Horses*
7. Lovin’ Cup*
8. Rocks Off*
9. Rip this Joint*
10. Tumblin’ Dice
11. Slippin’ Away
12. Happy*
13. Love Train
14. Undercover of the Night*
15. Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’
16. Honky Tonk Women
17. Satisfaction
18. Mannish Boy (mini stage)*
19. Neighbors (mini stage)*
20. Brown Sugar (mini stage)
21. Sympathy (encore)
22. Jumpin’ Jack Flash (encore) Beggars Banquet
It’s Only Rock & Roll
It’s Only Rock &Roll
40 Licks
Beggars Banquet
Sticky Fingers
Exile on Main St.
Exile on Main St.
Exile on Main St.
Exile on Main St.
Steel Wheels
Exile on Main St.
O’ Jays cover
Undercover
Sticky Fingers
Single (69)
Single (65)
Muddy Waters cover
Tattoo You
Sticky Fingers
Beggars Banquet
Single (68)

Originals By Album:
Undercover: 1
Beggars Banquet: 3
It’s Only Rock &Roll: 2 Sticky Fingers: 3
Exile on Main St.: 5 Steel Wheels: 1
40 Licks:1
Tattoo You: 1

Singles: 3
Covers: 2 Originals By Era:
Sixties: 6
Seventies: 10
Eighties: 3
Nineties: 0
21st c: 1

9/5 Thursday @ Gillette
1. Brown Sugar
2. Start Me Up
3. It’s only Rock & Roll
4. Don’t Stop
5. Honky Tonk Women
6. Rock & a Hard Place*
7. Angie*
8. You Can’t Always Get What You Want*
9. Monkey Man*
10. Can’t Turn You Loose*
11. Gimme Shelter*
12. Slippin’ Away
13. Before They Make Me Run
14. Sympathy for the Devil
15. Shattered (mini-stage)*
16. Beast of Burden (mini-stage)*
17. Miss You (mini-stage)*
18. Midnight Rambler*
19. You Got Me Rockin’
20. Tumblin’ Dice
21. Street Fightin’ Man
22. Jumpin’ Jack Flash
23. Satisfaction (encore) Sticky Fingers
Tattoo You
It’s only Rock & Roll
40 Licks
Single (69)
Steel Wheels
Goat’s Head Soup
Let it Bleed
Let it Bleed
Otis Redding cover
Let it Bleed
Steel Wheels
Some Girls
Beggars Banquet
Some Girls
Some Girls
Some Girls
Let it Bleed
Voodoo Lounge
Exile on Main St.
Beggars Banquet
Single (68)
Single (69)

Originals By Album:
Sticky Fingers: 1
Tattoo You: 1
It’s Only Rock & Roll: 1
Steel Wheels: 2
Goat’s Head Soup: 1
Let It Bleed: 4
Beggars Banquet: 2
40 Licks: 1
Some Girls: 4
Voodoo Lounge: 1
Exile on Main St.:1
Singles: 3
Covers: 1

Originals By Era:
Sixties: 9
Seventies: 8
Eighties: 3
Nineties: 1
21 st .c: 1

9/8 Sunday @ Orpheum
1. Jumpin’ Jack Flash
2. You Got Me Rockin’
3. All Down the Line*
4. Brand New Car*
5. Parachute Woman*
6. Dance Pt. 1
7. Everybody Needs Someone to Love*
8. Heart of Stone*
9. Going to a Go-Go*
10. Love Train
11. Slippin’ Away
12. Before They make me run
13. It’s only Rock & Roll
14. Rock me Baby (w/Buddy Guy)*
15. Hand of Fate*
16. Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’
17. Honky Tonk Women
18. Start Me Up
19. Brown Sugar
20. Tumblin’ Dice (encore) Single (68)
Voodoo Lounge
Exile on Main St.
Voodoo Lounge
Beggars Banquet
Emotional Rescue
Solomon Burke cover
Out of our Heads
Smoky Robinson cover
O Jays cover
Steel Wheels
Some Girls
It’s only Rock & Roll
BB King cover
Black & Blue
Sticky Fingers
Single (69)
Tattoo You
Sticky Fingers
Exile on Main St.

Originals By Album:
Voodoo Lounge: 2
Exile on Main St.: 2
Beggars Banquet: 1
Emotional Rescue: 1
Out of Our Heads: 1
Black & Blue: 1
Sticky Fingers: 2
Steel Wheels: 1
Some Girls: 1
It’s only Rock &Roll: 1
Tattoo You: 1
Singles: 2
Covers: 4

Originals By Era:
Sixties: 4
Seventies: 7
Eighties: 3
Nineties: 2
21 st c.: 0

Total songs = 65:
Fleet: 22
Gillette: 23
Orpheum: 20
Songs Played at only one show: 29 (*)
Total Number of Different Songs: 44
Total originals by album:
1965 Out of Our Heads: 1
1968 Beggars Banquet: 6
1969 Let It Bleed: 4
1971 Sticky Fingers: 6
1972 Exile on Main St.: 8
1973 Goat’s Head Soup: 1
1974 It’s Only Rock & Roll: 4
1976 Black and Blue: 1
1978 Some Girls: 5
1980 Emotional Rescue: 1
1981 Tattoo You: 3
1983 Undercover: 1
1989 Steel Wheels: 4
1994 Voodoo Lounge: 3
2002 40 Licks: 2

Total Covers: 7
Total Singles: 8 (all from Sixties)
Total originals by Era:
Sixties: 19
Seventies: 25
Eighties: 9
Nineties: 3
21st C:2

Songs Played at two shows:
1. Don’t Stop
2. Sympathy for the Devil
3. Satisfaction
4. You got me Rockin’
5. Can’t You Hear me Knockin’
6. Love Train
7. Before They Make Me Run
8. Street Fightin’ Man
9. Start Me Up Songs Played at all three shows:
1. Jumpin’ Jack Flash
2. Slippin’ Away
3. It’s Only R & R
4. Honky Tonk Women
5. Brown Sugar
6. Tumblin’ Dice

Top Ten Moments:

1. Sympathy for the Devil; Gillette Stadium
The stage bathed in red light. Mick prancing about feeding off the energy of fifty-three thousand like a tick behind a German Shepherd’s ear. Siren Lisa Fischer doing the “Oo-ohs.” Impossibly huge fireballs jumping out of the scoreboard apparatus. Keith, more dangerous than all of gangsta’ rap, dressed in snakeskin jacket and scarf smoking a butt. The genius of singing a song from The Devil’s perspective. The genius of the Rolling Stones obvious to anyone lucky enough to be in attendance.

2. Can’t You Hear Me Knockin; Orpheum
Maybe the riffiest tune in their entire catalog. They played it live for the first time ever Tuesday at the Fleet Center and it cooked but on this night it was tougher and tighter. Woody completely redeemed himself for being mostly coked out for the last couple of tours by tearing up the solo originally played by Mick Taylor. Keith put on a clinic with his chunky rhythm playing. Jagger added a harp solo as well as maracas and the incomparable Bobby Keys blew a scorching sax.

3. Rip This Joint; Fleet Center
Chuck Leavell is the unchallenged king of touring keyboard players. He led the charge on this gritty nugget with a rollicking, pounding performance to highlight a set of Exile on Main Street material. Charlie’s banging of the skins and the four man horn section pushed the tempo further and it was over all too soon. With media from around the world looking on, Mick pandered to residents of the commonwealth but it rang true to fifteen thousand when he said, “There’s nothing as exciting as starting an American tour in Boston.”

4. Rock Me Baby; Orpheum
After praising his “brilliant” opening set, Jagger pulled his harmonica out and invited Buddy Guy back on stage for this blues-wailing romp. Keith was shirtless under a leather vest while the sauna like Orpheum got hotter with a three guitar attack and the close quarters on stage got a little closer. The smell of incense masked any other odors while the giddy 2,800 on hand grinned at obtaining the toughest ticket in Boston rock history. Mick confirmed, “This is our third night in Boston and it’s definitely the hottest one.”

5. Angie: Gillette Stadium
The energy was so high for these shows that before Heart of Stone at the
Orpheum, Mick wondered in a British accent somehow thicker than it
was at the arena, “How are we ever going to do a ballad?”
They didn’t do many but, with Woody and Keith on acoustics, this one
shone brightly at shiny new Gillette Stadium. Mick infused the lyrics
with every nuance of regret and longing that he hinted at when he
commented, “We’re doing this for a year, it beats having a social life
that’s for sure.”

5. Everybody needs Somebody to Love; Orpheum
Mick introduced this as “The song we used to open up with when…
Well, I won’t even tell you but I wasn’t even born yet and Keith wasn’t born yet either.” Some fans knew he was referring to nights at London’s Marquee Club in the early sixties. Others recognized the song only from the Blues Brothers movie but it was a riotous crowd pleaser to all. It connected the Stones to their roots and their audience with festive finger pointing during the mutually acknowledging call and response of “I Need You…You You!”

6. Honky Tonk Women; Fleet Center
The raunchiest props always get pulled out for this one. (Remember the blow-up woman from the Bridges to Babylon tour?) A video projection was the vehicle this time: a super sexy Asian topless dominatrix riding the stones tongue that had a peculiar bulb-shaped tip. Mick ran down the runway towards the B-stage to slap hands with fans while Woody and Keith spread out on opposite sides of the main stage. Mick grabbed the sexy Lisa Fischer by the bottom and admitted, “They call me a skirt chaser.”

7. Love Train; Fleet Center
After Keith took the spotlight for two vocal numbers, Mick re-emerged on stage in a fedora and long white coat with glitter to lead the congregation in a bit of hip shaking. After acknowledging it was the first time the Stones had ever played it on stage, Mick said what everyone was thinking: “That was fun.” The boys’ taste in covers has always been impeccable, and when you practice 130 songs for a tour, you get to play a few.

8. Midnight Rambler; Gillette Stadium
The world’s greatest rock and roll band singing about the Boston Strangler in Boston…uh, Foxboro. Close enough. Mick was stuffing the microphone into the front of his pants and former Miles Davis sideman Darryl Jones was showing off his chops of doom on bass. They brought it down and dirty and then revved it up to a sensational climax that rivaled the night’s ending fireworks.

9. Going to a Go-Go; Orpheum
On a night that featured outrageous back catalog selections like Parachute Woman and Hand of Fate, it was this party song that (as Keith said) peeled the paint off the walls. The boys have neglected to pull this one out much over the past decade and its been missed. Mick’s been working out so he looks fantastic and, over the three nights, he modeled everything from leather Nike Air Essential III’s with their soles ground down (for sliding) to a three-quarter length coat pieced together from leather, silk, and a dozen pairs of shredded jeans. The latter incorporated logos from previous tours to tickle the memories of veteran fans.

10. Peter Wolf & Joe Perry together: Orpheum
In the intermission after Buddy Guy and before the Stones, two Boston rock gods caught up behind the soundboard. Perry, accompanied by his wife, was spotted by the Woofa-Goofa whose new album Sleepless features cameos by the glimmer twins. The Geils band legendary front man shared a few laughs with the immortal Aerosmith guitarist while the mortals who witnessed tried not to stare. John Kerry and Bill Murray were also in the house.