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Rolling Stones

Your Illusions you can Take Elsewhere

The Rolling Stones flew into New Zealand under the cover of the most elaborate and most unnecessary security network ever seen in this country. Disregarding the fact that hardly anybody cared where the Stones were staying prior to their concert at Western Springs, the militaristic machinations surrounding the group's entrance, stay and departure could have taught Brigadier Gilbert a thing or two. The airline carrying them also came in for its share of confusion. Air New Zealand had three separate bookings for 10 first class and 15 economy class fares, which the airline didn't appear to connect with the Stones.

One set of the bookings was under the names of Captain W.E. Johns characters : Jagger booked in as Ginger and Richard as Biggies. The names under which they finally travelled were those of outstanding men in the cricket world: Jagger assumed W. Grace, Richard was Freddy Trueman and so on. They reverted to Biggies' characters at the Hotel Intercontinental. When they finally arrived there in a curtained van on Saturday morning they took over the entire 12th floor and started a party which lasted until breakfast on Sunday morning. A London millionaire from the Noble Lowndes Insurance group, who had the presidential suite above the Stones, complained in the morning about the noise and told the management to present his bill to the group. The group retorted that they would buy his company. Each of the group had bodyguards, plus another extra who had the task of rousing the Stones from their beds in time for the concert. They left late, in the curtained van, with not a solitary fan in sight.

Depending on whether you want to believe it or not, Phil Warren, who organised the concert, had to make $1 20,000 to recoup his costs. Assume $100,000 for the Stones administration and $20,000 for Warren's incidental expenses. If the crowd was 30,000 as estimated Warren made $7000. Add an extra $4.90 for every head you think there was over-30,000 and you can have some indication of Warren's profit before tax. However, Don Lillian, who handled Warren's PR, claims that the Stones took 98 percent, and that Warren would have been lucky to make $500.

At Western Springs . . .

Itambu an Australian-based group domiciled in New Zealand after a maintenance hassle, open for the Stones. Under any other circumstances they are an exceptionally fine group, but not today. Their demented view does however elicit a response from certain sections of the audience. A twenty-minute break as the crowd fidgets uneasily in the heat.

The stage, bordered with white carnations, becomes a hive of activity as lackeys move to cover the amplification gear with a white muslin screen as per the Stones management request. Then a brief announcement: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones". The crowd, rather dispiritedly starts applauding. A knot of people in front of the stage rises to their feet as the original wild man fond fathers wouldn't let their daughters go near leads the remainder of the Stones on to the stage. Richard and Taylor drive into "Brown Sugar" with Jagger— turquoise spangled jump suit, battered blue jacket, flowing mauve silk scarf, yellow sash—spitting the lyric line into the microphone.

The Stones do not sing songs. Jagger's voice, one of the great rock instruments of all time, erupts, the syllables broken and sometimes inarticulate, over a wave of the loosest yet most perfectly-disciplined rock and roll ever heard. The Stones have mellowed their approach somewhat over the years, yet are still able to generate an enthusiastic crowd response. (Jagger : "For us, it's a big drag. No one quite throws their hands up in horror at us any more"). The other one of the two tracks lifted from the "Sticky Fingers" album for a single, "Bitch", fills the air Jagger, prancing, strutting, mincing shirts into a higher gear.

A promise of shelter being just a shot away is rammed in behind the wet dream song from "Exile on Main Street". "We are gonna git Keef up to sing one called "Happy" for you", squawks Jagger. Richard is away with a rapid guitar run and sings the first verse, the second being completed in a cracked harmony between him and Jagger who finishes the tune. Even when Keith is singing it is Jagger's charisma that dominates, be he twisting his body in time over with the brass section or stalking across the back of the stage.

"Tumblin' Dice", the only song which Keys and Price didn't manage to clutter, slows the pace and leads into the re-titled re-hash of a Robert Johnson number: "Love in Vain". Hopkins frantically delicate piano tinklings are all but lost behind the brass barrage. Mick Taylor, who said after leaving May all that he had done absolutely nothing since joining the Stones has at least learned to accept the inevitable. Forsaking the antic histronics of the other members of the group, he spaced the son? with an incredibly-biting slide break as Walts, hair greying and with red tongue lolling from the chest and with red tongue lolling from the chest of his T-shirt, laid down a steady beat behind him. Scraping the shit from their shoes they move into "You can't always get what you want". It starts to drizzle as Jagger announces that the boys are going to start rocking and they are into the number generally considered to be the center piece of their act.

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Jagger has shed his jacket to reveal more sequins and the yellow sash : "You heard about the midnight"—whack—as he clobbers the stage with his belt, exactly as he was doing in 1969. The crowd stirs as Jagger drives himself over the wall. A monologue on tuning difficulties because of the rain fills the next gap. "We even go out of tune when it isn't raining", he mumbles from the side of his mouth as he struts past the mike.

A stirring version of "Jumping Jack Flash" (it's a gas) and "Street Fighting Man"—tongue in cheek but it's inside the head that counts—to end the performance. Leroy Jenkins, Mick's personal bodyguard, hands Jagger a silvered bowl containing white chrysanthemums and red rose petals. The first handful is scattered over Leroy, the rest over the crowd in front of the stage and the remainder over the group. "What can a poor boy do, cept sing for a rock and roll band", and despite half-hearted demands for more the concert's wound up after one-and-a-quarter hours. "Thank you for being so sweet. You're really sweet, sweet, sweet. Thank you for making us feel at home wherever that is", Jagger enthuses and then he and the rest of the group is gone.

"Mick Jagger was on television here the other night and said he was an anarchist. An anarchist? Mick Jagger is staying at the George Cinq Hotel. If he wants caviare the head waiter says 'Yes Sir, Mr Jagger' and sends someone off to Russia. Now I love and need Mick Jagger, but he has totally lost touch with the people".

—Jean Jaques Lebel.

Despite an sycophantic feature written for the London Sunday Times magazine by Terry Southern, and contrary to what their publicity would have us believe, the Stones as we saw them at Western Springs were no longer exiles on Main Street. This is not to say they were bad. Any group that has been on the road as long as the Stones must be good. With the possible exception of Jethro Tull they presented the most polished performance this country has ever seen seen from a rock group, and there's the rub. The Stones' reputation has been built primarily on their image and, secondly, on their ability to create feverish excitement by play playing some of the toughest rock music imaginable. Musicianship, until the advent of Mick Taylor, never came into the picture at all.

This, then, was where they failed, if it can be construed as failure. Everything that went down on the stage was dominated by the image, and it's an image that is be-coming increasingly mechanical as time goe goes on. The Stones are still rough as guts. But it's a roughness polished by acting out exactly the same routine for a hundred concerts just like this, so that even the jagged edges, essential to the music, slot neatly into place. Jagger sums it up when he says the Stones are professional and anybody with any other illusions should take them elsewhere.

All you super hip freaks lying back and saying "don't lay none of this political jive on me, man. Politics are dying"—there's much more dying than you, in your insulated shell, want to realise. After this concert perhaps we can once and for all, forget the platitudinous crap about rock music being the revolution. Rock music, forgetting ting backstage manipulation for a moment, is valid as a means not an end. Revolution is change and has people as its basis. Large numbers of people, large numbers who haven't really learned anything yet. Marcuse had it correctly explained when he wrote that a voluntary change of master (or overlord, or whatever) does not necessarily entail the removal of the implied relationship with the slave. If you thought that sitting on the grass and getting stoned at the concert made you a revolutionary then it's time you realised that all you've done is changed the masters, and with their Kinney Records-Mafia connections they are particularly nasty ones at that. When we get to the stage that our culture is being ripped off by the Hotel Intercontinental boss, Michael Cairns, offering the sheets the Stones slept in to Rotary for use as possible auction objects then it's time for a re-appraisal of the situation. And there were their little extras, ordered by their business managers who arrived in advance and had them delivered to the marquee at the back of the stage: a buffet meal, red velvet covered chairs, a pool table, pinball machines, cheeses, bottles of bourbon, tequila, vodka, cognac, a [unclear: ag] juice, six [unclear: and] two [unclear: dozer] while you [unclear: ghtly] lars and [unclear: how] to three [unclear: hicles] among [unclear: the] age who [unclear: it] a lawyer, [unclear: rotations] up [unclear: speciali] six tons of [unclear: 48: "New Zealand universi].

The [unclear: analogy] to apply to Auckland's dealers who, taking advantage of the large pre-concert crowd in Queen Street, filled in Friday night by trying to fleece the visitors. Perhaps the sign

Finance for the University comes from the community and is dependent on its good will. Student politicians may deplore this situation, but deplore it as they will, it is a fact and even student politicians have to face facts. In spile of all the unwitting student attempts to destroy it, there still remains in the New Zealand community a respect and concern for [unclear: ed] enough we may inherit, flow are we going to fare when there is already another mercenary establishment/ counter culture split taking place, except that this time it's within the ranks of the counter culture?