Shine a Light

Caught the movie over the weekend. So, beyond the hype...

The trailer has the highlights. That's the best part of the movie right there. Scorsese's little asides, what he has to go through to organize the shoot, and when the Clinton's entourage shows up before the show to shake hands, all those bits are entertaining, at least. Keith Richards' and Charlie Watts' reactions are funny.

The film then is just the Stones' playing the benefit, broken up occasionally with little ironic bits of old footage from the Stones' career that's supposed to illustrate, I suppose, the amazing fact that these old geezers are still playing rock and roll. No, what's amazing is that intelligent people are still forking over a lot of money to see them.

You don't learn anything new about the Stones.

And granted, even I've never been a big Stones' fan to begin with, you see that Jagger is still crazy on stage, but definitely slowing down. And his singing has taken a big hit. Keith Richards is a huge egomaniac with this reputation for being an awesome blues guitarist, but then Buddy Guy takes the stage and then you see what a real blues guitarist really is. Buddy Guy is on stage, and it appears that Richards is trying to hog the spotlight, or suck up to him, and Guy just plays harder and just blows them all away. Beautiful. The blues is American, and the Stones came over here and they incorporated it in their music. Just like they think Faraway Eyes is country. It's just them making fun of country music. And Keith Richards is given two solos, and man, you wonder why: He can't sing...at all. He's just Keith Richards and the crowd eats it all up, but then you realize that it's a wealthy white crowd in NYC that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

And I think Ron Wood has taken a back seat to Keith Richards, even though Wood is probably the better guitarist. At one point in the footage, a reporter asks each who's the better guitarist. Wood answers that he's the better one. Then Richards is asked, and he hems and haws. When he learns that Wood said that he was, Richards says something like, they're both lousy guitarists but together they're awesome. A good guitarist is happy to just play, and let the frontman do his job.

Which brings up another question, with Richards and Wood on stage, plus an awesome backup band, why does Jagger pick up a guitar? He plays acoustic when he does a number with Jack White, and later he's prancing around with a Strat. His point...?

They're old, and they still rock, but it's nothing new. They're just scarfing up the money like hogs at a trough.

The flesh on Keith Richards' upper arm just hangs on him. Ron Wood's hair is dyed (or is the correct word choice, died?) a color of black that should never be seen on a man his age. And Mick Jagger should have retired a while ago and used some of his money and power and prestige to help some part of the world: I don't know, the homeless, the hungry, ugly people who bear an extraordinary resemblance to monkeys.