The Stones kick off their European tour in Madrid this Wednesday; the music journalist Julián Ruiz has been watching it since his first concert in Spain in 1976
Sixty years is nothing. At least for the Rolling Stones, whose members, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, are already 231 years old and will start a fourteen-day tour this Wednesday at the Wanda Metropolitano stadium in Madrid – the last? – which will go to thirteen European cities are going to celebrate its sixtieth birthday. It is their first visit to the old continent without the elegance of Charlie Watts on drums after his death on August 24 last year at the age of 80.
But it won’t be the first time they embark on a series of concerts without his majestic touch. Before his death, in a London hospital, surprised all fans, the musician had decided not to participate in the second phase of the No Filter Tour that brought the authors of albums like ‘Beggars Banquet’ (1968), ‘Let It Bleed’ . (1969), or ‘Exile on Main St’ (1972), between September and October last year, through thirteen American cities, recovering from a medical procedure related to his old cancer. Few could then imagine that his replacement by Steve Jordan, a regular collaborator of Keith Richards in his solo work, would be forever.
“Too bad they’re not going to sound like they were. In the mix, the most important thing is the voice and the drums, and since Charlie Watts isn’t there, they won’t sound the same,” said Julián Ruiz, producer, music journalist and head of the mythical Plásticos y Decibelios who knows the Stones from close and have seen the band live over twenty times. The last one, exactly last year. “They’re a lot like the Rolling Stones, but with a new drummer… Sometimes Mick Jagger looks back and seems to think, ‘Well, when Charlie isn’t there.’ It’s that Mick is ahead or behind and Charlie, with so many years behind him, had that opportunity to follow him. Jordan is a machine and a great drummer, but he’s very on time and doesn’t match Jagger’s input,” he explains. Sure, “now they’re more sober, they play better, but before that they had more power, more vitality,” he admits.
This Wednesday is the 23rd concert their satanic majesties offer in Spain. His fruitful relationship with our country began on June 11, 1976 in La Monumental in Barcelona, seven months after Franco’s death. The date would go down in history as it marked the first time an international group performed in our country after the dictator’s death, under whose command such releases as “Sticky Fingers” (1971), the cover of which showed a male pelvis wearing jeans with a real zipper on the fly.
He did it for about eleven thousand souls. Ruiz was one of them. “My first contact with the band was during that concert. We ate some lamb chops backstage as the promoter Gay Mercader had prepared a barbecue,” he recalls with a laugh. The journalist says that he sat in the fourth or fifth row and that the sensations were indescribable. “I’d put records of them on the show all my life and I finally saw them, so trust me.”
Ruiz has countless anecdotes with Jagger. “Last time we took a picture and he said, ‘Look, two old ladies,'” he says. On another occasion, he had an interview in New York and Jagger never showed up: “He sent me a bottle of Moët Chandon at the hotel and a card with an apology. I still keep them.”
The last visit of the Stones to Spain dates back to 2017, during the aforementioned No Filter Tour that the Stones performed on the occasion of their twenty-third and to date last feature film ‘Blue & Lonesome’ (2016), which took them to the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona.
Along the way, mythical performances such as the one at the Vicente Calderón Stadium in Madrid on June 7, 1982, where nearly 60,000 people gathered, amid a major summer storm that is still remembered today in the capital, or the “shows” they offered in Gijón, in 1995, and in Málaga and Vigo, in 1998, on the occasion of the ‘Voodoo Lounge’, a tour in which people from the language started again after eight years of record silence, and appointments in Santiago de Compostela, Benidorm, Zaragoza, Bilbao, San Sebastian and El Ejido.
Flanked by two screens on the sides, the stage, with another giant in it, draws the upper lip of the sexiest and most famous logo in rock. The incombustible Stones will come out of that mouth at 10:00 PM. Beforehand, around eight o’clock in the evening, the Vargas Blues Band and Sidonie will enliven the evening. At the moment there is no doubt that songs like ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, ‘Gimme Shelter’, ‘Start Me Up’ or ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ will be present in a repertoire that also includes ballads like ‘You can don’t always get what you want’.
“They are a phenomenon beyond time and imagination,” Ruiz illustrates, assuring that the songs at the beginning are “very good”. “Now,” he continues, “as Richards says, they have lost touch because after so many years it is very difficult to keep up with modern times.” But at a time when “everything cheats live”, they are more essential than ever.
The Rolling Stones have taken advantage of their presence in Madrid. The day before yesterday, the writers of songs like ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ visited the statue of the fallen angel in Retiro Park, the only one in the world dedicated to Lucifer in a public space. They dedicated a mention to her on their Instagram account. Yesterday they chose to dine in one of the city’s trendy restaurants, where they enjoyed a flamenco party in their honor with guests such as cantaor Israel Fernández.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
