“This tune’s for Manhattan!” Mick Jagger advised the gang on Thursday evening at MetLife Stadium, earlier than launching right into a punchy rendition of “Shattered,” that agitated ode to late-70s New York Metropolis that closes out the band’s 1978 album “Some Women.” Within the ensuing 46 years, the town has modified in some superficial methods however by some means remained basically the identical — a lot, as they confirmed all through an impressively energetic two-hour set, just like the Rolling Stones.
The Stones’ first New York-area stadium gig in 5 years was sponsored, and not using a trace of irony, by AARP. It was acceptable: At occasions what transpired onstage felt not identical to a rock live performance however a show of the evolutionary marvel that’s getting old within the twenty first century. (Albeit getting old whereas rich, with each attainable technological and medical benefit at one’s disposal. I’ll have no matter nutritional vitamins the Stones are taking, please.)
Ronnie Wooden, the core group’s child at age 76, nonetheless shreds on the guitar with a grinning, impish verve. Eighty-year-old and eternally cool Keith Richards pairs his bluesy licks with a humble demeanor that appears to say “I can’t imagine I’m nonetheless right here, both.” After which there may be Jagger, who turns 81 a number of days after the Hackney Diamonds Tour wraps in July. Six many years into his performing profession, he’s by some means nonetheless the indefatigable dynamo he at all times was, slithering vertically like a charmed snake, chopping the air as if he’s in a kung fu battle in opposition to a swarm of unseen mosquitoes, and, when he wants each arms to bop, which is commonly, nestling the microphone provocatively above the fly of his pants. Sprinting the size of the stage throughout a rousing “Honky Tonk Ladies” — the thirteenth tune within the set! — he conjured no different rock star a lot as Benjamin Button, as he appeared to turn out to be much more energetic because the evening went on.
Final yr’s “Hackney Diamonds” — the Stones’ first album of recent materials in almost 20 years — was the nominal motive for the tour, however they didn’t linger on it, and the gang didn’t appear to thoughts. Throughout 19 songs, they performed solely three tunes from the newest launch, together with two of the very best: The taut, growly lead single “Indignant” and, for the primary a part of the encore, the gospel-influenced reverie “Candy Sounds of Heaven.” Largely it was a form of truncated best hits assortment, capturing the band’s lengthy transformation from reverent college students of the blues (Richards’ star activate the tender “You Received the Silver”) to countercultural soothsayers (a singalong-friendly “Sympathy for the Satan”) to company rock behemoth (they opened, in fact, with “Begin Me Up”).
Jagger, Richards and Wooden all nonetheless emanate a palpable pleasure for what they’re doing onstage. However these joys additionally really feel noticeably private and siloed, not often mixing to offer a lot intra-band chemistry. That’s probably a preservation technique — the surest option to maintain a well-oiled machine operating and to proceed sharing the stage with the identical folks for half a century or extra. However when Jagger ended a captivating story a few native diner that had named a sandwich after him (“I’ve by no means had a [expletive] sandwich named after me! I’m very, very proud”), I didn’t fairly purchase his assertion that he, Keith and Ronnie have been going to go get pleasure from one collectively after the present.
A few of that fractured feeling is probably going as a result of absence of the nice Charlie Watts, the band’s longtime drummer who died in 2021; the Hackney Diamonds Tour is the Stones’ first North American stadium tour with out him. His alternative, Steve Jordan, does about nearly as good a job as anybody may — like Watts, he balances a rock drummer’s energy with a jazzy agility — and his presence by no means overwhelms. Although they’re surrounded by loads of gifted backing musicians, the staging makes it clear that the Rolling Stones at the moment are a trio.
The evening’s breakout star, although, was Chanel Haynes, a backing vocalist who took heart stage to sing with Jagger throughout two of the evening’s greatest performances. Haynes — who performed Tina Turner within the West Finish manufacturing of the jukebox musical “Tina” earlier than becoming a member of the Stones’ touring band in 2023 — ably stuffed the footwear of the mighty Merry Clayton on a blazing “Gimme Shelter,” and sat in for Girl Gaga on “Candy Sounds of Heaven,” matching the megawatt depth of her “Hackney Diamonds” cameo. Although Haynes might be velvety comfortable when the tune referred to as for it, at her most spectacular she sang with a low, grumbling starvation that usually swelled into ferocity, as if she have been taking huge, meaty bites out of the songs.
Jagger, for his half, delivered a lot of his traces in his signature bark: The second tune, a considerably slowed down and blues-ified “Get Off of My Cloud,” was remodeled by his nearly scat-like supply. However in fleeting moments — together with a number of falsetto runs — he confirmed {that a} sure tenderness in his tone stays intact.
That was most obvious on a beautiful rendition of “Wild Horses,” the tune that gained inclusion within the set by profitable the nightly on-line “fan vote.” For a lot of this present, the Stones successfully proved they may outrun age, irrelevancy and all the opposite indignities that point brings to mere mortals. However right here they settled into one thing extra contemplative, elegiac and susceptible, and the present was higher for it.
At a time when their few remaining friends are wrapping farewell excursions and bands which have been collectively for half as lengthy are operating on fumes, the Stones are an anomaly. It’s not that their present is devoid of nostalgia, but it surely’s not coasting on it both. They don’t seem like they did within the ’70s — who does? — however when their sound is gelling they can faucet into some form of everlasting current. For higher or worse, they appear intent to be the final band of their technology standing, to trip rock ’n’ roll all the way in which to its logical endpoint. Astoundingly, they don’t sound like they’ve reached it but.
