Rolling Stones Defeat Time at LP Field

In the largest (maybe the last) heavyweight bout of any consequence in rock 'n' roll — the ongoing grudge match of The Rolling Stones vs. Time — the Biggest Band in the World pulled off an undisputed KO before a dazzled crowd last night at LP Field. Forgive the sports metaphor, but considering the stadium setting and sheer stamina required for the performance, a Stones show at this point is as much an athletic event as a concert. The most refreshing difference, for long-suffering LP Field regulars, was paying to see a winning team.

To say that it was a show with few surprises is to miss the point entirely. The surprise these days is that the Stones can still put on a show — and not just a show, this show. Put another way: A lack of surprise is precisely what people want from a band with a remarkable (for them) track record of cheating death. They want to see that bygone years of Chernobyl-level blood toxicity haven't impaired Keith Richards' ability to sound chords of primal rock 'n' roll riffage. They want to see that at the same age some of our parents have surrendered to oxygen tanks and call pendants, Mick Jagger can still pull off the same human-tornado dance moves that once incited murderous frenzy. The suspense for those who hadn't seen a Stones show in a decade or more boiled down to one thing: Could they?

Opener Brad Paisley acknowledged some of that nervous anticipation, noting that he knew he was playing to people who had waited all their lives to see the Stones, “but first you've gotta sit through me.” He couldn't have worked any harder to offset it, though, running the length of the steamship-sized stage and slinging shit-hot guitar leads all the way. The wry, affable Paisley may have seemed an oddly family-friendly choice for a slot once reserved for the likes of Prince and Guns N' Roses, especially since he'd just played CMA Fest in the same venue three days earlier.

But Paisley's spiky mile-a-minute guitar solos on “Southern Comfort Zone” and “Crushin' It” — workouts of Richard Thompson-caliber speed and dexterity — showed he deserved the gig. Cameos by Carrie Underwood (on their duet “Remind Me”) and Joe Walsh (on Walsh's “Life's Been Good,” teed up with a nifty fakeout by Paisley, and set closer “Alcohol”) kept even the Stones faithful around The Spin from checking their watches. Count that as a major victory.

Once Paisley left the stage, though, the anxiety set in: Would we have braved stand-still traffic, sweltering humidity, and for many the extra hassle of having to lug oversized purses and bags back to a remote parking space in BFE — and at ticket prices the cost of a small plasma TV — to see a band that's a wizened wisp of its legend? At 9:30, the lights dimmed, tens of thousands of cell phones blinked on from the field to the club decks, and the three-story video screens flanking the stage flared to life with images of a rippling flag, every star a protruding tongue. And from the grinding opening chords of a sloppily propulsive, perfectly imperfect “Jumpin' Jack Flash,” they didn't make you forget how old they are; they left you agape in admiration at how old they are.

From the moment he bounded down a runway extended well onto the field, the Stones' spellbinding frontman, still snake-hipped and sinewy just a month shy of 72, demonstrated the important distinction between “moves like Jagger” and Jagger. Sure, those moves have long since become Rock Star 101 — the feline strut, the hands like spiders poised to pounce, the swagger away from the crowd punctuated by a withering look back. But seeing Sir Mick own them with kingly (or more accurately, knightly) assurance is the difference between hearing a bar band cover “Johnny B. Goode” and seeing Chuck Berry play it.

And Jagger radiated pride of ownership, along with the sexual magnetism the Scene's Adam Gold summed up in describing his appeal as an “indomitable fuck machine.” The remarkable part wasn't that he was tireless; it was how artfully he managed to camouflage rests as guitar strap-ons or acoustic sets without any let-up in set momentum. If Jagger delights in thwarting the ravages of time, Richards flips vultures the bird with a buccaneer's leer. Though he seemed mildly disinterested for the first few numbers, Richards cracked a leathery grin during a brief country set of “Far Away Eyes,” “Wild Horses” and “Dead Flowers” — the last of which brought out a beaming Paisley for a duet with Jagger, who evidently wore the same cowboy hat he'd been photographed in earlier at the Parthenon. Richards shone during a two-song turn at the mic for “Before They Make Me Run” and “Happy,” one of two (regrettably few) selections drawn from Exile on Main St.

But the huge surprise of the night was Ronnie Wood. The Spin has seen the Stones twice in the past quarter-century — first in Birmingham on the 1989 Steel Wheels tour, then at Vanderbilt in the ’90s — and both times Wood was a somewhat subdued presence. At LP Field, though, Wood was a whirling dervish physically as well as musically, sprinting down the runway and seizing the spotlight with daredevil slidework that kept any dust from settling on warhorses like “Midnight Rambler” and “Brown Sugar.” At this point, there's little onstage camaraderie (contact, even) between Richards and Jagger; the compensation is Richards and Wood joshing each other and locking horns on steel-belted marvels like “Happy.”

The show's most inexhaustible asset, however, was a catalog of songs so deep a torridly paced two-hour show barely cracked the gatefold. Quibbles about which songs didn't make the cut — no “Beast of Burden,” “Paint It Black” or “Under My Thumb"? — vanished amid the chillbumps raised by Jagger and stalwart vocalist Lisa Fischer on “Gimme Shelter,” or a climactic “Sympathy for the Devil” with Jagger in a fiery, feathery ceremonial ensemble out of Kenneth Anger's absinthe dreams, lit a glowing red by three-story flames of video hellfire.

That no one paused to acknowledge the late Bobby Keys, their Nashville-based sax man off and on since before the Exile days, seemed odd, especially since the core members had stopped by a Mercy Lounge tribute show the night before. (Keys' dynamite band the Suffering Bastards played — though if you wanted to see suffering bastards, you needed only to find those who reputedly bought a $5 ticket off Craigslist in dashed hope of seeing an impromptu Stones jam for $2,500.)

But the Stones have always been the most brutally unsentimental of legacy acts. (The warmest moment may have been Jagger dragging the adorably bashful Charlie Watts stage center for recognition as the swing-driving monster he is.) It was fascinating at Bonnaroo last weekend to watch acts as disparate as Billy Joel and Robert Plant contend with their histories — whether to give the folks the cruise-ship rundown, like Joel, or to refract past glories through the here and now, like Plant. The Stones finesse that dilemma by hitting it head-on: They are their legacy.

If the Stones' ticket prices and mega-dollar merch stands bespeak a kind of corporate ruthlessness, it could be argued that same drive is what keeps Stones, Inc. from phoning in shows like LP Field's spectacular — that keeps them young, as it were. By the inflatable-skyscraper-floozies standards of past Stones stadium shows, this one was a somewhat scaled-down affair (though impeccably designed and executed, apart from some minor tech glitches). Yet the relative lack of gimmickry had the benefit of focusing attention on the music — which is still pretty damn amazing, even when (as at the shambolic conclusion of “Tumbling Dice”) it sounded like someone trying to stop a train with an anchor. To borrow the old Toy Story distinction, such moments obliterate the distinction between flying and falling with style.

As The Spin began a two-mile trudge back to the car — uphill — we wheezed and cursed. Then we pictured 71-year-old Mick Jagger leading a double-time tent-revival encore of “You Can't Always Get What You Want” with the Belmont University Chorale, before closing with a thuggish “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” after two solid hours of sweat-on-the-stage showmanship. Who's the old one in this scenario? That made The Spin cowboy up something fast. As we crested the hump of the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, one drop in a damburst of humanity, a street drummer and sax player spontaneously broke into the riff from “Miss You,” and for an instant thousands of voices joined in an unbidden “Whoo-ooh-ooh-hoo-hoo-ahoo” as the river and skyline shimmered beyond. It was one of those moments that makes you feel — however incorrectly — like time is on everyone's side.

1. “Jumpin' Jack Flash”

2. “It's Only Rock 'n' Roll”

3. “You Got Me Rocking”

4. “Tumbling Dice”

5. “Doom and Gloom”

6. “Bitch”

7. “Far Away Eyes”

8. “Wild Horses”

9. “Dead Flowers” (with Brad Paisley)

10. “Honky Tonk Women”

11. “Before They Make Me Run”

12. “Happy”

13. “Midnight Rambler”

14. “Miss You”

15. “Gimme Shelter”

16. “Start Me Up”

17. “Sympathy for the Devil”

18. “Brown Sugar”

19. (encore) “You Can't Always Get What You Want” (with the Belmont University Chorale)

20. (encore) “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction”