The Rolling Stones Reviews

William Murphy from Boston, Massachusetts

ROLLING STONES GILLETTE

The Rolling Stones are the greatest rock band EVER! The show at Gillette was a reaffirmation of this fact. 2 hour 15 minutes of the greatest rock songs ever.

Bobby Rabbit from Los Angeles, California

STILL GOT IT

Down to 3 members, the Stones showed they are still one of the greatest performing rock bands ever. Keith and Ronnie were on - or as the late Tom Petty used to say, "get me a glass of water, those guitarist were on fire!" I went to the show as more of a nod to the legacy the Stones and Charlie and came away - 3 hours later with a huge smile on my face. Fantastic show!

Rockin'Bob from Houston, Texas

ROLLING STONES NO FILTER TOUR 2019 HOUSTON

I have seen (actually I have heard) better shows from the boys over the years (I have been to 8 Rolling Stones shows since 1975). The sound quality at NRG can be summed up in one word...SUCKS! Not so much from the floor or lower level but if you are sitting anywhere above, the echo and muddled noise is quite distracting! Seeing them in smaller arenas such as The Summit (1998) or at the Toyota Center (2005) were excellent venues for both sight and sound....even the two Astrodome shows I attended (1981 and 1994) sounded better. I saw them at the 2003 show at NRG and the sound was horrible! I went to the U2 show at NRG in 2017 and stood at the stage....the sound was perfect. Moral of this story......don't sit above the lower level at NRG if you want to "hear" the music!!!

Shannon Marie - Layla Promotions from Atlanta, Georgia

YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED

Being a Stones fan is a lot like participating in a rock-and-roll game of chicken:. It’s the elderly rock band versus their middle-aged fans, each group hanging on as hard and long as they can, and nobody wanting to quit on each other first. Sadly, no-drama Charlie, ironically the most steady of the Rollers, did go down, leaving his team one man short. The happy/sad slide-show homage at the beginning of Thursday night’s show made it clear that, while others might be able to drum out the song catalog sufficiently, nobody will ever replace the Watt-man. There was no doubt that the remaining team struggled physically, vocally, and musically throughout the show. The close-up screens showed Mick barely hobbling across the stage for the first few songs. Keith’s weathered face betrayed his own irritation at his voice as he painfully croaked his way through Connection. Ronnie wore a game smile throughout, but you could tell that he knew that he couldn’t play like he used to. Mick ribbed him about wearing Spanx, and either they were for vascular support or to hold in a gut –neither a hallmark of a rock star. Nevertheless, the Stones played on with the songs you’d expect to hear - Let’s Spend the Night Together, Streetfighter Man, Tumbling Dice, Shattered, etc., and they were passable, though not great. The additions to the team, most notably hometown keyboard hero Chuck Leavell playing the musicbox on She’s a Rainbow, the sax duo of Karl Denson and Tim Ries screaming Miss You, and singer Sasha Allen’s hurricane-like howls on Gimme Shelter brought the pitch of the show up a key. They stayed in their lanes as support people, which I appreciated. As good as they were, we weren’t there to see them. We were there to see the Stones, and, fortunately, things warmed up as the night went on. Mick became more limber - skipping across the stage, shimmying out onto the catwalk, moving his hands around like a hypnotist, and contorting his body in the way of someone completely and genuinely into the music. He spun like a ballerina in hell during Sympathy for the Devil. He engaged the audience with a stern, school-teacher-like face waiting for our response in Miss You, and it was easy to imagine him was calling us out for not singing the chorus loudly enough, “Whatsa matter wit chu, boy????” He is still the magnet that engages the audience and pulls them into the musical magic that make their live performances so much fun. Keith finally came alive during Jumping Jack Flash, and, as he and Ronnie played off of each other, you could almost see their younger rockstar selves. These three songs and an extended version Midnight Rambler, going into Love in Vain and back again, were show highlights for me, in that there seemed little physical boundary between audience, performers, and music. It reminded me that the Stones themselves are about defying boundaries. At one point, Mick took a break to catch his breath and talked about going to both a local strip club and the High Museum of Art. It was kind of like the band in a nutshell – at once profane and profound, they and their music mirroring the whole gamut of human behavior and defying any boxes you’d like to put them in: After all, these are the same folks who brought us Cocksucker Blues while also singing us a Wild Horses lullaby. And that’s the spirit of the Rolling Stones: Defy convention. Live on your own terms and do what you want to do no matter your age or any other artificially constructed social or cultural boundaries. Maybe that’s the meaning of the tongue logo. It might just as well have been someone thumbing their nose. It can’t be easy for septuagenarians to put forth the physical show and to put out the emotional energy that they do, and at this point, they don’t need the money or fame; they are doing it for us. The audience felt the love of these midnight ramblers and gave it back ten-fold. It’s too bad that the Mercedes-Benz Stadium sound engineers couldn’t seem to put out their best the way the rest of us were. The Rolling Stones deserved better, and so did their fans. But while we don’t always get what we want – clarity, perfection, eternal youth - we get what we need. And, what we needed was each other – imperfect performers who tried their best to put on a good show and a forgiving crowd who loved them despite a few short-comings. And as the lights go dim, we need each other more than ever: Gimme Shelter before we all fade away. It was an appropriate penultimate song to the evening. What the Rolling Stones, their Thursday night show, and maybe the big “Show”, too, are all about is to just keep pushing -boundaries, convention, the sands of time, to not go gently into that good night, but to fight all the way; to keep giving each other the best we’ve got, as long as we can, even if it’s not quite what it used to be. I got a reminder of that Thursday night, and I think everyone else did, too.

Ron Moore from Las Vegas, Nevada

LOW ENERGY EFFORT

The warm up group, Pretty Reckless, was a waste of time, like any small bar band. The worst thing was the tubby peaked-midrange sound which made every base note sound like it was coming through a large plastic tube. I think some sound engineers do this on purpose to make the first group sound so inferior to the main act and then slide the 80 and 100 Hertz equalizers down where they belong so the main group sounds proper/good. Well the Stones' sound engineer should be replaced because the tubby midbass continued throughout the entire show. The lyrics were unintelligible unless you knew the songs and overall the entire music was drowned out by tubby kickdrum and one-note bass. Also the main center screen camera joker routinely cut off Mick's head by not tilting the camera down where it belonged, besides aiming at feet and other dumb shots. When the Stones finally started, at 9:20 with "Start Me Up", I felt that their batteries were already about to expire. The entire front of the act was a complete letdown with tired renditions and almost apologetic "Thank You's" from Mick responding to the lukewarm audience applause. It did not help either when they included new untested songs at this weak point. Only a few songs like "Sympathy" started to cook near the end but it was too late and the show was a weak dud with Keith and Ron sounding like they were metering out just enough notes to satisfy some quota. It all ended sadly and many people including me and girlfriend were already walking out. A money scam show that I wish had missed and too high dollar$ for every little thing that I wanted to have back in my pocket. Mick needs to change out a few of his crew members. Yes I have seen the Stones regularly since the Sixties and now I will simply enjoy my old recordings. They are all great.

from Las Vegas, Nevada

NOT AS GOOD AS EXPECTED

The show started on time with a warm up band. Måneskin. They may be good in Italy, but not in Las Vegas. After a grueling 30 minute performance I was getting tired and bored. Finally the reason I came. THE ROLLING STONES! It started with a lack luster song, followed by some lesser known numbers. A few good songs, then more unknown filler stuff. Barely a mention of Charlie Watt. Not much of anything unexpected. Nothing! Mick still can move and did his best, but it just so so. My advice. They should start on time. Nix the warm up band and stick to the good stuff. I was tired and left before the end. They could’ve, should’ve done better. Plus the sound was crappy. (Allegiant Stadiumfault$

Judy from Las Vegas, Nevada

NOT A GOOD VENUE FOR A CONCERT

Couldn't understand most of the words. The music was garbled. But for a bunch of 80 year olds they still rocked.

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