LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER
Your October 1999 Random Movie Club Results Are in!
Tagline: Let's Spend the Night Together . . . live it!
"I LOVE THE STONES.
I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY'RE STILL DOING IT
AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.
I WATCH THEM WHENEVER I CAN. FRED, BARNEY..."
-STEVEN WRIGHT
I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY'RE STILL DOING IT
AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.
I WATCH THEM WHENEVER I CAN. FRED, BARNEY..."
-STEVEN WRIGHT
Then, a thrilling shot, sailing over a mountain (this is the Tempe stadium), where we see the balloons rising into the heavens (there’s another shot later, tilting down from the nearby mountain). You can’t tell where the mountain ends and where the people begin. It's just a wall of people…like in those videogames that have a fake crowd in the stadium. They all turn into one large mass.
So Mick’s ass is shaking, Charlie’s doing his signature not playing the hi-hat on the 4, Bill Wyman's there looking sort of interested, and Keith is wearing enough guyliner to make Tammy Faye rise from the dead just to get jealous. Both he and Ron Wood are bobbling cigarettes from their lips. If Mick wasn’t Jagger, he’d surely have been beaten up in school. Wait, he wasn't Jagger in school, so maybe he was. Anyway, changing from white to yellow tights helps enhance his anthropomorphic chicken look, and, I swear, between the outfit and his moves, he should have just committed and strapped on the beak. But he’s Mick Fuckin’ Jagger, a guy who was already a rock god in 1967, so much so that Woof, a character in the Broadway musical HAIR, tells us that he "wouldn't kick Mick Jagger out of my bed." Helping out on keyboards (largely out of sight in the movie) are Ians McLagan and Stewart, the latter of which looks a lot like Leno, which is just funny.
Cranking out hits and non-hits back to back like a non-stop jukebox of cool, the show can sometimes feel like it’s one long encore. To balance it a little, they occasionally cut away from the performance (during the NEIGHBORS sax solo they stay on Mick most of the time) as well as cherry-picked from all three shows (Why does Mick have that football jersey on again? Didn’t he toss that away earlier?). This is the 1981 concert they released on CD as STILL LIFE, if you want to hear it and not watch it.
Here's the setlist, with some occasional notes:
- UNDER MY THUMB
- LET’S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER
- SHATTERED – Adrenalin-infused ode to NYC
- NEIGHBORS – We're treated to some backstage stuff, like Ron Wood getting made up. Also included, a shot of Wood running around the stage, clearly from later in the (or at another) performance, as it was night time.
- BLACK LIMOUSINE
- JUST MY IMAGINATION - With Mick kinda on guitar.
- TWENTY FLIGHT ROCK
- LET ME GO
- TIME IS ON MY SIDE- Featuring a slide show of the Stones, including ex-members Mick Taylor and Brian Jones then and now (1981). Well, not all of them now. And some B & W footage of them, sunk up, doing the song years earlier.
- BEAST OF BURDEN- A song I used to bus tables to at a restaurant.
- WAITING ON A FRIEND – An often under-appreciated song.
- GOING TO A GO-GO- Featuring fast motion shots of them setting the tour up at another venue, this time indoors. Here, you get a glimpse at just how much work goes into this deceptively simple show. The sped-up footage continues, showing a performance, but good luck trying to keep your eye on hummingbird Jagger. He’s like the Flash (not the Jumping Jack kind).
- YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT- Finds Mick not just sweating through his shirt, but through his sport jacket as well.
- LITTLE T & A – Keith’s song and his vocals, about one night stands. I'm guessing it's not fiction.
- TUMBLIN’ DICE
- SHE’S SO COLD – Shot through this one in record time, it's intercut with antics, onstage and off, all with rapid-fire editing.
- ALL DOWN THE LINE
- HANG FIRE
- MISS YOU
- LET IT BLEED
- START ME UP
- HONKY TONK WOMAN - A line of girls a mile long, all in Nawlins’ wardrobe. Probably locals?
- BROWN SUGAR - Mick hops a motorized riser.
- JUMPING JACK FLASH - Mick is in the cherry picker.
- SATISFACTION - Man, did Keith know how to write a riff.
LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER was directed by Hal Ashby, who made some neo-classics like HAROLD AND MAUDE and one of my favorite movies, BEING THERE. The concert was shot mostly by Caleb Deschanel, who, among his many achievements like THE NATURAL and the more recent JACK REACHER, fathered Zooey and Emily. It's pretty much a live concert. If you want more than that, I highly recommend the documentary CROSSFIRE HURRICANE. It's filled with amazing footage from the early years, stuff you'd never have guessed even existed. Bad boy stuff, like drugs and tushies.
Oddly, it’s easier to understand the words here than on the albums. That said, the Stones stumble about with the swagger of drunken Caribbean pirates armed with a couple of chords. They toussle each other’s hair like avuncu-rockers while (possibly) trying to get a smirk out of Bill Wyman. They're professional showmen, but part of that showmanship holds some really genuine moments, like when Keith smiles after LET ME GO. When I was a kid, I remember telling a friend that "Keith Richards will not make it to 1980." Wow, was I wrong. And it just might be truth and not hyperbole when they're often introduced as "the world's greatest rock and roll band."
