The Rolling Stones at U.S. Bank Stadium 2021

 

The Rolling Stones in concert at U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 24, 2021. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

The Taylor family, ready to rock and roll!

Ronnie Wood's illustrated set list for the show.

The Rolling Stones were scheduled to return to Minnesota on their No Filter tour in May of 2020. Obviously, covid changed all that, and the concert was eventually rescheduled for October 24, 2021.

By the time the Stones got close to getting back on the road, the band announced in early August of 2021 that drummer Charlie Watts wouldn’t be joining them on tour, and that Steve Jordan would be filling the drum kit. Three weeks after that announcement, Watts passed away at the age of 80.

The Rolling Stones have never toured without Charlie Watts, so it’s weird and more than a little emotional to see them live without him. Watts joined the Stones in February of 1963, and he never missed a concert. I think about how emotional it must be for Mick and Keith and Ronnie to play the shows on this tour—they’ve never played these songs without Charlie. The show on Sunday opened with a moving video tribute to Charlie. Watts’ passing has been more emotional for me than I had anticipated it would be. I’ve long appreciated Watts’ talent as a drummer—like Ringo Starr, Charlie found the perfect pattern to fit each song. Charlie wasn’t about flashy playing—he was all about what would fit the song. I didn’t think that I would be so emotional about Charlie’s passing, since I didn’t see him as being the center of the Stones, the way Mick and Keith are. But Charlie’s death has made me think that he was more the center of the Stones than I realized.

Sunday night was my 5^th Rolling Stones show, and it was my son Miles’ first Rolling Stones show. And his first rock concert, proper. (Although he was insisting that seeing a Beatles tribute band at Little Canada’s “Little Canada Days” was his first concert.) Miles turns 7 next month, and he’s been a huge fan of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones since he was about 2 and a half. If the Stones had come in May of 2020 as originally planned, I wouldn’t have taken him along, but fast forward a year and a half, and my wife and I decided we should take Miles along. It’s most likely going to be his only opportunity to see the Rolling Stones live. (I say most likely, just in case I have to delete this sentence when he sees the Stones on their 2025 tour.) We got him noise-canceling headphones, since he’s not the biggest fan of loud noises. We stayed for more than half of the show, and afterwards Miles said, “I was surprised that I knew the first 5 or 6 songs.” I wasn’t that surprised since I’ve been looking at the setlists and they’re jam-packed with hits that he’s very familiar with.

The Stones still sounded great, of course. Mick Jagger’s voice hasn’t lost anything over the years, and Keith and Ronnie’s playing is still spectacular. Ron Wood looks a lot older than the last time I saw him live, in 2015, but man, he can still play. Live in concert is the best way to appreciate Ron Wood’s playing with the Stones, since on the records it’s so hard to tell who plays what.

Jagger had a lot of funny, playful banter, as he name-dropped all kinds of Minnesotan things. He even joked about the “Juicy Lucy” a burger stuffed with cheese that is a local delicacy. Two different bars have a fight about who invented the “Juicy Lucy,” Matt’s or the 5-8 Club, and Jagger claimed he had one burger at each bar. Looking at Jagger’s svelte, lithe figure, it’s hard to imagine that he was telling the truth. (Oh, and yes, Matt’s does spell it “Jucy Lucy,” an inadvertent misspelling that has caught on.)

I was pleased that Stones played “19^th Nervous Breakdown,” since I haven’t heard them play it live before. The song that won the fans’ vote was “Monkey Man,” a hidden gem from Let It Bleed with a great guitar riff. I had voted for “She’s So Cold,” since that’s one of Miles’ favorite Stones songs. When you look at the setlists from the Stones’ 2021 shows, it’s amazing to see how many huge songs they have. Simply put, there’s no other band like the Rolling Stones, and we’re lucky they’re still rolling, close to 60 years after they started.