Rolling Stones 'Paint It Black' Live (Dec 8, 2012)

The Rolling Stones are doing shows on the East Coast all week - a couple in Brooklyn last weekend, then the 12-12-12 appearance Wednesday night, then two shows in New Jersey tonight and Friday. Nice work if you can get it.

The New York Times wrote:
What is a Stones show? Musically, now that they’re in their 50th year and a long time before now, it doesn’t seem to be so much about the performances you’re actually hearing in real time. It’s an oldies show that can become a flickering re-enactment ritual: momentarily you hear a sound that’s both well-worn and alive, with a huge amount of meaning attached to it — it’s almost always a guitar riff or a drum fill — and then it’s gone, pulled under into a more functional or starchier or sometimes sloppier passage. And visually it’s about Mick Jagger’s stamina. Saturday’s show was the start of the American part of the Stones’ “50 and Counting” tour; as long as he was on stage, during the show’s two and a quarter hours, he never stopped."

The brilliant rock and roll muckrakers at Brooklyn Vegan has loads of info on this week's shows. They wrote:
"We already knew that Bruce Springsteen, The Black Keys, and Lady Gaga will be showing up at The Rolling Stones second of two Prudential Center shows (12/13 and 12/15), and we're now excited to find out that former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, who played with the band from '69 to '74 and showed up at their London shows but not their Brooklyn show will be joining them at both Prudential Center shows."

Gotta hand it to Mick for rallying the guys to do a few shows in honor of the 50th anniversary as a band. It had to take a lot of encouragement to get those guys back in form, even if they are a half-step slower than last seen.

Here's Paint It Black from last Saturday's show: