Sloppiness can cost a violinist a job with the symphony orchestra. It can deny even a millionaire access to a restaurant.
But sloppiness is a virtue, even an art form, in the hands of the Rolling Stones.
And the slop was flying Monday at the Aragon Ballroom as the Stones closed their three-night, week-long residency in Chicago. During their Golden Age as the bad boys who scored the most drugs, had the kinkiest sex and sported the best don’t-give-a-frig sneer since Marlon Brando sat astride a motorcycle in “The Wild One,” the Stones embodied a loose, lascivious hedonism.
Sure, Keith Richards supplied an endless supply of riffs that brought the rock down like thunder, but the Stones played around the chords as much as on top of them, the music snaking, collapsing and then rising again with a thrilling, teetering-on-the-edge-of-chaos lack of precision. It was rock soaked in blues feeling and informed by jazz improvisation. The Stones made the space between the notes count every bit as much as the notes themselves, with the way Charlie Watts dragged behind the beat or Richards bent a chord just south of where one expected it to land.
But lately, the Stones have been all about precision. Businessmen that they have become, they believe in rehearsal like never before, and have streamlined their sets in the last decade to focus on only the best known material, the biggest hits, in exchange for the most exorbitant ticket prices. The swagger would return in spurts — Richards and Watts off in their own world of groove while Mick Jagger pranced and Ronnie Wood grinned that charmed grin of his — but one sensed that the Stones had just about run out of surprises in the last decade. They had become a machine, albeit a well-oiled one. Repetition and reliability had become the Stones’ watchwords, rather than risk and rebellion.
But on this latest swing through town, it was as if the Stones finally said, “Enough!” Even they seemed bored with the set list, so they made a point of shaking it up, mixing in choice — but rarely performed — album tracks and covers with the usual hits. Last week at the United Center and Comiskey Park, they pulled out surprises such as a cover of the O Jay’s “Love Train” and the faux country ballad “Far Away Eyes.” On Monday, they took their most adventurous turn yet; they didn’t play “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” still their signature song, and ignored a few other standards: “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Street Fighting Man,” “Miss You.”
Delivering that scruffy sound
Instead, they threw themselves into songs that sounded scruffy ’round the edges, with Wood and Richards seemingly figuring out the chords as they went on the biting but rarely performed “Hand of Fate,” bending notes until they cried on Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” and joining the horns in triumph on “Live With Me,” a long-overlooked slice of sheer nastiness from “Let It Bleed.” Throughout the 20-song set, Watts snapped at the cymbals and thumped his kick drum with a force that belied his benign tea-sipping expression.
With Chuck Leavell on keyboards doing a fine Johnnie Johnson impersonation, the Stones once again channeled their inner Chuck Berry, and made their debt to the grand old man of rock ‘n’ roll guitar clearer than ever on “Rip This Joint” and “I Know It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It).” Even the latter song, which has become a rote crowd-pleaser on recent tours, took on an air of what next? when U2’s Bono improbably walked on stage to join Jagger in a ragged duet. Bono began improvising lines, interpolating a bit of Smokey Robinson’s “Going to a Go-Go,” while Jagger beamed approval.
Jagger didn’t seem to mind being momentarily upstaged; he had already put in a good night’s work. “Worried About You,” an obscurity plucked from the 1981 “Tattoo You” album, became a showcase for his still pliable-voice, as he ranged into a falsetto that, for once, didn’t smack of the sarcasm that sometimes undercuts the band’s attempts at soul-ballad sincerity. On “Rocks Off,” he made the line “The sunshine bores the daylights outta me” ring with a bone-chilling mix of rage, exhaustion and, this time, perfectly appropriate sarcasm.
The singer and his bandmates acted like they had better things to do than worry about professionalism — the curse of all great rock bands who go the stadium route. This is how the Stones operated when at the peak of their powers, taking on everything from honky-tonk to gospel with an indomitable swagger that tolerated mistakes but not a lack of feeling.
“Torn and Frayed” lived up to its title, and it felt more real because of it, Richards adding slapdash harmonies on top of Woods’ sighing pedal-steel. Soloman Burke’s soul classic “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” went to church behind Chuck Leavell’s Hammond organ. It was followed by the even more rarely performed “Don’t Look Back,” a Temptations song that Jagger and Peter Tosh transformed into a minor pop-reggae hit in the late ’70s. The Stones are hardly the world’s greatest Jamaican rhythm section, but their corruption of sacred musical traditions is perhaps the Stones’ greatest contribution to rock history.
A band at play
On this night, they were back to their old errant ways. There were bum notes and off-key harmonies, but there was a sense of rock ‘n’ roll band not just at work, but once again at play. The closing rush of hits — “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Brown Sugar,” “Tumblin’ Dice” — was a reminder of the band’s towering chart successes. But it was the adventurous instrumental coda to “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” that reminded die-hards that the Stones haven’t been completely swallowed by the machine they have built. As Watts slipped jazzy off-beats that made the sonic turf slip and slide beneath the soloists, saxophonist Bobby Keys worked like a snake charmer and then Wood massaged a few noodled notes into long, fractured solo that climaxed with a triumphant chord.
It’s way past time for the Stones to reinvent themselves. But the band has rediscovered what it does best. Undoubtedly there will be more stadium shows in their future, with wall-to-wall hits and big video screens. But Monday was a reminder that the Stones are still best when they get their hands dirty.
No song left unturned
Here are set lists for the Rolling Stones’ three-show visit to Chicago:
At United Center Sept. 10
1. Street Fighting Man
2. It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)
3. If You Can’t Rock Me
4. Don’t Stop
5. All Down the Line
6. Stray Cat Blues
7. Far Away Eyes
8. Shattered
9. When the Whip Comes Down
10. Tumbling Dice
11. The Worst (Keith Richards on vocal)
12. Happy (Richards vocal)
13. I Can’t Turn You Loose
14. Miss You
15. Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
16. Honky Tonk Women
17. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
B Stage:
18. Mannish Boy
19. You Got Me Rocking
20. Brown Sugar
Encore
21. Sympathy for the Devil
22. Jumpin’ Jack Flash
At Comiskey Park Sept. 13
1. Brown Sugar
2. Start Me Up
3. It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)
4. Don’t Stop
5. Honky Tonk Women
6. Undercover
7. Angie
8. You Can’t Always Get What You Want
9. Monkey Man
10. Love Train
11. Slipping Away (Richards vocal)
12. Before They Make Me Run (Richards vocal)
13. Sympathy for the Devil
B Stage
14. Neighbors
15. Little Red Rooster
16. Like a Rolling Stone
Main Stage
17. Gimme Shelter
18. Tumblin’ Dice
19. Street Fighting Man
20. Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Encore
21. Midnight Rambler
22. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
At Aragon Ballroom Sept. 16
1. Start Me Up
2. Live With Me
3. Rocks Off
4. Hand of Fate
5. Torn and Frayed
6. Worried About You
7. Everybody Needs Somebody to Love
8. Don’t Look Back
9. Dance (Part 1)
10. Bitch
11. Slipping Away (Richards vocal)
12. Happy (Richards vocal)
13. It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It) (with Bono)
14. I Just Want to Make Love to You (with Dr. John)
15. Honky Tonk Women
16. Rip This Joint
17. Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
18. Jumpin’ Jack Flash
19. Brown Sugar
Encore
20. Tumbling Dice
