How many times is too much? Having now played Chicago on nine occasions in the past four years, and having sold out a majority of those events, the Rolling Stones were greeted by a strange sight Wednesday night at Soldier Field: two upper decks devoid of a single fan. Yes, it appears that even living legends can overstay their welcome, particularly when the songs often remain the same and top tickets command prices upward of $450.
Not that the hand-numbing weather conditions, exacerbated by chilly lakefront winds, helped matters. Guitarist Ron Wood spent the first half of the 110-minute concert looking like a Popsicle, his face buried in a scarf. Both he and fellow strummer Keith Richards fetched an extra coat after passably running through a handful of opening tunes, including the live debut of “She Was Hot,” a boogie-based roll in the hay, and “Sway,” which dipped and glided in sync with vocalist Mick Jagger’s rubber-necking dance moves.
Despite admitting at one point that he couldn’t feel his feet, the body-fat-free Jagger proved the consummate front man, working every area of the 204-foot-wide stage and waving his arms as if he was a street fighter wielding a switchblade. The ageless wonder was the lone mobile Stone on an evening where his mates primarily stood still. Resembling campers chatting around a fire, Richards and Wood huddled in front of Charlie Watts’ drum kit, and struck hunched-over poses beside heat lamps.
As he demonstrated on “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Tumbling Dice,” the ratty-haired Richards can still occasionally inject surprising licks and fractured chords into familiar places, establishing give-and-take swagger that reduced the predictability of classic material without distorting its character. But command of the Stones’ instrumental engine has apparently been turned over to Watts, a veritable Rolex of a timekeeper whose off-beat rhythms and jazzy tempos kept the blood pumping.
The Stones finally hit stride after a hydraulic stage carried them to the opposite end of the venue. By the time flames preceded “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” the group no longer needed the warm-up; it just should have happened earlier in the set.
