Rolling Stones won't fade away

My father says that when you're 60 years old you get the face you deserved when you were 20. Some may call that fate -- or maybe it's genetics -- either way it's a kind of cosmic irony.

I got to thinking about fate and faces when my parents and I went to see the Rolling Stones play in St. Louis last weekend. The craggy, gargoyle mugs the fellas now sport must be punishment, I thought, for childhood mischief of unreal proportions. But the Glimmer Twins don't seem content to let fate have the last laugh. These mummies can still rock as hard as they did in their 20s.

It's really astonishing. This Sunday the Stones will play Super Bowl XL, and when they take the stage at halftime they will be taking it as the biggest, baddest rock band in the world, just as they were at the time of the first Super Bowl in 1966. Last year, despite a median age of 60, the Stones grossed $168 million to set an all-time record. The only people I can think of with similar longevity are all dictators.

It's enough to make me wonder whether the Stones followed Robert Johnson and made their own devilish deal at the crossroads all those years ago.

Before I go any further, let me come clean: I am a Stones idolater. I've worshipped the band ever since I was 8 years old and a counselor at sports camp sat all the campers down and taught us the words to "Satisfaction." We sang it all day like a boot-camp anthem as we tramped from activity to activity.

The counselor made me a tape of Stones music, and I listened to it over and over until the ribbon came spooling out in protest.

I couldn't imagine then that there was anything cooler than the Stones, and to be honest I still can't. That's why their seminal album, "Exile on Main Street," is also the title of my weekly column.

So that's where I'm coming from. But I think even a passive observer could tell this band does not belong in a museum. Mick Jagger was kinetic energy incarnate strutting and primping his way from one end of the stage to the other. Keith and Ronnie batted sour blues riffs back and forth like a pair of jousters. And Charlie Watts -- throat cancer in remission -- elegantly banged away on the most modest drum set in rock music. All was right in the world.

The Stones also gave the fans some treats. Two ambitious songs from the band's critically acclaimed new album, a 14-minute harmonica-filled version of the haunting epic "Midnight Rambler" and a soulful cover of the Ray Charles classic "Night Time is the Right Time." But the majority of the Savvis Center audience seemed to give a collective yawn during these departures from the usual Stones canon. I even spotted some people going out for beer.

A friend told me afterward, "Yeah, the show was great, but I wish they got to the good stuff earlier."

For the second half of the gig the Stones did trot out all the old favorites. They played "Satisfaction" and "Brown Sugar," and the place went mad.

But I realized something during the show: the majority of the fans didn't come to see the Rolling Stones. Not the band that's still creative and vibrant and dangerous. The majority of fans at Savvis came to see an image, to see icons, wax figures. If the success of the tour is any proof, maybe both sides have agreed this is a mutually beneficial arrangement. But I wonder if this nostalgia is accomplishing something neither fate nor genetics seem capable of: slowing down the Stones.

~ TJ Greaney is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.