The Rolling Stones ended a five year live hiatus with a two-and-a-half hour set that would have gone longer were it not for a strict 11pm curfew that forced the group to limit its O2 Arena encore to two songs. Even though Satisfaction got dropped, it seemed like the audience got plenty from the energized and often raucous set that touched on just about every era of the band's half century making music together. Surprisingly, the Stones opened the Sunday (11/15) concert with I Wanna Be Your Man, a 1963 Lennon-McCartney tune, before diving into its own catalog during a 23 song set that included Honky Tonk Women, You Can't Always Get What You Want, Start Me Up, Gimme Shelter and the new song, Doom & Gloom. Highlights included Jeff Beck joing the band and trading blistering licks with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood on a version of the Jeff Beck Group's I'm Going Down, original Stone bass player on stage with his mates for It's Only Rock & Roll and former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor on stage for the night's takes on Midnight Rambler and Honkey Tonk Women.
Jagger was in fine form throughout - dancing, prancing and cavorting about. He even commented on the steep price of tickets when, after asking, 'Everybody all right there in the cheap seats?' he added, 'They're not really cheap though are they? That's the trouble.' The band has come under attack from some fans for the excessively high cost of attending the shows ($150 - $1,500). The group defended ticket prices by claiming the prices were required to meet the high costs of staging relatively few shows as opposed to a longer running tour. Given the relatively low-key staging and special effects evident at the opening night, it could be argued that the band pocketing as much as possible from the few shows they are doing was the real determining factor in the ticket pricing. Even so, it seemed as though everyone willing to shell out the money for tickets seemed satisfied they'd gotten their money's worth.
RollingStone.com Reuters
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