SteveAJones
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Focusing on these out of curiosity...
are these 3 regarding the same concert?
If yes, that says a lot.
No, but your underlying point of receiving mixed reviews is valid nonetheless:
25-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE "Sharing the Vibes Not Enough"
(Negative review of the July 23 & 24 '77 Oakland Coliseum concerts)
25-Jul-77 (Unknown) "Zeppelin Doesn't Fly"
(Negative review of the July 24 '77 Oakland Coliseum concert)
25-Jul-77 TIMES, THE (Palo Alto, CA) "Powerful Sounds From Led Zeppelin"
(Positive review of the July 23 '77 Oakland Coliseum concert)
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And both events apparently took place at Plumpton each one on a different date.
Ok, two separate events at Half Moon in Plumpton involving Page/Wood is possible, but I strongly believe it was just the one on 8/14/77. Charlie Watts lived just down
the road in Lewes, by the way. Anyway, I'll look into it further and post my findings.
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It appears there were two jams on different dates. One was at a pub and the other was a golf event.
It may appear that way but it isn't so. No Page/Wood jam in Putney - ever. The jam they did have in Plumpton was to benefit a football charity; nothing to do with golf. Those links and that Stones author are wrong.
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Online archives for the San Francisco Chronicle go back only as far as 1995.
Oh, that's ok. I have digital scans of all the vintage ('77) San Francisco Chronicle articles in my private archive for the purpose of historical preservation.
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At least one Stones bio (Nico Zentgraf's "Complete Works") says it was 9/17/77 at the Half Moon Pub in Putney.
Hi, Scott. Truly, I think all these folks are mistaken. The Page/Wood jam was 8/14/77 at the Half Moon in Plumpton. Anyone familiar with Plumpton Place (Jimmy's residence
at the time) knows the Half Moon pub is just across an open field no more than 100 yards away. That pub was Jimmy's local and there allegedly hung on it's walls for many years a photo or a painting depicting local residents, with Jimmy among them. If I get
a chance I will post my photos of the Half Moon in Plumpton.
The Half Moon in Putney is relevant to the Stones through the years but so far as I know it has nothing to do with Jimmy with the exception of a Friday, 6/4/93 Roy Harper gig Jimmy attended there. He did not perform on account of being tired from filming the promotional video for Coverdale/Page's single 'Take Me For A Little While' earlier that day.
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Here's a few more headlines from this time:
22-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Bay Area Events: "Led Zeppelin, Jazz Fest and Salsa"
22-Jul-77 SEATTLE TIMES
"Was the Led Zeppelin Concert Really that Bad?"
24-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE / EXAMINER
"Led Zeppelin Comes Back - with a Big, but Boring Sound"
25-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Sharing the Vibes Not Enough"
25-Jul-77 (Unknown) "Zeppelin Doesn't Fly"
25-Jul-77 TIMES, THE (Palo Alto, CA)
"Powerful Sounds From Led Zeppelin"
26-Jul-77 SACRAMENTO BEE
"Rock Band Drummer Among 4 Arrested"
26-Jul-77 CALIFORNIAN
"Band, Stage Officials Arrested"
26-Jul-77 EVENING TRIBUNE
"4 In Led Zeppelin Spend Hours In Jail"
26-Jul-77 INDEPENDENT
"Led Zep Drummer Arrested"
26-Jul-77 INDEPENDENT JOURNAL
"Drummer Is Arrested"
26-Jul-77 LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Led Zeppelin Drummer, Manager Seized"
26-Jul-77 NEWS
"Jail for 4 with Led Zeppelin"
26-Jul-77 OAKLAND TRIBUNE
"Led Zeppelin Drummer, Three Others are Arrested"
26-Jul-77 PENINSULA HERALD
"Four Zeppelin Associates Jailed for Alleged Fight"
26-Jul-77 REVIEW-JOURNAL
"Rock Group Members Arrested"
26-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Led Zeppelin Drummer Arrested for Assault"
26-Jul-77 SEATTLE TIMES
"Led Zeppelin Drummer, Manager Seized"
26-Jul-77 TIMES, THE (Palo Alto, CA)
"Some of Zeppelin Arrested After Concert"
26-Jul-77 TIMES, THE (Palo Alto, CA)
"4 Led Zeppelin Arrests Made"
26-Jul-77 TRIBUNE
"Led Zeppelin Drummer, Three Others Are Arrested"
26-Jul-77 (Unknown)
"Led Zeppelin's Drummer Arrested on Assault Charge"
27-Jul-77 DAILY TIMES ADVOCATE
"Led Zeppelin's Drummer Arrested on Assault Charges"
27-Jul-77 DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"Zeppelin Members Booked On Assault"
27-Jul-77 ENTERPRISE
"Graham Defends Charges"
27-Jul-77 EVENING OUTLOOK
"Led Zeppelin Drummer Held On Assault Charge"
27-Jul-77 HOLLYWOOD VARIETY
"Arrested Zeppelin Entourage Arraignment Date Not Yet Set"
27-Jul-77 NEVADA STATE JOURNAL
"Zeppelin Trouble"
27-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"3 Bill Graham Employees Sue Led Zeppelin Group"
27-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
"$2 Million Suit Against 3 from Led Zeppelin"
27-Jul-77 STAR FREE PRESS
"Promoter Tells Why He Had Rock Star Arrested"
27-Jul-77 TRIBUNE
"Rock Stage Workers File $2 Million Suit"
28-Jul-77 DAILY EXPRESS
Death of Karac Plant
28-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Plant's Son Dies; Zeppelin Tour Off"
28-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
"Led Zeppelin Cancels Concert"
28-Jul-77 TIMES-PICAYUNE
"Led Zeppelin Cancels Saturday Dome Concert"
28 (?) Aug 77 (Unknown)
"Led Zeppelin Cancels Concert"
29-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Zeppelin Violence -- A Cause Celebre"
30-Jul-77 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Zeppelin May Play 7 Dates"
6-Aug-77 BILLBOARD
Genral News: "Violence, Tragedy Mat U.S. Zeppelin Tour"
6-Aug-77 MELODY MAKER
"Tragedy Strikes Robert Plant"
? Aug (?) 77 (Unknown)
"30,000 Tickets Sold, Zeppelin Concerts Canceled at Arena"
Ad: Led Zeppelin live at Civic Arena Pittsburgh August 9th & 10th 1977 CANCELLED
11-Aug-77 DETROIT NEWS, THE
Injured Pontiac Silverdome concert attendees file suit against Led Zeppelin
12-Aug-77 RAM
"Tour Carnage '77" (Originally published June 11th 1977)
Sep-77 ROCK
"Is There A Curse On Led Zeppelin?"
8-Sep-77 ROLLING STONE
"The Wrong Goodbye: Zep Leaves America"
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QUOTE Jimmy jams with Ron Wood and local band Arms and Legs to raise money at a charity golf event to aid underprivileged children.
http://www.ledzepconcerts.com/concertdates...p?id=jp19770814
QUOTE September 17, 1977: Ron Wood and Jimmy Page play a charity gig in a pub in Plumpton, England.
I believe the information provided by both links concerning this jam is incorrect.
My notes show it was an 8/14/77 performance to benefit the Goaldiggers Football Charity and the band Arms and Legs was from Portsmouth. Dave Lewis' book 'The Concert File' supports this as well.
The UK magazine 'Sounds' published a news item titled 'An Evening with Jim and Ron' in it's Aug 27th issue, which would have been on newstands well before Sept 17.
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It's all very murky isn't it? Which story is correct? While I would concede Jimmy wasn't in Egypt on the 26th, he wasn't at that hotel in New Orleans either (I realise I slipped up and contradicated an earlier post I made in the "Oakland Incident" thread" which I state he was still in San Francisco on the 26th, which is most likely). I would like to see evidence where Jimmy was in the week *after* the 26th. No-one yet has said where other than Richard Cole.
The Steven Rosen input has jogged my memory a bit, and it suggests Jimmy stayed in
California (probably San Francisco) until after the press conference on 7/27. Note not
all the dates were immediately cancelled, only those thru 8/6, so it's conceivable Jimmy stayed in California or the USA until the final cancellations were announced about a week after 7/26. That still gives he and Peter sufficient time to meet in London prior to
his next known public appearance (on 8/14 at the Half Moon in Plumpton).
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But if Steven Rosen is correct, Peter Grant stayed in San Francisco with Jimmy Page.
A memory jogger and this would support having stayed put at the San Francisco Hilton.
Even so, there is no question Peter ultimately arrived in New Orleans on Tue, 7/26 or
Wed 7/27 as he held a press conference in the lobby of the Maison Dupuy the morning of Wed, 7/27.
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I have never seen evidence he was in New Orleans. However do you have evidence that he wasn't in Egypt after what happened? According to Richard Cole he was, and there has been no questioning of this account in the three books that have been published which do contain his statement. I stand by the claim Jimmy was not in New Orleans.
So far as I know Jimmy only went to Egypt (Cairo) once in '77; had he gone twice I think I'd know. Cole has said he accompanied Jimmy, Charlotte and Scarlet on a nearly
two week trip to Guadalupe, West Indies that summer, and undoubtedly this was after Jimmy and Peter met in London and decided to take a break from activity for as long as Robert needed.
Given Jimmy participated in an 8/14/77 gig at the Half Moon in Plumtpon to benefit the Goaldiggers Football Charity as well as jammed with Billy Kinsley of Liverpool Express, Phil Carson, and Carl Simmons during the annual Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Conference at the
Metropole Hotel in Brighton on 9/8/77 the West Indies trip most likely occured between these two events. It probably would not have been prior to this because all the remaining concerts were not officially cancelled until nearly a week after Karac's death. Note Peter Grant did announce cancellation of 7/30/77 New Orleans, 8/2-3/77 Chicago, & 8/6/77 Buffalo in the lobby of the Maison Dupuy hotel the morning of 7/27/77.
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Only Robert, Bonham and Cole flew back to England after hearing the news.
I show Dennis Sheehan as well.
Robert and Bonzo were transloaded to a smaller aircraft at London Heathrow for the short (but must have been heartwrenching) connector flight to Birmingham.
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He (Jimmy Page) was not at the hotel in New Orleans on Tuesday the 26th
I have never seen any evidence to suggest he was, but then again never seen any evidence to suggest he was not. I do know Grant, Plant, Bonham and Cole arrived in New Orleans aboard Ceasar's Chariot on Tue, July 26th. The next concert was set for the Superdome on Sat, so there is the real possibility Jimmy had elected to remain in California to enjoy the time off and JPJ elected to travel separately with his family.
We know $25,000 worth of heroin was purchased on Fri, July 22, so Jimmy may have been in poor condition for travel. Given the furor throughout the Bay Area surrounding the brawl in Oakland if he remained behind he undoubtedly was sequestered.
I don't think Peter Grant would have risked additional problems/issues by letting Jimmy move/travel anywhere else unneccesarily, so I believe Jimmy either stayed put at the San Francisco Hilton or was onboard Ceasar's Chariot when it landed in New Orleans on 7/26.
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Steve.....Is there any detailed information about Jimmy's trip to Cairo ?
Meg has raised some valid points in her post, and Jimmy himself has said he enjoys the Cairo Museum. However, so far as I know he's never publicly shared any details about
that particular visit beyond the inspiration for his having gone there - seeing some film
footage on television of the Graf Zeppelin in flight over the pyramids.
Knebby has stated the trip was just four days, and I can tell you it was taken sometime
between May 2-11 1977 while on mid-tour break. Clearly, it had nothing to do with his
whereabouts the day Robert learned the tragic news of Karac's death - July 26 1977.
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An article from the New York Daily News dated June 12th 1977 and refering to their MSG 'residency' ,shows a pic of Maureen, Carmen and Karac watching a show - as the photograph was taken by the NYDN photographer, it seems logical to asume it was taken at one of the New York shows.
Excellent find, Knebby. This would suggest they may have flown back to London from
Newark on or around June 14th, the date the band flew to Los Angeles. There is the
also the possibility they stayed with the band thru their L.A. stint ending June 27th.
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We know John Paul Jones and Peter Grant both had their families at the Oakland concert. Was there a reason why the Plant family wasn't there? Grant spoke in his biography that the last leg of the US tour was chance for the families to join the band, yet the Plant family was absent. The first sign anything was wrong was that phone call on the Tuesday morning in New Orleans, two days later, so we presume Karac Pendragon was not ill leading up to what happened.
Robert & JPJ did take their families to Disney World in Orlando, FL on June 3, 1977.
However, I believe Robert's family, as well as Jason Bonham (who recalls the Tampa
riot) were only on the tour for the few days in Florida. When the tour moved north to New York City Robert spent some of his off time playing soccer, which he probably
would not have done had they still been with him.
Regardless, there was a mid-tour break from 6/28 thru 7/14, when everyone went
back to England, except for Jimmy and Mick Hinton who went to Cairo, Egypt. When
the band returned to America for the ill-fated final leg JPJ's family and Peter's son,
so far as I know, were the only family members who accompanied them.
FWIW, the July 30th 1977 edition of the 'Dallas Morning News' reported Karac had
collapsed at home on Monday, July 25th and passed away the following day. Robert
learned of this tragedy after checking into the Maison Dupy Hotel in New Orleans
the same day.
Just to clarify, although JPJ was traveling with his family on that leg of the tour, I don't think they actually attended either of the two Oakland concerts. Peter's son Warren did, of course, but I don't think Peter's wife Gloria was on the tour at all. I could be mistaken.
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Thanks Steve for the article. Always knew the context of the lyrics, but now with this article, "I Believe", is even more powerful and takes on more meaning. Pretty amazing.
I find Robert's solo artistry fascinating. There are so many songs, but particularly this one, written during personal reflection which reveal something honest and true about the artist as well as humanity. I would say Colours of a Shade, The Greatest Gift and Come Into My Life are all similarly moving songs and each, IMHO, seemingly rooted in some modicum of transpersonal psychology. The end result is Fate of Nations, a very organic album.
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Robert Plant's 'I Believe'
Journalist Deborah Frost of Spin magazine accompanied Robert throughout his June 1993 Italian tour and provided this review:
Bologne, Italy 'Roxy Bar' (television progam) June 13, 1993
Plant sings ‘I Believe’, perhaps for the first time to a live audience. Maybe it’s just as well that this one doesn’t understand English, and doesn’t stop bopping blissfully even as he is singing about his son’s cremation. But when he gets to the first chorus, all too naked without the supporting noise of a band or the comforts of his familiar echo, he chokes on the line that recalls how he told his daughter her “little brother is in the sky.” Practiced performer that he is, he salvages the moment by tossing his hand past his sunglasses, through his hair, in what will pass for yet another extravagant, campy rock gesture, but is really the brushing away of a tear.
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The promotional video for 'I Believe' was filmed less than two weeks later on June 23rd & 24th near Bude along the Cornish coast. Video contains the following textual narratives:
High Over Head
They Hoisted and Fixed
A Gold Signum
Gave Him To The Flood
Let The Seas Take Him
With Sour Hearts
And Mourning Moods
and also
Men Have Not The Knowledge
To Say With Any Truth
However Tall Beneath The Heavens
However Much Listened To
Who Unloaded That Boat
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The second narrative is entirely consistent with his candid response of "I don't know" to the host of Sweden's 'Godnatt Sverige' television program (aired 4/20/05) whom asked Robert where he thought John Bonham and Karac were now.
Link to the Promotional Video for I Believe:
http://www.vh1classic.com/view/artist/1424...eve/index.jhtml
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An artistic statement as powerful as any the man has ever made. A genuine masterpiece.
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Robert must have been horrified to be associated with a story characterizing his actions as part of the mistreatment of animals.
Indeed! Article does note his interaction with the dolphins there was completely legal
and undoubtedly humane as well.
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Forum (newspaper) (Fargo, ND) June 11th 1998
(excerpt)
Q: I understand your concert in Chicago on Monday will be broadcast live on the Internet.
Jimmy Page: Will it?
Q: Yeah. Is this the first you've heard of it?
Jimmy Page: Nah, it's probably something the management have cooked up and they haven't actually run it past us yet. Does it sound like a good idea to you? I don't see how, technically, you can broadcast a whole show on the Internet. I've never watched a concert on the Internet, but can't imagine it's much of an experience. No, as far as those little speakers you're going to have with a computer. I would think it's going to be a disappointment. Certainly, it's so far removed from actually being there at a concert and feeling it. You can't get that. It's never the same as actually smelling it, you know?
Q: I was on the Internet last night and found a website with links to more than 250 Led Zeppelin sites. Do you ever look at any of them?
Jimmy Page: Is that all? I thought there were more. I'm not being funny, but somebody told me there are a couple of thousand. I don't know. I've got the Internet at home, but I don't bother to access (them) because I know it all better than they do, really. (laughs) It's no use reading what's been written about me. I know what's going on so it doesn't matter.
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...and now for something completely different!
^^^
Salt Lake Tribune, Nov 28, 1991
Note:
"Ocean World Mistreated Animals, Ex-Workers Say" Miami Herald, Nov 26, 1991
"Former Workers Say Animals Mistreated at Ocean World" Miami Herald, Nov 26, 1991
"Animals Treatment at Issue" Sun-Sentinel (FL), Nov 26, 1991
Note:
Robert Plant
July 11 1988 Day off
July 12, 1988 Tampa, FL concert
July 13, 1988 Day off
July 14 1988 Miami, FL concert
July 15, 1988 Day off
Note:
Ocean World Fort Lauderdale was closed down in 1994. It had many aquatic attractions, such as alligators, sharks, and dolphins. Ocean World was located on SE 17th Street just west of the inter coastal bridge on the north side. No, this is not where Flipper was filmed, that was the Miami Sequarium. During daylight hours, some dolphins were in a small tank low enough to where you could reach in and touch them.
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John Paul Jones, among the others, has recalled over the years performing a legendary four hour show at the Boston Tea Party in 1969. I've often seen speculation concerning
if that show occured during their January (23-26) or May (28-29) 1969 performances at
that venue. The February 1969 article below makes no mention of a marathon gig and as
such would seem to suggest it was one of their two gigs in May.
Jimmy Page: After The Yardbirds...Comes Led Zeppelin
By BEN BLUMMENBERG | Boston Phoenix February 5, 1969 |
The Led Zeppelin landed in Boston, Thursday Jan. 22, and for four consecutive evenings virtually blew an overflow Boston Tea Party crowd clear into the Charles River. Playing long sets, well over an hour in length, the Zeppelin lived up to its advance billing as a group of exceptional power and drive. What also emerged, however, is that the L. Z. possesses extraordinary complexity as well.
Both the official publicity on the band, and the unofficial rumor mill, told of a blues rock unit built around the guitar genius of Jimmy Page. (Jimmy Page is the last of the three exceptional lead guitarists produced by England’s amazing Yardbirds. The other two are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck.) This description just scratches the surface. The Led Zeppelin is launched from a blues-rock base but is no means limited by it. Furthermore, the L.Z. is truly a talented and diversified unit, not just a backup group for Jimmy Page.
In concert, the L.Z. went through most of the material on their first album (Atlantic 8216) plus some newer, unrecorded songs. The titles and lyrics may be basic blues, but the approach and performance is of a much wider scope. Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the Zeppelin is that they employ three or four major instrumental concepts in almost every song. The impression, to say the least, is staggering! Indeed the L.Z.’s only fault is a tendency to compress too much into a short space of time.
Rhythm changes abruptly, time patterns change abruptly, volume levels change abruptly, yet melodic line and chord skeletons manage to merge kaleidoscopically as each member of the band feeds one another and in turn plays off the idea thrown out. The entire approach is very loose and very improvisational. The result is a surprising intricacy developed out of a form that is usually considered to be quite simple. Yet the basic power is never lost. In one sense, the Led Zeppelin represents the best of two worlds.
A few things that particularly got me: 1) At various times during “You Shook Me” Robert Plant (vocals) and Jimmy Page (lead) play riffs off against each other with Plant’s voice frequently acquiring the electrical qualities indistinguishable from Page’s guitar. 2) A 5-minute drum solo by John Bonham that includes some fantastic and hysterical hand drumming but really defies description. 3) The Frequent quiet passages in “Black Mountain Side” by Jimmy Page, which approach the best of pure mountain music.
For my taste, the Led Zeppelin really gets it all together on “How Many More Times,” with which they like to close an evening. This ten-or-more-minute master-piece has one of the most infections rhythmic cores I ever heard. If you don’t want to jump, dance, and smile after hearing this, you must be dead. This core, which involves everybody, provides the departure point for extended individual solos by each member of the band. The technically impressive pile driving bass of John Paul Jones is a spiritual gift. Plant’s amazing vocal power is at its best. Jimmy Page’s virtuosity runs the gamut from explorations into abstract electronics to down-home funk. “How Many More Times” is one of those rare rock developments that could literally never end. The wild, screaming reception accorded The Led Zeppelin certainly bears this feeling out.
I expect the Led Zeppelin to be flying high for some time. They and the Jeff Beck Group are to rock what Formula One cars are to road racing. Their raw power is compelling and hypnotic while their complexity makes repeated exposure a pleasure. The L.Z. vary the arrangements of the same song on successive nights quite widely. As Jimmy Page who has little sympathy with complicated studio effects said to me: “If we can’t do it live, we won’t do it.” That idea hits me just right, as does the entire Led Zeppelin from stem to stern.
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I also think the statements that Page sat down through most of the second day are an exaggeration. Remember, the '77 show included a fairly lengthy acoustic set as well as White Summer/Black Mountain Side, which he would be seated for. I've never seen any photos from that day of Page sitting down playing the Les Paul or the Doubleneck.
Exactly right, Steve. Standard '77 shows in the traditional way for both Oakland dates, although they did start 45 minutes late on Sunday (the second show).
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Not Fade Away: Mick Jagger on the trials of life at 65
The Independent (UK) November 8, 2008
It's not very rock'n'roll, but Mick Jagger, the man who brought us 'Sympathy for the Devil', supermodel girlfriends and skin-tight jeans, recently acquired OAP status. So has he mellowed with age? James Mottram finds out
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Before Mick Jagger enters the hotel room, I'm half expecting to be reminded of the opening line of The Rolling Stones' old number "Mother's Little Helper". You know the bit, as Jagger whines in that unmistakable voice of his, "What a drag it is getting old". This has been, after all, a watershed year for the Stones' lead singer. Turning 65 in July, all those jokes about the wrinkly rocker being old enough to collect his pension finally came true. Sir Mick – as he became in 2003 – is now officially an OAP. Not that he's ready to curl up with his cocoa just yet.
It's around 2pm when he finally arrives, a good half-hour late. "I didn't go to bed until five o'clock," he says, with a measure of pride, perhaps because it runs contrary to the image painted of him in the tabloids by his ex-wife Jerry Hall, that of a couch potato who likes an early night. He had spent the night partying with the other Stones in Berlin; if it got out of hand, it doesn't show. While the excesses of a rock'n'roll lifestyle may have taken their toll on his fellow band member Keith Richards, Jagger looks in remarkable shape. Rather like his slightly sucked-in cheeks, Jagger's torso, I imagine, is almost concave, as if he's had the flesh vacuumed out of him.
The Dartford-born singer puts his preternaturally skinny physique down to being raised in the aftermath of the Second World War. "It's the diet we had when we ......... were children," he smiles. "There was very little food, basically, and no junk food and no sugar." Never mind that his father, Joe, was a games teacher and relatively affluent compared to some. "Yeah, but that didn't get you any more food," he adds. "Teachers don't earn much money. Not to labour the point, but they think this is one reason why our generation doesn't get fat – unless you drink lots of beer, of course."
While the only things plump about him are those famous lips – more pink than bright red, as the Stones marketing might have us believe – he says "there's no secret" to staying fit. "You just have to do a bit of work when you get over 30. You have to go to the gym. Before 30, you don't really have to worry." Dressed in a striped shirt, lilac jumper and black jeans, lines already clustering around those ice-blue eyes, Jagger wisely makes no attempt to look younger by dressing up in rock-star clobber.
This is the third time I've encountered Jagger, though it's as if I've been in the presence of three different men. The first was pure accident, as I glimpsed him mooching around Selfridges' furniture department about five years ago. Making no attempt to conceal his identity with sunglasses or the like, he looked disarmingly ordinary – perhaps that's why he was able to browse through the store almost unnoticed. The second time, I saw the side most of us know: Jagger the Showman, doing what he does best. It was on stage during the Stones' recent A Bigger Bang tour, a two-year marathon jaunt around the globe that, after reportedly taking $558m, has become the highest-grossing tour of all time.
If you read anything about Jagger, it usually centres on his remarkable stage energy, undiluted despite his advancing years. Even now, there's still something animal about him in the spotlight. Does he see performance as an almost sexual act? "Is it like sex?" he ponders. "I don't know. Is there an orgasmic moment? Not that there necessarily has to be in sex. It's a different kind of thing. Often times, you have to be more calculated about what you do." It recalls Truman Capote's comment in light of touring with the band; that everything he saw "had been coolly and efficiently manufactured by the Stones and their managers". You don't get to last 46 years in the music business by leaving things to chance.
It's Jagger's vim and vigour that fuels Shine a Light, the band's first concert movie since 1983's Let's Spend The Night Together, which has just been released on DVD. Directed by long-time Stones fan Martin Scorsese, it captures the band's gig at New York's Beacon Theatre, a pit-stop during the Bigger Bang tour. Even with Scorsese's involvement, it doesn't come close to touching the likes of the notorious fly-on-the-wall documentary Cocksucker Blues, which detailed the band's drug-fuelled 1972 US tour, or Gimme Shelter, the seminal account of the 1969 Altamont gig when a Hell's Angel stabbed a fan to death. Not that Jagger wanted another behind-the-scenes documentary. "It's a bit of a cliché, Marty and I felt, doing the backstage stuff. Everyone's done that."
If the film is primarily a straight-up concert movie, it does hint at what a giant corporate machine The Rolling Stones have become, with Jagger leading the charge. One early shot sees him sitting in First Class, sipping champagne and working on the set-list for the show. As tongue-in-cheek as it is, it highlights a core truth: much of the Stones' success comes down to Jagger micro-managing the band's business affairs. As he puts it, "I don't think anyone else in the band is the slightest bit interested in that part of it. As long as it's successful." It was he who pushed the Stones into becoming the first band to truly exploit the money to be made from tours and merchandise.
Estimates vary, but Jagger's now worth in the region of £150m – and it's certainly convenient to think of the former economics student as an omniscient control freak, a man the US press dubbed "the greatest businessman in rock'n'roll history". In person, he's aloof and wary, not......... the charming stumble-drunk that is Keith Richards. Rarely given to introspection, he's uncomfortable being interviewed. Thus, in Kevin Macdonald's documentary Being Mick, showing him up close and personal with his numerous children, it was almost a given that this was an entirely manufactured exercise. Or as Jagger explains, slipping into a Nazi commandant voice as he does so, "It was all within my control."
It's understandable, given how little control he has over the reams of tabloid column inches his life has generated. Jagger has been painted as so many different personas: the gangly, blues-loving teen, the Crowley-esque dabbler in diabolism (inspired by the classic track "Sympathy for the Devil"), the sexually promiscuous rock star (dating everyone from Carla Bruni to Sophie Dahl), and the cricket-loving country gent. As he puts it, "People seem to find it hard to accept that you can be several people at the same time." Not least playing a gyrating hipster on stage. "Of course it's a different persona," he argues. "If you came to a dinner party as your stage persona, he wouldn't be a very welcome guest!"
Currently dating the stylist L'Wren Scott, who is more than two decades his junior, Jagger likes to promote himself as the doting father. There is Karis, who came from his brief affair with the singer Marsha Hunt; Jade, from his first marriage to Bianca; his four children with Jerry Hall – Elizabeth, 24, James, 23, Georgia, 16, and Gabriel, 11. Then there's nine-year-old Lucas, the product of a three-month affair with the Brazilian model Luciana Morad that effectively ended his two decades together with Hall. At one point, when discussing the band's former bassist Bill Wyman, he tells me, "I saw him at my kid's 16th birthday party." The mind boggles at what this bash was like – Jagger playing responsible parent to a bunch of rowdy teens is an amusing prospect.
Now nearly teetotal, there's nothing he likes more than eight hours sleep a night and Jagger is far removed from the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, who lived fast and died young. "Most people did survive," he counters. "It's how you came out the other side and what shape you're in, I suppose." In Jagger's case, he'd been a whipping boy for the establishment – after the Stones became involved in a landmark drugs bust when Richards' Sussex mansion was raided in 1967. "Looking back it was very funny," he reflects, "but it wasn't at the time very funny. It completely took over our lives creatively. We couldn't do this or that. You had to spend all your time dealing with the police. We definitely were being targeted. It was quite a common thing really."
For the record, Jagger doesn't believe narcotics were particularly helpful in the songwriting process that he and Richards got down to a fine art. "I think they're overrated as a creative method," he says. Certainly, having watched his former band member, Brian Jones, head down a path into narcotic-fuelled oblivion before he wound up dead in a swimming pool, Jagger has been wise to remain relatively restrained. Far more dangerous to him was the aftermath of the Altamont gig. It was revealed earlier this year that a bunch of Hell's Angels plotted to kill Jagger after he sacked them as stage security following the concert stabbing. Plotting to raid his Long Island property by boat, their plan was foiled when a storm nearly sunk their craft. Yet in many ways, this sort of incident only serves to further the media mystique that surrounds Jagger and the Stones.
"I think journalism helped make the Stones dangerous and respectable all at the same time," he says. "After you've been around for 10 or 15 years, you can't be either a) new or subversive. People that try to be subversive for more than 10 years, you'll never get anywhere. So people get used to that whole idea. By the mid-1970s, it was very difficult. That's why punk tried to remake this subversive rock moment." So how does he see rock'n'roll now? "It's another time, but there are people still doing what we did. There are tons of bands, looking like they're playing guitars! Millions of them. I see them all the time." .........
Another side to Jagger is his movie work. Shine a Light aside, Jagger has enjoyed a rather indifferent career as a movie producer, beginning in 2001 with the Second World War code-cracking thriller Enigma for his company Jagged. This year, he produced The Women, a remake of the 1939 George Cukor comedy starring Rosalind Russell and Joan Crawford. Despite a cast including Meg Ryan, Annette Bening and Eva Mendes, the film took just $26m in the US and garnered some scathing reviews ("a witless, straining mess," said the New York Times). "It gives me a different outlet," he explains, vaguely, when I ask him why he does it.
One can't help but think that Jagger is in it merely to dabble – rather like his four solo albums, including 2001's much-maligned Goddess in the Doorway, or his intermittent acting career. While his screen debut as a debauched rock star in Performance was hardly stretching him, his follow-up as the lead in 1970s outlaw story Ned Kelly left him looking faintly ridiculous in a wispy beard and iron helmet. Since then, his roles, from a time-travelling bounty hunter in Freejack to a cross-dressing cabaret owner in Bent, have been idiosyncratic to say the least.
So what attracts him to a part? "I don't know," he shrugs. "Sometimes I get offered little quirky roles and if I like the idea and I feel good at the time, I'll just do them. You never know how a film is going to turn out. There can be great people involved and it can turn out rubbish, so it's always a leap in the dark." Still, it's understandable why he does it: Jagger, by nature a performer, can't always be on stage. He is certainly aware of just how addictive it is. "You don't really want to be doing it all the time. Like when you're young, you think if you're not having sex, you're wasting your time. But as you get older you realise everything has its place."
It's the same thing with performance, he says. "You don't want to be thinking, 'I'm not performing tonight. Why am I not performing? I'm just going out to dinner with my friends – I should be on stage somewhere!' So it's a great thing to do but you don't want to be doing it all the time. But a lot of people are like that – a lot of actors. They do eight shows a week on stage. It's addictive. And if they don't go straight into the next one, they don't think that their life's worth living. I mean, you go to dinner with some comedians and they're trying out their jokes on you. They're still on. I'm not saying I'm boring, but you have to have a regular life. You don't want to be a performer all the time. You don't want me on the table singing."
It must be strange for Jagger, who now has homes all over the world – from the Loire Valley to Mustique and beyond – to realise how far he's come. After the Stones' first single, their 1963 cover of Chuck Berry's "Come On", Jagger admits he had no conception the band would last the next two years, let alone any further. "You didn't expect the work to go on and keep coming. You just do it for a year or two ... but it wasn't like we were going to break up or anything." Yet the band came close to implosion in the 1980s, when Jagger began to pursue a solo career and he and Richards began squabbling over songwriting credits. In the end, after Jagger's 1988 US solo tour was cancelled due to poor ticket sales, the Stones embarked on their hugely successful campaign to promote Steel Wheels, arguably the last album of any value they produced.
The Stones have lasted a further two decades, despite the departure in 1993 of Wyman, and show no signs of stopping. Does he know why they stuck it out?
"Because we were successful," he says. "I don't think we stayed together only for the success, but if we hadn't had the success, we wouldn't have stayed together. You need those two things – the love of doing it and the love of other people wanting you to do it." While Jagger claims he doesn't "feel there's a pressure to go on being sexy", I wonder if he wakes up at night, worrying about not being able to deliver on stage?
"Sure," he replies, "but don't look at the clouds of tomorrow through the sunshine of today!" Now that's sound advice from Sir Mick.
'Shine a Light' is out now on DVD
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I KNOW THAT JONESY STEP THE REST OF THE WEEK IN CALIFORNIA WHIT HER FAMILY
Yes, JPJ was traveling separately with his family during this leg of the tour. They quietly left the Bay Area as the controversy played out.
Zeppelin Mysteries Hosted by Steve A. Jones
in Led Zeppelin Master Forum
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Jimmy, as well as Ronnie, Pete Townsend, Rod Stewart, and Eric Clapton attended her funeral at Mortlake Cemetary in London on 6/27/05.