Movies

Shine a Light is concert footage of the Roling Stones taken at the Beacon theater in New York. Martin Scorcese directed this effort and in his capable hands you get to see some powerful performances by the old boys, joined on stage with Buddy Guy, Christina Aguilera and Jack White.



The footage isn't really much of a documentary, it's more like a home movie of the Stones' performance, although there are some archival bits spliced in to break up the music. And make no mistake, this is the Mick and Keith show. If there's one complaint about Shine a Light it's that the two front men for the band are spotlighted at the expense of the others and the supporting musicians. We do get the obligatory introductions but rarely get a glimpse of them at work belting out the trademark complex sound. Scorcese decided to focus a little much on Jagger and Richards while the rest of the ensemble stays in the background.
That's not to say there aren't great performances here - the energy that these old farts put into their shows is astounding to see. I had only seen brief glimpses of the band live but knew they threw themselves into their music. I'd be surprised if each one of them didn't shed ten pounds by the time they were done and not one of them has ten pounds to spare. They do freaking rock, and hard, for guys in their freaking sixties. But my two favorite pieces were slower ballads - As Tears go By and You Got the Silver, which were a whole lot more intimate with their solos.
Plus they gave poor old Charlie Watts a little breather:



I've never been a huge fan of the Rolling Stones. They've been in my life since I listened to Satisfaction on my little transistor at Jones Beach when I was growing up in New York, sort of always in the background. But they're not going to be around forever and I think Scorcese did at least as good a job here as he did with The Band in "The Last Waltz", he chronicled a legend while they they were still into putting on a good show, even if Keith Richards looked like he was going to collapse at the end of it. The disk is a rocking good time, very much worth a watch and remember, the drummer is almost seventy freaking years old.