It's Not Only Rock and Roll

I grew up in a house filled with music.  My parents were young, even by those day's standards, when they had my older sister and me so they were still kids themselves while we were children.  Their tastes were eclectic and fairly sophisticated, especially for our sleepy, Midwestern city of Des Moines, Iowa.  There was often classical music (which I liked) or opera (which I didn't) playing.  But just as often there was rock and roll.  I grew up listening to the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and the Rolling Stones.  Especially the Stones.  The first album I remember falling in love with was "Beatles '65."  But the second was the Stones' "Beggar's Banquet."  The Beatles infatuation ran its course and faded by junior high school.  The Stones never did.

Leslie was born fifteen months before me and our tastes influenced each other throughout adolescence.  She introduced me to David Bowie, Roxy Music and the Sex Pistols.  I gave her Rod Stewart (with the Faces), the Who and Prince.  We agreed to disagree on Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith.  (She leaned towards Robert Plant and I favored Steven Tyler.)

But the one constant, the one thing we accepted as Truth, was that the Rolling Stones were, indeed, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band In the World.  I wanted to be Mick Jagger and she wanted to be with Keith Richards.  We saw our first Stones concert together at the Capital Center outside of Washington, DC in 1972.  We were front row, center when they passed through Hampden, Virginia the summer of '75.  We drank and drugged our way through our teens and twenties, often with "You Can't Always Get What You Want" or "Brown Sugar" playing loud in the background.

Leslie moved to New York City in the late seventies and I followed her, as I so often did, in 1985.  She stayed, got married and became a wonderful chef.  I left in '89 and chased life until I returned to this city last year.  I came, as much as anything else, because New York was Leslie's home and she had passed away in August of 2006 after fighting cancer for years.  Moving back seemed the only way to keep her close.  Sometimes it seems to be working, often it doesn't.  If you've ever lost a sibling or a child you know how it is.  

"Shine a Light," the Rolling Stones concert film by Martin Scorsese opened today in Manhattan.  It documents their 2006 show at the Beacon Theatre in New York and it is being shown on IMAX screens where available.  I haven't seen a Stones show in nearly ten years, since I scalped a ticket and sat in the top tier of FedEx Field, more for curiosity's sake  than anything else.  I still listen to their music but they haven't made a great album since the early seventies, in my opinion.  The FedEx show was pleasant, in a removed kind of way, and they still sounded better than almost anyone out there, but I had seen enough.  The magic was gone. Either they had grown too old or I had.  Maybe both.

So I entered the Lincoln Square Theatre this afternoon with no great expectations.  I'm a Stones fan who is comfortable with the fact that their best work is behind them.  I feel the same about Scorcese.  But he had done a masterful job years ago with "The Last Waltz," his concert film of The Band's last concert, and I was eager to see his work after stepping up in class.  After all, The Band, while a clever enough name, was just another pretty good group; the Rolling Stones were truly The Band.

I sat high up, centered in front of the 60-foot IMAX screen.  The film opens, as these things often do, with footage of the chaos leading up to the show, the black and white image filling perhaps half the screen.  Then, as Keith strikes the first chord of  "Jumpin' Jack Flash," Scorcese cranks the volume and the image explodes into brilliant color across the screen, filling your entire field of vision and then some, given that the IMAX screen is concave and creates a three-dimensional effect of being surrounded.  

I was simultaneously struck by an impression and a sensation, that both only intensified as the film progressed.  First, that the Stones sounded awesome and looked terrific.  Not young, mind you -- they're in their mid-to-late sixties and their faces show every year.  But they are engaged and entertaining and exuberant and . . . happy, I guess is the word.  They are arguably the best in history at doing what they do and, even having lost a step or two, they know how to put on a rock and roll show like nobody's business.

The competing sensation was that of a literally throat-closing grief, of missing my sister.  I watched Mick and Keith play songs that we had listened to over and over and over again as we grew up together.  Memories came back that were so sharp as to seem like almost yesterday, some thirty years later.  Of whispered conversations upstairs in her room about our first crushes.  Of driving around DC in my convertible with the top down when she'd come to visit in the summer, singing along with Mick and the Boys at the top of our lungs.  Of sitting at Jack's Bar in Brooklyn, after she had found me an apartment as part of the price of getting me to follow her to New York, listening to the old-timers reminisce about the good old days and bitch about the present.  Of quitting drinking and holding on tight through the bad patches.  

And of being with her through the last few years, after it became tough for  her to get out and about as much.  It brought us together as a family, my parents, my younger sister, Leslie and her husband.  The only one of us who faced that fucking poison growing inside of her without ever taking a step back, without ever giving in to the pain and sorrow of what was coming to an end in front of our eyes, was Leslie.  She fought it as long as she could and then, somehow, she knew when it was time to give up the battle gracefully, which she did, holding the family together until she left us.  It was the most painful, as well as the most inspirational, time of my life.

The memories and feelings came over me in waves as I watched the Stones perform our favorite songs -- hers was "Sympathy For the Devil" and mine was "Tumblin' Dice."  I sat there in my seat with a lump in my throat and a silly grin on my face.  Experiencing, larger than life, our past.  The Rolling Stones were our youth.  

In one of the interview snippets throughout the film, Keith attributes their longevity to the simple fact that they love what they're doing.  And it shines throughout this film, their love affair with being on stage, basking in the adulation of their fans and reciprocating by kicking out rock and roll like nobody else has ever done.  The Stones are unique and completely comfortable in their skins.  For years, throughout the eighties and nineties, they flirted with caricature.  They were the rhythm and blues version of Dorian Gray's portrait.  Having sold their souls (and whatever else they could get their hands on) to the devil, they were destined to live forever as the "world's greatest band," playing "Satisfaction" over and over until there was no one left to listen.  But they passed through that and they are, in a weird way, almost metamorphosed into the best there ever was.  Again.

You can see the joy on their faces as they connect with the audience, as they've been doing for 45 years now.  It's as if they realize they have hit the lottery, again and again and again.  They know they've worked for it and that they deserve it but, damn, life is good.  Imagine getting to be Mick Jagger and getting paid hundreds of millions to do it as a bonus.

Well, I was inspired.  And inspiration is something that's been pretty hit or miss since my sister died.  Her passing, and the grace with which she handled it -- and allowed everyone else to handle it -- showed me what it means to live with courage.  It's easy to lose track of that as time passes and real life comes at you.  But I was reminded again today of the inspiration that I had promised myself I'd take away from her abbreviated life.  I was nearly overcome with a resurgence of the pain as well as that strength as I watched the film.  But what shone through brightest of all was the inspiration to find a way to love what you do and to make that your life.  Anything less is just killing time.  

Anyway, it seems to me that that's what the Rolling Stones have accomplished and Scorcese has been able to capture.  They've been living their dream since the day they were able to articulate it.  We should all be so fortunate. 

I'm not sure how to rate "Shine a Light."  I'm far from an objective observer.  For the right person, at the right time, it's an excellent film, maybe a great film.  If you're a Stones fan, you need to see it.  Likewise if you're a Scorcese fan.  If you've reached an age where college students look like children, you need to see it.  And, if you're still trying to figure out how to age gracefully without casting aside the dreams of your youth entirely, most definitely go see this film.

I loved it.

Leslie, you should have been there.  They were singing to you.