BEHOLD SIR MICK JAGGER. In June of 2002, Mick was knighted and this honor brought to the fore once again the difference between him and Keith Richards. Keith was horrified that Mick accepted. It’s the rock ’n’ roll version of “You Make the Call.”
KEITH RICHARDS: I thought it was ludicrous to take one of those gongs from the Establishment when they did their very best to throw us in jail.
MICK JAGGER: It’s a great recognition of what the band’s achievements have been over the years we’ve been together.
For their fortieth anniversary, also in 2002, the Stones released an album and did a tour. True to the Stones’ nature, neither was conventional. The album was called Forty Licks, and due to a settlement with Allen Klein, it was the first time the Stones’ entire catalog was able to be represented on one compilation. They also bravely included four new songs along with the classics, and while none of them are going to make you forget about “Brown Sugar,” it is notable that the Stones were still trying.
The tour was unique in that it featured three separate shows for three separate-sized venues: stadiums, arenas, and theaters.
CHUCK LEAVELL: It did present some challenges. But with challenges come opportunities. I think we began to look at what songs would work well in those venues. Keith called it the “Fruit of the Loom Tour”: small, medium, and large . . . It gave the band an opportunity to dig even deeper into that incredible catalog and pull out songs that made sense to do in any particular setting whether it’s a club, arena, or big stage . . . Doing the set list was really fun for that . . .
STEVE MORSE: They had learned many of the songs from the early days to play at the smaller venues on that tour, the Orpheum in Boston for example. Digging out some of the old blues stuff. Buddy Guy came out. They scaled the shows. When they played a stadium, they did mostly the hits. It was groundbreaking in that sense. How many bands can play three separate venues in one city? They also played the Fleet Center and it was a cross between the Orpheum show and the stadium show. Some hits with some obscurities. I give them a lot of a credit for the vision of doing that.
Mick, Keith, and Charlie on the 40 Licks fortieth anniversary tour
PARENTING KEITH RICHARDS–STYLE
Keith and Anita’s relationship finally dissolved for good in 1979. By 1983, Keith had married Patti Hansen and they moved to Connecticut and had two daughters, Theodora (born 1985) and Alexandra (born 1986).
At some point circa 2001, male visitors who came to call on Keith Richards’s daughters at his house in Connecticut were greeted by an odd sight: the rock ’n’ roll legend himself pacing around the area where the kids were hanging out with a bowie knife, sharpened, in his hands. He had one phrase of advice for his kids’ friends: “You will respect my daughters; you will respect my house,” was all he said.
The Stones’ 2005 tour, A Bigger Bang, kicked off at venerable Fenway Park in Boston.
LARRY CANCRO: We had only done two concerts before the Stones approached us. And we didn’t understand what it would mean to be the first show in a worldwide tour. When you’re the very first stop, there are no answers to your questions. They had an idea for a stage. And the idea for the stage kept growing and growing and growing. They sent us drawings and we saw the elevator shafts and the private suites in the stage. The more we looked at it the more daunting it became, the more outfield it took up, the less seating area there was left on the field. Stage size matters when you have to have a game two days after they leave.
Of all the concerts we’ve ever done, this was the only time we ever had rain during the installation. We had to replace over a third of our outfield grass when we got this stage out.
A BIGGER BANG
In 2005, the Rolling Stones were back in the studio as a band who actually worked together. Perhaps part of the reason Mick and Keith were able to work together so well again is they gained some valuable perspective when they learned Charlie had cancer.
DON WAS: Mick and Keith are writing songs in a collaborative fashion that probably hasn’t been seen since the late ’60s.
The album’s title was perhaps a wink at Bill Wyman, who was once quoted during the WW III period as saying, “It’s a pity we didn’t go out with a big bang. Instead we went out with a whimper.”
Keith writes about the making of that album in Life:
KEITH RICHARDS: Only Mick still thinks you have to take things into “real” recording studios to make a real record. He got proved totally wrong on our latest album—at time of writing—A Bigger Bang, especially because we did it in his little chateau in France. We had got the stuff all worked up and he said, “Now we’ll take it into a real recording studio.” And Don Was and I looked at each other, and Charlie looked at me . . . Fuck this shit. We’ve already got it down right here. Why do you want to spring for all that bread. So you can say it was cut in so-and-so studio, the glass wall and the control room? We ain’t going nowhere, pal. So finally he relented.
One of my favorite moments was when Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts came out of the dugout from the clubhouse, which was their dressing room, and Ronnie Wood was telling Charlie, “I visited here as a kid. My uncle lived in Boston and he brought me to a game. We sat right over there. I can’t believe we’re about to play here.” The Stones have kept that sense of wonder throughout their five decades together and it’s one of the reasons they’ve been able to overcome all the obstacles and remain as relevant as they have.