Gary Pig Gold:
November, 2004
Please Allow Me
to Re-introduce The Rolling Stones and Their Rock And Roll
Circus
I think we’re more than all in agreement
here that something very, very special took place during the
middle 1960’s; a magical, monumental something in the
air(waves) which gave rise to an undeniably positive socio-artistic
upheaval courtesy of poets like Dylan, bands like the Beatles,
filmmakers like Kubrick and, if I may push the issue quite
thinly indeed, television the likes of Get Smart and
Green Acres to boot.
Still with me? Good. For soon came a glorious
peak -- roughly stretching from Pet Sounds through
Sgt. Pepper, phonographically speaking -- when anything
and everything seemed possible, and a florescent-bright, fully-dimensionally-stereophonic
future felt well within the fitful grasp of all who, well,
believed. Believed in the magic of rock and roll, for starters.
Or, as those still-kinda-cute moptops advised the planet via
satellite transmission one hot night that July, “All
you need is love.”
But then came 1968, and shadows started to
encroach upon everyone’s idyllic little Summer of Flowery
Power. Time Magazine (and George Harrison even!) ruthlessly
“exposed” the hippie movement, Dylan grew a beard,
had a few more kids and went “country,” Brian Wilson
forsook Smile for some lower-key Friends
and, as if to drive the disillusionment even further home,
MLK then RFK were gunned down, right there in living color
on our TV screens, while the Vietnam casualties soared, inner
cities roared, and college campuses the world over began to
explode.
Throughout this all and then some, the Rolling
Stones, unlike most every single one of their Britpop contemporaries
all those years ago, not only seemed always able to recognize
such grit beneath our collective cosmic glory, but were able
to capture it – some would even say glorify it -- in
their music, their outlook, and even upon their album covers.
So when things started to really get kinda hairy in ‘68,
the Stones were more than prepared to meet the mess head-on
and ride the road to ruin for all it was worth. For really,
what else could those (poor?) boys do, ‘cept to sing
out the jams in their rock and roll band.
Which is precisely what makes viewing the
December 1968 television semi-spectacular The Rolling
Stones Rock and Roll Circus all the more momentous today,
even from a full four decades’ worth of comfy, clinical
retrospection.
Sure, this particular carnival absolutely
provides a nice bright, loud, swinging sixty minutes full
of music and merriment, with fire-eaters and trapeze artists
unapologetically sandwiched between Taj Mahal and Yoko Ono
as only The Ed Sullivan Show had dared to before.
Yet especially from a 2004 perspective, this archival hour
provides perhaps the best-existing audio / visual documentation
of a time truly in turmoil; of a musical and even social changing
of the guard between, well, “All You Need Is Love”
and Altamont. Between the death of one form of innocence,
I suppose, and the coming long long years of doubt, cynicism,
and bands without the word “The” in their names.
Now, I will leave it to each individual reader
out there as to whether this all spells a good thing or not
(i.e., do you prefer The Who Sell Out or Tommy,
in other words).
Whatever that case may be, director Michael
Lindsay-Hogg, who’d already captured the best of the
small-screen Stones on various U.K. pop shows of the moment,
masterfully translated Mick Jagger’s vision of “taking
out the normal and making a slightly surreal circus“
onto celluloid, and their collaboration was such that the
word “nostalgia” barely applies today to this film.
Unlike, say, other 1968-vintage productions such as ** Wonderwall,
Yellow Submarine, or even Monterey Pop…not to
mention my beloved Monkee movie Head.
The primary reason for this may be that Lindsay-Hogg,
who had pioneered his amphetamine-paced quick-jump style on
the landmark Ready, Steady, Go! television series
(expertly shooting the Stones’ “Paint It, Black”
in ’66 for example), stretched his skills to supreme
effect throughout the Rock and Roll Circus, cleverly
cutting his shots to the beat of the songs themselves, and
in The Who’s landmark “A Quick One While He’s
Away” herein especially, turning an already red-hot performance
into a downright incendiary one.
Conversely however, he employs a single,
lazy circular tracking shot around a stoically seated Marianne
Faithfull as she concludes her number, unequivocally emphasizing
an artist the caliber of Ms. Faithfull need only her voice
and face (those eyes! ) to sell a song. Yes, roll over Britney,
and tell Beyonce the news. Please.
Oh, and you want guitar wars? The Circus
has got them too! We can catch a young Jesse Ed Davis
applying expert Telecaster texture to Taj Mahal’s “Ain’t
That A Lot Of Love,” a pre-Sabbath Tony Iommi subbing
for an AWOL Mick Abrahams for Jethro Tull’s wholly whacked
“Song for Jeffrey,” and a straight-outta-Cream Clapton
fingering bravely on as Yoko baffles -- or should I say battles
-- violinist Ivry Gitlis throughout the Dirty Mac band’s
“Whole Lotta Yoko” …much to the supreme amusement
of all involved (and under the encouragement of that rascally-as-ever
J. Lennon).
But it is, not surprisingly at all, the Rolling
Stones who steal the show …after all, it is their show.
It is, in fact, the final performance of the classic Jagger-Richard(s)-Wyman-Watts-Jones
line-up, and let me just take a moment here to put a couple’a
rockin’ myths to rest:
Legend has it the barely-upright Brian Jones
was literally on his final legs at the Circus, having
just suffered through over a year’s worth of narcotic
legal misadventure (not to mention Their Satanic Majesties
Request ). Which makes it all the more astounding indeed
then to hear his guitar slide with such sublime finesse all
over “No Expectations”: ironic indeed, perhaps,
as we now realize things had just come full circle for the
doomed Stone, adding Elmore James-pure accompaniment just
as he had upon first forming the band a mere six years before.
RIP, Brian, I can only hope.
Another misconception is that The Rock
and Roll Circus was never originally aired as scheduled
in early 1969 because many felt The Who, fresh off a world
tour, had smoked the Stones’ performance hands-down.
Actually, it was a morass of legal molasses which kept the
Circus off the airwaves back then. And the Stones,
despite having to finally take the center ring for their six-song
set at the ungodly-even-for-rock hour of 2 AM – following
a grueling fourteen hours spent coordinating the rest of the
show! -- not only rose to the challenge, but as they usually
do, exceeded most each and every expectation.
Really, were there ever a set of eyes and
lips more ready-made for the television lens than Jagger’s?
As he bravely debuts “You Can’t Always Get What
You Want” (towards Marianne), all stops are most definitely
pulled far out, to such an extent that the man’s tragi-comic
striptease at the close of “Sympathy For The Devil”
(revealing a torso covered in instant wash-off satanic tattoos)
seems, well, far from indelible in comparison. Nevertheless,
on that small, sawdust-strewn stage, and to a tiny invited
studio audience that had been held captive for nearly twenty
hours straight [sic] by this point, Mick still manages to
make this display of “Sympathy” far more engaging
– not to mention sinister – than he’s ever
been fully able to since …the company of Hell’s
Angels or three million dollars’ worth of Enormo-dome
theatrical staging notwithstanding.
Finally the assembled multitude, including
an uproariously manic Who (who by this point in the proceedings
were thrashing about beneath seat cushions fashioned as some
sort of mock-papal headgear) were bid a semi-fond farewell
and adios to the tune of Mick and Keith’s “Salt
Of The Earth,” sung in most appropriately ragged proto-Glimmer
Twins style. Cue the midgets, elephants and rope climbers
one last time and this circus then packs up and forever leaves
town.
Or so we thought.
But jump cut to the twenty-first century,
and The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is back
and newly available on DVD from our friends over at ABKCO,
chockfull of additional insights (witness a contemporary Pete
Townshend pontificate himself into knots praising Jagger and
Co.) and above-worthy bonus material ( Be Sure to stay well
tuned for Fatboy Slim’s samba-from-hell “Sympathy”
video remix, which sports precisely the kind of devil-may-care
adventurousness the Stones themselves abandoned somewhere
circa “Undercover Of The Night”).
Most importantly though, sit back, watch
and marvel in wonder at a stirring little slice of time when
The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band wouldn’t
think twice about dressing in clown uniforms to cavort amongst
the lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Just so they could
quite simply, quite pimply, bring to our collective living
rooms a gala evening’s star-spangled entertainment with,
and for, all of their finely feathered musical friends. Nothing
more. Nothing less.
Were things ever really that pure, simple,
and downright fun? Yes, they really were. Even during the
street-fighting winter of 1968.
Here’s the proof.
And, yes, a splendid time is guaranteed for
all.
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