The year that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards turned 80 was beyond due. Well over a year before the Kennedy assassination, in the summer of 1962, they gave their first concert together. Jagger informed us he remembered an early Stones show in 1965 in Philadelphia while standing on the microphone at Lincoln Financial Field in South Philadelphia, where I joined 60,000 other fans still excited to see the Rolling Stones in 2024.
Some complain that these elderly men shouldn’t be standing there flaunting themselves like conceited, damaged teens. It’s a valid point. As the only surviving original members of the band, Jagger and Richards have come to represent the group as a whole. Any group that has been together for sixty years is likely to suffer some losses. In this case, the first was founding guitarist Brian Jones, a notorious party animal who drowned in his swimming pool in 1969. The most recent was drummer Charlie Watts, who passed away in 2021 at the age of eighty. In between, a lot occurred.
Seen from my spot on the Lincoln Field bleachers, some 180 yards from the stage, the band appeared to consist of small silhouettes, and they were easier to see on the enormous high definition screen. With the exception of a handful of tracks from their most recent album, Hackney Diamonds, the group primarily performed singles, nine of which were included in the definitive compilation Hot Rocks 1964–1971. The majority of this iconic work was written by Jagger and Richards, but Jones and bassist Bill Wyman also provided melodies and harmonies. These songs are well-known to many generations and could perhaps be ingrained in the fabric of human existence.
