Great Moments on Video №2: The Rolling Stones - Out Of Control

(Bridges To Babylon Tour, St. Louis, December 12, 1997)

Since the first title in this series would, naturally, have to be Beatle-related, it is all the more natural to follow it up with a Stones-related entry. (I promise to get a little less predictable in the future, but let’s honor the major heroes first).

The Rolling Stones: Out Of Control

(Bridges To Babylon Tour, St. Louis, December 12, 1997)

Over a career that has spanned more than half a century, the Rolling Stones certainly have plenty of great moments that were captured on film, from the Altamont debacle of Gimme Shelter to Keith Richards heartily smacking a reckless fan on the head with his guitar during the 1981-82 tour, and well beyond that. Yet for some odd reason, every time I ask myself the question "which particular live performance by the Stones have I watched over and over, more than any other?", I keep coming back to this one video — the band’s theatrical, over-the-top, and totally mesmerizing performance of ‘Out Of Control’, a poorly remembered (though occasionally revived) song off a poorly remembered album, Bridges To Babylon.

One natural reason why I might be attracted to this clip specifically is the "I was there" factor — this was, indeed, the only time in my life I got to see the Stones live myself (August 13, 1998), when they were still including ‘Out Of Control’ as part of the regular tour setlist. The truth is, however, that my specific memories of that particular show are already blurred — it made a strong and lasting general impression, but I hardly have any particular memories of any particular songs; it was a bit like getting shell-shocked in the first seconds of the show and spending the rest of it slowly getting adjusted to the new reality.

Even so, out of all the Stones’ late-period live shows that I’ve watched on video, starting with the Steel Wheels and Voodoo Lounge comebacks and ending sometime around the mid-2000s (after that, old age really began catching up with them), this St. Louis concert has always remained a particular favorite (closely tied-in, perhaps, with the Amsterdam Paradiso show from 1995), and from that concert, this particular shot of ‘Out Of Control’ remains virtually untopped.

To me, this is not just a "good Stones performance"; it is a one-of-a-kind performance, most importantly — the kind of performance that would have been impossible to get the inspiration for in the prime of their younger days, and just as impossible to perform with enough verve and energy in the post-prime of their older days, so there was really only a very narrow time window to do it just right. It also had to be filmed just right: there is another version from the Bridges To Bremen show from the same tour, but with much less impressive camera work that significantly diminishes the returns.

Now, some clarifications are in order. In an earlier review of Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! I wrote about how the Stones, when in their best form in the near-mythical days of 1969, were so much more than pure entertainment — that they had the talent to knock on all the most dangerous doors of your conscience’s mansion, and even tear them down if they stayed closed. After Altamont, that ability was realized and significantly — perhaps intentionally — hampered, and after Mick Taylor had left the band, the Stones’ live show became more or less pure vaudeville, still a very high class and entertaining one, but totally in line with the motto of "it’s only rock’n’roll".

Only occasionally — very, very rarely — would the band be able to even try to revisit the hellish depths of a ‘Midnight Rambler’ or a ‘Stray Cat Blues’ circa 1969; the culmination was probably the 1981-82 tour, when 90% of the material was performed at a breakneck tempo, and it seemed as though the group had devolved into a one-dimensional dance party outfit. With the Steel Wheels tour, they’d slowly begun reminding the world that The Rolling Stones were not only rock’n’roll, after all, but fifteen years of fooling around, let alone the inevitable effects of the aging process, had done their thing by then.

Which is precisely why a song like ‘Out Of Control’, especially when performed live in 1997-98, hit so damn hard on all levels. First, the song itself is an unquestionable highlight of the Stones’ late career, even in its seriously more tame studio version. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it particularly «autobiographical» for Mick — he’s straining a bit too far with his semi-Byron, semi-Poe romantic-gothic imagery of "I was standing by the bridges where the dark water flows" — but there is that line of "tell me how have I changed" which cuts really hard, and even makes me wonder if Jagger himself has ever entertained the same thoughts about the evolution of his public image that I find myself so often expressing when writing about the Stones. Of all the songs written by the Stones since their late Eighties’ comeback, this one has always felt like the most personal to me — and also the one that delves quite deeply into the subconscious.

You can see the extra tension in Mick’s eyes and posturing from the first seconds of the performance — it’s theater, but it’s serious theater, which requires some serious acting, not just another round of stage acrobatics. There’s that somber, sinister funky bassline from Darryl Jones which feels like it’s controlling Jagger’s actions — his shoulders jumping like those of a marionette pulled up by the rhythm section’s insistence. A few feet away, there’s the devilish-looking Keith, joining in the quiet little voodoo chant with the backup singers. The build-up is far more sharp and dramatic than in the subdued studio version — and since, at this point, this is a very fresh song in the repertoire, Mick is taking great care to sing each line properly, rather than slur or recite them as he so commonly does with old chestnuts. That "tell me how have I changed" bit, backed up by Keith’s almost pleading chords — that little bit almost gets me teared up every time, and it only gets more bitter with age.

There are lots of great subtle details about the performance, since pretty much every member of the band contributes 100%, from each of Charlie’s meaningful drum fills to the Twin-Peaks-Red-Roomish jazzy mini-solos of the trumpet player. But, of course, the full voodoo vibe of the song does not properly kick in until the ending jam; the YouTube counter shows that the «most replayed» moment of the clip starts around 5:20, with the guitar-harmonica Mick-Keith «duel», and I have to agree with the general public. You’d normally think that Jagger is the primary hero in this act, but it would mean nothing without Keith holding down those chords — possibly the last truly great riff he ever came up with, a sound that I could only visualize as a big ol’ hellhound sniffing its way through a deep forest as it’s out to get you. When it’s coupled with Mick’s swampy, smelly, sordid harmonica — the Evil Toad is on the prowl! — it’s literally like a couple of nasty demons have been let out in the open, and whoever wins, the world is probably coming to an end this evening.

One other thing that should absolutely be thrown in is the perfect video editing — not only do we see the cameras always focusing on the most important thing going on at the moment, but even the angle-switching perfectly matches the pace of the song, and even the movement of the cameras somehow agrees with the shifts in Jagger’s choreography. At around 6:05, Mick goes into this fully «out-of-control» mode, thrashing and convulsing in a state of perfectly controlled chaos, which is also when Ronnie happens to hit the wah-wah pedal real hard, and the huge stage screen begins to go haywire — this is the climactic peak when the amassed troops of Hell are allowed to let loose, and my only grief is that they couldn’t let this last longer for at least a few more bars... though I also understand that sustaining this level of energy for too long would be pretty hard for a 35-year old band (in their more recent performances of the song, they shortened it even more, for obvious reasons).

In the hotel I’m excited by the smile on her face, but I wondered how was time gonna change her... There are different ways to interpret the song, yet to me it always felt, first and foremost, as a desperate realization of the inevitable, and frequently unwelcome, changes that time works on you — provoking an equally desperate rage at the impossibility of doing anything about it. And on that night in St. Louis, these guys really nailed the feeling. If ever, on the day when you hit fifty, or fifty-five, or any other such number, you find yourself asking questions like "what the fuck have I done with / in my life?" or "why am I even here when I was going to be someplace completely different?", be sure to return to this performance and headbang a little to that final jam. I swear, it’ll make you feel better.