The slick drummer for the Rolling Stones died the other day at 80. Charlie Watts had a good long life. I was Team Beatles over Team Stones as a youth, but I had an appreciation for the early output of the bad boys.
I. One of my favorite Stones memories doesn't even involve me.
I'm almost certain it was the "Some Girls" tour of July 1978. Blistering hot day, and the Stones played Soldier Field in Chicago. All the Southwest Siders at B&B Catering wanted the Saturday off work to go to the show of the summer. (Wikipedia says 70,000 people were there.) I was too cool for that -- I was into Willie Nelson at the time -- so I worked and held down the fort with a skeleton crew.
The next day everyone had stories to tell. Brian O described how the Chicago Park District (or the Fire Department) hosed down the sweltering crowd to cool them off. Fair-haired Beth C had sunburn. Everyone was hung over. I have savored that contact high now for decades. "Some Girls" is a great album, maybe the band's peak for me. I like to play "Respectable" and "Before They Make Me Run" on the jukebox at the pool hall. (Yeah, I'm that geezer.)
II. My other favorite Stones memory doesn't involve the Stones.
It was probably the next summer at B&B Catering. Our busy seasons were December (holiday parties) and May/June (graduations and weddings). After the season rush ended in June we would blow it out with a late day party, dubbed the Alley Rally. (The alley behind Archer Avenue separated the kitchen and loading dock from the parking lot.) Across Archer was an epic dive bar that I wasn't old enough to go into. Four older black dudes were the house band. That year, we paid them to set up on the loading dock and play their house blues and R&B. Hot stuff.
I'll never forget the moment a bunch of us were inside, in the front office, taking a break from the music, bullshitting away, chugging beer. The band outside launched into the opening chords of the Stones' "Miss You," heavy on the bass. I looked at Dave M, the straight-A stoner kid, and his eyes popped wide open in awe. My jaw dropped in ironic excitement. The group of us made a beeline toward the dock and danced blissfully in the alley until the extended jam ended.
III. My third memory doesn't involve anyone else.
When we were young, my brother used to throw his own blowout parties, the logistics of which involved carting the stereo system down to the basement as the focal point for the festivities. The next day he was too lazy (or hungover) to lug the stereo back upstairs. Days turned into weeks for the basement studio arrangement. I set up shop down there and shot pool, solo, for hours on the ratty third-hand pool table that my dad had salvaged somewhere. I spun the Stones' "Love You Live" on the turntable, over and over (occasionally mixing in the Beatles' White Album). It had the definitive version of "Sympathy for the Devil." Doesn't hold up like it used to, but then, neither do I.
My significant other reminds me now that she saw the Stones in Berlin in 1990, sneaking into the grounds while people in the crowd were fleeing for the exits during a downpour that preceded the show. Well, fuck, anyone could have gone to see the Stones live.
Bonus Track
We previously posted a reference to Ralph Fiennes dancing to "Emotional Rescue" in "A Bigger Splash." Here's the Stones' video from back in the day:
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