London, Sept 16: - Showing the stamina of a group half their age, the Rolling Stones hit the home stretch on Monday night on a world tour that has attracted almost 1.5 million fans. Critics may mock the "Strolling Bones" of these wrinkly rockers who boast a combined age of 237 years.

But the adrenaline of playing live sure is a shot in the arm for 60-year-old Mick Jagger, whose swiveling hips and pouting lips show no signs of crumbling yet.
"This band will die on stage," said a spokesman for the group, whose "Licks" tour has taken them to 18 countries since they started in Boston last September.

As Jagger said at the start of the European leg of the tour in Munich "Never say Never."
The last Stones tour grossed over $200 million and this looks set to top that for the self-styled greatest rock band in the world.
London's Wembley Arena was to be the last "Licks" gig but a bout of flu that laid Jagger low played havoc with their schedule.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

Extra shows have now been laid on in Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands but the band still decided to go ahead with its end-of-tour party in London Monday night though they are still on the road.

In each city, the Stones liked to play one intimate venue, one arena and one stadium.
That prompted King of Excess Keith Richards, whose face looks like a crumbling tombstone, to quip: "I call it The Fruit of the Loom tour: small, medium and large."

Like Paul McCartney, Jagger is a '60s icon who still gets a buzz from playing live. Retirement is not an option.

From the moment the band struck up "Start Me Up," all 12,000 fans were on their feet for two hours of non-stop rock 'n' roll.

From "Paint It Black" to "Honky Tonk Woman," they belted out hits that were the soundtrack of so many lives in the crowd.

This was Show No. 91 on the tour but there was nothing jaded about it.

Jagger, maracas in hand, launched into all those dance routines that were so slavishly copied by every pouting teen-ager in the Swinging Sixties. The flamboyant frontman who once sang "What a Drag It Is Getting Old" had his middle-aged fans high on nostalgia.

For these dinosaurs of rock are in no danger of extinction. Music's "Satanic Majesties" are certainly not ready to "Fade Away" quite yet.
Bureau Report