February 25, 1999

Miami National Car Rental Centre

In this brawny, predatory, cocksure howlin' mood the old bastards make [a]U2[/a] look effete, the [B]Manics[/B] look fat and [a]Oasis[/a] sound blunted...

Fifty miles out of Miami the alligators have crawled from the swamps of history into an indoor superdome. This is the No Security arena section of the Stones' endless Bridges To Babylon trek and by the reptilian blues magnates' standards it's an intimate show.

Around 18,000 middle-youth rockers have stumped up between $40 and $300. Tan-blasted Miami men have opened their shirts one button extra and rock ladies wriggled into split skirts. Grazing merchandise, they await Their Historic Majesties, unfettered by the Brit cynicism that's congealed around the band after their gig cancellations and Mick's legal fight with Jerry.

Miami just wants to feel the boot of 'classic rock'. But can the Stones do it without their genitals inflated into stadium props and with the front row up their legendary noses? In slow motion they march out of the video screen like Tarantino's Last Gang In Town unleashing a dizzying array of caricatured grit'n'pugilism poses.

Keith Richards' shoulders hike up three inches as he whacks out 'Jumping Jack Flash' sparking Mick Jagger into a frenzy of pimp gymnast prancing. All skinny legs and voodoo mask faces, they inhabit the stage like Shakespearian players. Miraculously however, with the ever erect Charlie Watts hitting like a blacksmith, they're The Tempest rather than A Comedy Of Errors.

It's a sinuous, stripped-down, funky, dirty-old-man Stones tonight. Keith's former drug buddy Bobby Keys levers burnished sax lines into 'Live With Me'. There are gutsy versions of 'Respectable', 'You Got Me Rocking' and 'Honky Tonk Women' where the old lags'n'fags pair Richards and Wood toil in 'classic' side-by-side formation.

The inclusion of the rarely-performed shimmering ballad 'Moonlight Mile' from 'Sticky Fingers' forces Jagger to stand and sing, which he does beautifully. Indeed, there is something transcendent about the Stones playing at this level of basic belligerence. Jagger's personal difficulties lend a frisson to the songs as he flings out unrepentant grand-lad confrontation in the gospelly 'Saint Of Me' and lewd'n'slinky 'Some Girls'. Even Richards appears fit and focussed, grinning through his Dylan-esque solo moments on 'You Got The Silver' and 'Before They Make Me Run' or skidding alarmingly across the stage on his knees.

Maybe in the cycle of derision and adulation that accompanies their late-life lumbering it's a year for respect to come around. The teen angst of 'Paint It Black' doesn't sit well and 'Just My Imagination' is murdered, but when they gather on the centrally placed small stage to slam out 'Route 66' and a wild, raw-boned 'Midnight Rambler' they rise 20ft above age jibes and bored rich punters.

In this brawny, predatory, cocksure howlin' mood the old bastards make U2 look effete, the Manics look fat and Oasis sound blunted. There are Union Jacks flung onstage by the time 'Brown Sugar' and 'Sympathy For The Devil' are over. Let's hope they're still snorting the Viagra when they get to Wembley.