They played their first gig this month in 1962. Now the Rolling Stones are celebrating their 50th anniversary and, word has it, planning a tour yet again. Given how they’ve been the bad boys of rock ‘n’ roll these last five decades, not even the band’s guitarist Keith Richards would likely have placed a bet on being alive till date.
Richards and vocalist Mick Jagger are legends in their own lifetimes. The band sold an estimated 200 million legit albums worldwide. No one’s counting the bootleg versions. They’ve filled stadiums around the planet with screaming fans, all the way from Rio to Moscow, and most places in between.
The Stones have also been stoned plenty of times. They’ve done harder drugs too, been arrested for it multiple times, made off with one another’s girlfriends, or the wife of an occasional dignitary. They lived fast, but they didn’t die young.
Miraculously, only one of them, Brian Jones, has died an unnatural death. The rest are hale and hearty and rock stars at an age when their classmates from school must be fixing their dentures and adjusting hearing aids in retirement homes.
What can one say to that, except, maybe we don’t really know what makes a human life tick?
The Rolling Stones have stuck out their tongue at conventional wisdom and morality for five decades. Their joie de vivre is unmistakable and infectious. They’re wonderful free spirits, in tune with some quality deeply human... even when they’re singing their sympathy for the devil.