The climax is Why D’Ya Do It the unparalleled bilious post-adultery stomper which makes Lorena Bobbitt seem mild and forgiving

The climax is “Why D’Ya Do It”, the unparalleled, bilious, post-adultery stomper which makes Lorena Bobbitt seem mild and forgiving.Jagger and Richards showed remarkable insight when they wrote “As Tears Go By” for Faithfull all those decades ago. It was a nice touch, not just because it improved the most uncomfortable venue in London, but because it added to the theatricality that is the essence of her music’s wasted grandeur.Angelo (Twin Peaks) Badalamenti, who co-wrote her latest album, A Secret Life (Island), al- most gets it right. No inflatables or screens, just some chairs added to the Shepherd’s Bush Empire’s normally bare downstairs. A petty jibe from his old bandmates, perhaps, but it serves him right for leaving the greatest rock’n'roll band in the world.In its own peculiar way, Marianne Faithfull’s show on Wednesday was as powerful as that of her ex-boyfriend. He was on screen during “Honky Tonk Woman”, dressed as a woman himself, as part of a montage of lissom females (Wyman appeared between the Queen and Betty Boop). After the downhome twang of “Wild Horses”, Jagger pouted: “Does it ever get dark, do you think?” By 9.30 it did, and the atmosphere was right at last.

Inflatable voodoo paraphernalia grew over the top of the screen – a snake, a witch-doctor, a goat’s head – and the band revved through “Sympathy for the Devil”, “Street Fighting Man”, “Start Me Up”, “It’s Only Rock’n'Roll”, “Brown Sugar” and “Jumping Jack Flash”, all in a row.And if that weren’t enough, Bill Wyman made an appearance A brief one, admittedly. Keith Richards has often said that God joins the band for their stadium gigs. No, not Eric Clapton, who was once a contender for Ronnie Wood’s job; the other God, the one who was around even before the band were, and who messes up their shows with bad weather Tonight, the sky was too bright. As well as having criminally un-rock’n'roll hair (curly grey mop and beard), he played in a safely measured, top-LA-session-musician manner.

It was a definite improvement when Richards took over briefly on “Honky Tonk Woman” – and he was chanking away at the top of the keyboard with one hand and one foot.So how come we weren’t quite getting no satisfaction for the first half of the show? Why wasn’t it engaging even though the Stones’ engines were fully engaged? Blame God. My only com- plaint would be about keyboard player Chuck Leavell. One of the best (and best-received) songs was Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”, which, thanks to Jagger’s harmonica squall, rocked and rollicked like a Rolling Stones original.The extra musicians added brass and vocals without swamping the mix, as they did on the Urban Jungle tour. Charlie Watts, the ever-diffident drummer, got the biggest cheer of the night: even the rest of the band prostrated themselves in We-Are-Not-Worthy fashion.The set-list was as you might have expected – the only real surprise being that the Stones could still perform their old material with such indefatigable style.

Richards and Ron- nie Wood, the Siamese twins (or so it seemed from the amount of time they spent leaning against each other), set their danger- ous, unkempt blues licks against the perfect control of the rhy- thm section. Gangways stretch outwards, a massive lunar-landing module stands on either side, and reaching over the top is a giant desk-lamp.The Stones jogged around this structure all night, and still had enough puff left over to sound sensational. But matching all of his moves would be even more exhausting than reading every article on the band that has been printed in the past fortnight. I’d like to see Damon from Blur running across that stage for over two hours and living to tell the tale.
The stage, by the way, is an architectural marvel comparable to the Lloyds building – except that it looks good. At first you thought he looked like someone dancing in front of their bedroom mirror, but of course it’s the other way round: it’s the people dancing in front of their mirrors who try to look like him.