Stones say no to nostalgia

Stones guitarist Keith Richards

In a move sure to perplex fans attending their Easter Sunday Western Springs show, the Rolling Stones are turning their backs on their musical past.

Rather than the hits of what many consider to be their heyday - the 60s and 70s - the group's set will concentrate on material from their little-bought recent albums.

"We are tired of being the soundtrack of the Baby Boomer generation," Keith Richards told the Herald, "especially as those cats stopped buying our albums in 1982 and took up aerobics".

"In the past 20 years we have released lots of songs that haven't been given a fair hearing, especially on my solo albums. It's time the fans recognised that."

Richards said he'd grown tired of playing the Stones "classics".

"Ironically, I derive no personal satisfaction playing the riff to Satisfaction night after night, genius as it may be, and so far as those other songs ... well I've always had a problem with the latent misogyny in Honky Tonk Women and Brown Sugar. And so does Ron."

Richards said he was not worried if there was a hostile reaction from an Auckland audience expecting to hear the old hits.

"Hey, we've had worse - especially when we played Invercargill in 1964. And hey, man, me, I was born in a crossfire hurricane ... "

However, the band will be playing A Fool To Cry. "Because the lyrics in it remain poignant," said Richards, said, "especially today".


* NOTE: The date on which this story was published - April the 1st - may give readers some clue as to its 'authenticity'.