The frontman Mick Jagger measures himself against: “I always try”
Mick Jagger is one of the few artists who seemed born to play onstage.
Even though playing to stadiums full of people wasn’t really on his list of dreams when The Rolling Stones first started performing, there’s no doubting the fact that he has more energy than nearly anyone else in whatever arena that they play in whenever they come to town. And while Jagger does have a lot of respect for some of the biggest names in music that have reached his level, he did have a few shows that could give him a run for his money.
Because while anyone can try to outrun Jagger and put as much energy into a show as he does, the younger generation is always going to keep him on his toes. But when looking at the biggest names that have come out after him, it’s not like Jagger needed to worry about someone with more energy. Freddie Mercury was a showman to keep his eye on, but even when U2 started to become the biggest band in the world, he was never trying to compete with them.
After all, Bono was the kind of frontman who seemed more like a preacher, whereas Jagger was more interested in giving the audience a show to remember. But when the rest of the world started to see the Irish juggernauts as more than a little bit full of themselves on Rattle and Hum, Achtung Baby was the moment where they collectively hit the reset button on their live performances.
They had already graduated to the stadium circuit, but the ZooTV tour was the first time that people were getting a multi-media event. It doesn’t look that strange these days, but the idea of Orwellian-style television screens and a singer looking like something ripped straight out of a theatre production was like something out of a sci-fi movie in an age when Nirvana and Pearl Jam were slowly becoming giants.
And while Jagger had his own brand of rock and roll to work with on Voodoo Lounge from around that time, he felt that Bono’s performance as MacPhisto was his closest competitor, saying, “I always try and get out there and make sure that we’re keeping their attention, working the audience, whether you’re in a club or a theater or a stadium. The lemon has become the thing against which, in my world, all things are measured.”
To his credit, though, Bono has been able to get a lot more drama out of U2’s shows while not having to run around. Being the rock and roll equivalent of the devil and calling up various world leaders throughout one of their tours is already one of the cheekiest things that any rock star has ever done, but it’s still a far cry from the kind of manic energy that Jagger has every time he performs.
Granted, not every one of The Stones’ classics needs that kind of energy, and there are more than a few times when Jagger has looked absolutely ridiculous playing up his rock and roll persona when singing with David Bowie, but it is a much better way of approaching a stadium. Even if Bono was playing a character, he was still leaning into the messianic complex he had, whereas Jagger seemed to genuinely be working to win over every single person that paid for a ticket.
Then again, if you look at the kind of production designs that The Stones had on their final tours, they are still at least willing to step up their game when it comes to the visuals of everything. MacPhisto was a great template for a character, but when all the lights in the arena go red as Jagger comes out to sing ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, there’s no one else on this Earth who feels like the pure embodiment of evil.
