A couple of weeks after "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" hit the top of the UK charts and all resistance was futile the Stones were the Stones but not quite when the Stones were THE STONES. Bad craziness on a two day trip to Ireland in 1965 with Pete Whitehead filming every moment.
Released and then bottled in 1966, and then again in 2005 only this time without the Stones music, it has been refurbished, dusted off, and an immaculate version is now available for your home viewing pleasure.
It is superb -nearly the equal of the Bob Dylan "Don't Look Back". The Stones are staggeringly young and powerful, and funny, whether it be Keith Richards singing "Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner" or a stunningly beautiful and fragile seeing no future for himself or the Stones or Charlie Watts (the darling of the title!) saying how much he missed his wife when he was away, it is the most human and perfect spotlight on the greatest rock and roll band ever.
None more so than the 22 year old Mick Jaggers, years before he was the mythic tongue he is now. Just a guy marshaling his gifts, quick with a smile, trying to figure out who he is on stage and off. An incomparable moment has him posing for pictures at a wedding. There is something still approachable about him, something still just a young blues fan. And we can watch it even as it disappears.
And it disappears fastest on stage where the band can hardly hear themselves but on a dynamic version of "The Last Time" it simply doesn't matter and Jagger is the only white man on earth who can successfully channel James Brown. The entire band is terrific, with Brian's harp an absolute joy and Richards so young and handsome and with a goofy smile on his face.
This would be enough to make it better than "Crossfire Hurricane" but the scenes with Keith and Mick working on their great song "Sittin' On The Fence" (remember it? "one thing's not said too much but I think it's true, they just get married cause they've nothing else to do"). Keith playing the lick on an acoustic guitar and singing the chorus and Mick joins in and then they discuss the rhymes and Mick is guiding Keith. It is as fascinating as these things get, we are watching them in the process of creation. And the closeness between the two, they are truly precisely what Keith said they were in his memoir "Life": in complete agreement about everything.
A little later on the two are drunkenly singing Beatles songs before they move on to Presley and in Jagger's exaggerated funning sneer you can here part of what Jagger himself is. He reveals his influence even as he laughs at it. One of the greatest music documentaries I've ever seen.
Grade: A+