How a Concert Film Showcased the Rolling Stones' '80s Excess

In a lot of the way, the Rolling Stones had been constructed for the large display screen.

Performance after compelling live performance efficiency discovered Mick Jagger’s larger-than-life character paired alongside Keith Richards’ suave lead guitar taking part in, with Ronnie Wood, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman weaving in between. Take 20 cameras, prepare them on this band and an viewers, and also you’re sure to seize one thing magical.

That’s roughly the premise behind Let’s Spend the Night Together. Released on Feb. 11, 1983, this stay Stones live performance movie incorporates virtually nothing however straight efficiency footage from two live shows that came about on their 1981 American Tour.

Let’s Spend the Night Together begins with footage shot on Dec. 13, 1981 at the Sun Devil Stadium, a huge enviornment in Tempe, Ariz. As the suns units behind the venue, a whole bunch of multi-colored balloons elevate into the air and the band performs “Under My Thumb.” A stage painted in shades of pink, purple, yellow, pink and blue was purposefully designed to retain as a lot of the viewers’s consideration as attainable. Footage from a completely different live performance, shot on Nov. 5 and 6 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., follows later.

“Most concerts that took place outdoors at the time were played during the day,” Jagger mentioned in According to the Rolling Stones, “probably because it was cheaper, I don’t know. So we had the bright, bright primary colors … and we had these enormous images of a guitar, a car and a record — an Americana idea — which worked very well for afternoon shows.”

Band members aligned their wardrobes with the colour scheme, too: Jagger wearing a cotton candy-blue jacket and shiny white football-style pants, Watts in a blue and pink striped tank and Richards with a flash of pink suspenders.

The present was enormous primarily as a result of it merely wanted to be. “When you’re out there in this vast stadium, you are physically tiny up onstage,” Watts added in According to the Rolling Stones. “And when the show gets that big, you need a little extra help. You need a couple of gimmicks, as we’ll call it, in the show. You need fireworks; you need lights. You need a bit of theater.”

The elaborate spectacle was made all the extra spectacular contemplating that not the whole lot was clean crusing at that time in the Rolling Stones’ profession. It was the starting of what would change into a tumultuous few years in the relationship between Jagger and Richards, and in addition a second the place it was out of the blue unclear simply which Rolling Stones would truly hit the street. Wood was battling dependancy, too.

Somehow, none of this rigidity is palpable in the movie. “Everybody had wanted Ronnie off the U.S. tour — he was just getting too out of it,” Richards mentioned in his memoir, Life, “but I said, no, I’ll guarantee him. … Anything to get the Stones on the road.”

They’d launched live performance movies earlier than, starting with Gimme Shelter in 1970, however nothing of this magnitude: The Stones’ 1981 tour was the highest grossing of the 12 months, attracting roughly two million attendees.

Watch a Trailer for ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’

Let’s Spend the Night Together was directed by Hal Ashby, a multi-Oscar nominee whose resume then included movies like 1971’s Harold and Maude, 1973’s The Last Detail, 1975’s Shampoo, 1976’s Bound for Glory and 1979’s Being There. But Let’s Spend the Night Together represented the first foray into musical movie for Ashby, a longtime Rolling Stones fan. He’d go on to direct the Solo Trans venture by Neil Young, a few years later.

Despite this preliminary inexperience, Ashby captured each the large parts of the present — like a seemingly unending line of magnificence pageant girls who take over the stage, or the second Jagger darts into the viewers himself and seems to be swallowed up by followers — in addition to the extra private particulars: There was Wyman’s sheepish grin as he watches Jagger carry out a notably loopy dance transfer, and Jagger’s direct eye contact with the digicam.

In one other spot in the movie, whereas the Rolling Stones play “Time Is on My Side,” boyhood photographs of the band members and photographs of their earliest performances is proven. More materials is intercut, displaying the group gearing up backstage. In one memorable scene, Wood will get his eyeliner utilized; in one other, Jagger checks his look ahead to the time and encourages these round him to get a transfer on.

Most of Let’s Spend the Night Together, nonetheless, is rightfully reserved for straight footage of the live performance. The set listing contains earlier hits like “Beast of Burden,” “Miss You,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and, after all, “Let’s Spend the Night Together” – plus a number of songs from the Stones’ then-new album Tattoo You, like “Little T&A,” “Hang Fire” and “Start Me Up.” Ian Stewart, Ian McLagan, Ernie Watts and Bobby Keys are featured along with the core Stones.

The movie pulled in $3.8 million at the field workplace, whereas incomes reward for its vibrant colour and prime quality. A New York Times critic deemed it “probably the handsomest rock ‘n’ roll movie ever made.”

At the finish, Jagger seems in a big crane above the viewers, nonetheless gyrating to the music under him. When he comes down, he disappears backstage for a second earlier than returning draped in a multi-national flag honoring each the U.S. and Great Britain. More balloons are launched as the crowd cheers and Jimi Hendrix’s model of the “The Star Spangled Banner” performs over the credit.

For those that missed the ’81 tour, do not fret: As Jagger later promised, Let’s Spend the Night Together provides “a feel of what it’s like to be there.”