Meeting Mick Jagger

Face to face with an icon

Meeting Mick Jagger

Is there a more iconic world figure than Mick Jagger? I’ve been personally close to Jagger three times. Twice at a label organized Meet n Greet with the band and once in a hotel lobby.

Keith Richards describes Jagger as “a couple of nice guys.” Richards complained that Jagger’s personality changed depending on who was in the room. I know a guy whose band opened for the Stones throughout Europe and Asia some forty years ago. “He was a prick,” said Dick. He made it clear he didn’t want us approaching him. “We just gave him his distance; a wave here, a quick hello there, but, really, we just complied.” As the tour wound down, things changed.

“One day, he came into our dressing room and apologized.” According to Dick, Jagger basically said that everyone he meets wants to be his best friend: The only way I can protect myself is by a wall. After that, he was the nicest guy in the world.” If you’re just a middle-class guy from a village outside of London, being one of the biggest celebrities in the world has to get old quickly.

Another time, while working backstage at the show of a significant rock star, I met his private pilot. “Yeah, I’ve flown the Stones all over the US. Interestingly, when Jagger got on the plane, he sat down with five accountants and by the time the plane landed, they’d worked out, to the penny, exactly how much was made at each tee-shirt stand. The Stones were just the opposite of John Denver. While Jagger was all business, when I flew Denver around, they smoked so much pot I had to wear an oxygen mask.”

Is it true? It sounds plausible, but it’s a hell-of-a-story. As Keith notes snidely in his autobiography, Mick makes a list of things to do the next day, every night before he goes to bed.

After losing their songwriting rights from 1963 – 1970 to the less-than-scrupulous Allen B Klein and being forced into tax exile in the early 1970s, it sounds to me as though Jagger had to become the de facto band manager while his partner, Keith, was a junkie stumbling through the 70s and 80s. But ya know, I wasn’t there – I don’t know these guys. But I have met them.

The first question would be, which time? Over the 26x I’ve seen the Rolling Stones, I’ve been fortunate enough to sit in the first four rows six times. Believe me, having sat in the upper balcony in Kansas City on the band’s 2015 tour (I took my daughter), it’s a completely different show. Sitting in the front rows, you can see the band's interactions, hear their comments to each other, and watch their emotive actions designed to push the band’s presence to the back of the stadium.

While their relationship off-stage seems tense, when things go well on stage, the old magic between Mick and Keith is evident. After the band sails through a solo or some choreographed move, Mick often flashes that world-class smile at Keith, who, in turn, will nod or bow back with an equally charismatic schoolboy grin. Whatever drama fills their time off-the-stage, it’s clear the band’s chemistry is still swirling around when they play. They’re clearly not phoning it in.

An interesting aspect is whether on stage or in person, Mick and Keith are very careful not to make eye contact. I suspect that during Brian Jones’ pop band days, eye contact with the audience resulted in riots and destruction as some “flounder” took the visual contact as permission to jump on stage. I dunno; I don’t know these guys.

However, Ronnie Wood is constantly making eye contact. When we saw the band in Ames, Iowa (Voodoo Lounge tour), Wood singled out my Barb and sang the chorus to her. At least, that’s the way we saw it. (Tha’ cad, lol) While on stage, Woody is pointing at people, flicking guitar picks here and there, and sharing a smile. The first time I met Ronnie, he was your best friend immediately. Wood was jovial, bouncing from one foot to the other, giving out hugs, and making engaging and kind comments to everyone. He was unguarded and charming.

At one meeting, a “rough” gal-super fan gave off this “I’m gonna lose it” vibe (see photo above). While Mick, Keith, and Charlie steered clear, the label reps moved in. Woody walked over, put his arm around her, and laughed aloud; mini-riot avoided. [Years later, I re-met the label rep in charge of the meet-and-greet (above). ‘Oh yeah,’ she said, ‘Mick was very clear. He wanted to make sure things were under control and that the reps knew to keep him buffered from any potential issues.’

Once, while posing for the inevitable photo, I put one arm around Wood and the other around the band’s drummer Charlie Watts. Despite fifty years of adulation and what I imagine has to be a pretty nice income, Watts remains nonplussed about being in a rock n roll band. Once, when I met him in the lobby of a hotel in Cleveland, he was with someone else who was traveling with the band but was completely approachable and seemed to enjoy a chat. Just a regular guy with a very interesting job who seemed happy not to have to deal with the adulation that followed Mick and Keith.

Seemingly, he enjoys his relative anonymity and lights up when Mick or Keith gets focused on while he, calmly and with proper Englishman demeanor, vanishes in the middle of a crowd. Well, at the meet-n-greet, when I put my arm on Watts, he immediately stiffened up. As it dawned on me that one does not touch an Englishman, Keith and Mick bent over and exploded in laughter at Charlie’s obvious discomfort. Snap, snap went the pictures. Ouch. [Years later, the four-part BBC documentary on the Stones focused on how uncomfortable Charlie was when people touched ‘his stuff.’ Whether it is OCD or not, I dunno, but Watts, who worked as a graphic artist before the band becoming popular, would draw every hotel room he ever stayed in - which does sound compulsive to me, but hey, being in the Stones sounds a bit like a golden cage- opulent but a lot of time spent in one’s hotel room waiting, and waiting, and waiting. ]

While Keith is, well, Keith – unflappable and charmingly distant, Mick goes through the motions of shaking hands, saying a quick hello, and getting to the business of taking a picture and then exiting quickly. Watching Mick work his way down the line, I focused on the history I knew of Jagger: Jagger in black and red dancing amid chaos and death at Altamont, Jagger acting in the motion picture Performance, Jagger’s post-prison interview on the lawn of some manicured estate, Jagger being “financially unsatisfied, sexually satisfied,” Jagger singing on the Beatles worldwide telecast of ‘All You Need is Love.’

Me: “Hey”

Mick: “Hey.” No eye contact.

I strained to see the diamond in his front tooth and the scar on his wrist he got before the ’75 tour. I was unable to see either.

Me: “Congratulations on your son's [then recent] birth.” Quick eye contact, quizzical look.

Mick: “Thanks, man.”

Me: “Yeah.”

I suppose, like anyone, Jagger’s attitude is one part self-preservation and a second part dependent upon that ever-present To Do list swirling around endlessly in his mind as he oversees the management of a billion-dollar company dependent upon himself and three now-former junkies.

One part of Jagger’s busy day is the necessary strict discipline and focus he needs to keep that massive carnival on track and on time (29 semi-loads of equipment, according to a Forbes article). Another part of Jagger is holding onto that incredible creativity that allowed him to write some of the most iconic songs of the 20^th century. Another layer, of course, is he’s just a guy doing what we all do – thinking about his call that afternoon with his daughter to discuss her grandchild, getting back to some label executive about approving a promotion budget, and “Do I wear black shoes tonight or red shoes.” All the while circumnavigating a world where everyone wants a piece of you, a moment of your time, your undivided focus.

When I met the band in St. Louis, it was a much less distracted Jagger. They were filming a pay-per-view that night, but for whatever reason, he was more engaging. “You come alone?” he asked. “No, my wife is waiting for me.” “Oh, here,” he said as he grabbed and handed me a plastic wine glass and a handful of chocolates, “Tell her I said hello, will you?” “Of course,” I smiled. While it’s not precisely accurate, my Barb swears they opened that night’s show with ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want.’ As Barb tells the story, she waits for the line, “A glass of wine in her hand,” raising her cherished Mick Jagger plastic wine glass in the air in tribute. And yes, you can see us on the Bridges to Babylon DVD.

Meeting Mick Jagger was cool. But not cool like, “Hey Rick, please to meet you. Let’s party.” But cool, like, he’s just a guy that writes great songs and sets the bar for a world-class concert performance night after night. He seems like a guy, not unlike the rest of us, trying to keep things on track, showing up on time, and being prepared: a professional. Somehow, he finds time not to have to be “on” for someone else and, today, being a great-grandfather. I kinda admire the guy. He re-wrote the rules and got a Lordship in the process. Not bad for a kid from Richmond

.