Let's Spend the Night Together

An account of three gigs, filmed during the Stones' 1981 American tour, that rarely strays beyond the confines of the vast stages. There's no attempt to penetrate the carefully constructed cliché images of 20 years - the monkishly-tonsured backroom boy Watts, the phlegmatic Wyman, and Jagger's posturing posterior are all present and correct. Although one may mourn the lost opportunity to say something about the Stones other than that they are twenty years older than they were twenty years ago (cue 'Time Is on My Side'), a Stones concert is still worthwhile entertainment. The sound is of high quality, the music is as you'd expect, and some of the helicopter shots are a wheeze; but the relevance of those newsreel clips of burning Buddhists and headless soldiers is dubious - this is not Woodstock, even though Ashby obviously wishes it was.