Way back last Christmas my kids gave me a Rolling Stones concert DVD called Shine a Light, filmed by Martin Scorcese.  I like the Stones, but have never felt they were necessarily my favorite band, you know...  but they have created a metric ton of great music over the years.  And I've always respected them for their longevity and purity, they've always been, well, who they are, and they still are, even though who they are is a lot older :)

So I've had this DVD, and kind of set it aside, and recently kind of re-found it, and last Friday I watched quite a bit of it while stuck in traffic (don't ask).  And it is great!  Really, really, really great.  In addition to being a pretty nice movie of a pretty great concert, it is interspersed with lots of interesting flashbacks and interviews and personal vignettes which really give you a feel for the band as people.  I'm going to say they are masters of the fine art of just being who you are.

One little example: so they interview Ronnie Wood, and they ask him: "who is better on guitar, you or Keith?"  And he kind of hems and haws and finally says "well I am of course".  Laughing.  And then they interview Keith Richards, and ask him the same question.  And he hems and haws and says "oh I don't know", and they tell him "well Ronnie said it was him".  And Keith says "yeah he would say that".  And then he adds "the truth is we're both pretty lousy, but together we're better than ten others".

And that sums up Keith and Ronnie and Mick and Charlie and the whole band for me.  They're each pretty lousy, but together they're better than ten million others :)