At the stadium shows, if you slow things down, it gives people too much chance to get up and move around. But at a small venue, everybody is probably so grateful to be there that they don't want to leave their seat no matter what happens.
RICHARDS Yeah, there's that, and also, it's just the physical proximity. I think the band always needs that, because that's how we started, and I think that's where we sort of test ourselves. And we just love it there. It's like having a vacation, to do those shows. I found the band was asking ourselves ''Well, when's the next small one?'' Because sometimes we just couldn't do them for maybe two or three weeks. Everybody gets their strings twanged. Mind you, you lose a couple of pounds, usually. But you don't really bother about that.
Even the rehearsals for this were filmed, as we see in the documentary material. This is probably the first time people get to see you working out in the gym and doing your vocal scales.
JAGGER [sarcastically] Oh yes, really informative. [laughs] There's very little of that -- I cut most of it out... The whole idea is to show that you don't just walk out there and do it. It's all part of the show in a way, even though it's backstage. It's a lot of preparation there and a lot of work going on that you don't see: How many times did we rehearse that number that we never did?
Do you have a favorite from all the feature films, documentaries, TV specials, and even IMAX extravaganzas that have been done on the Stones over the years?
JAGGER A favorite one? I don't know. The IMAX was pretty weird, [laughs] where you see your butt 20 feet wide. Um, I don't know what else. ''Gimme Shelter'' is a pretty good documentary.
