From the archive: "The Rolling Stones: Live At The Max"

Dating from the early days of IMAX (1991, to be precise), The Rolling Stones: Live at the Max is a 90-minute concert film, co-directed by Julien Temple, which sees its subjects - even then, a pretty seasoned five-piece, with Bill Wyman still in tow - take to the stage of the old Wembley for the London leg of their 1990 Steel Wheels tour, another stop on the trajectory by which this group transitioned from chart-troubling hitmakers to hard-travelling heritage act. They were, at this point, some twenty-odd years on from Altamont and everything that came with it; the songs now a mix of the classics the crowd had come to hear and the new material the band were here to promote, the set part-rollercoaster, part-steampunk pirate ship, with just the merest hint of Pat Sharp's Fun House. The rickety old rock 'n' roll circus was being converted, year by year, tour by tour, into a giant theme park offering (expensive) glee for all the family. (Keith was a decade or so from becoming a walking punchline in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie.) This stage, criss-crossed by dolly tracks that resemble some toytown narrow-gauge railway, was a playground on which these now fiftysomething rockers could rejuvenate, like sexually suggestive Doctor Whos, in order to recreate certain glories of their shared youth. (Not least when two inflatable Amazonians unfurl from the rigging during "Honky Tonk Woman", one of whom has the audacity to mess up Mick's hair with her foot.) Here is a rare concert movie that also functions as a form of music journalism: without resorting to dull backstage interviews, it explains why the Stones have kept on touring, it explains why people keep paying through the nose to see them, and it also explains, in passing, why Mick Jagger has remained as slender as he has. (His step count for this one night alone must have been astronomical.)

What Live at the Max also demonstrated along the way was that IMAX as a format is good for two (and maybe only two) things. First: large-scale portraits of personalities. It's Mick, clad in a succession of doubtless designer dress coats, visibly desperate - even after all these years - to prove that he's more than just a one-trick pony: here he is picking up and plucking at a guitar, here he is tossing his maracas into the wings in a demonstration of rockstar noblesse oblige. It's Keef stepping forward from time to time, either to sing when Mick nips off for a mid-set pee (the bladders aren't what they used to be) or to duet and duel with a perma-smoking Ronnie Wood (different times). Through it all, Charlie is keeping time at the back, vaguely self-conscious whenever this camera peers in through his kit for a close-up, but also quietly delighted, visibly touched by the audience's response after all this time. Bill, being Bill, appears utterly unfussed and unfazed by any of it, which is its own definition of cool. Second: the format invites immersivity. Around a quarter (and maybe even a third) of the screen is filled with raised and clapping hands during "You Can't Always Get What You Want", and we're almost certainly hearing a better sound mix in this format that we would have heard on the night at the Wembley of 1990. Nothing, neither song nor chant nor cheer, is lost; we're at the max, yes, but we're also right there in the thick of it. Floating around the band here is an early inkling of just how vast such gigs were going to get in the 21st century: coming soon, a whole spectacle, a whole infrastructure, a whole rotating ecosystem, because shows like these were going to be the only way for musicians to make any money going forwards. What Live at the Max chiefly confirms is that the Stones were always legendary showmen; they were the Beatles who figured out how to play live before a screaming audience. Sometimes you pander to them, as Mick does; sometimes you ignore them entirely, as Keef and Bill do, and play as if no-one else is listening, as you did in your teenage bedroom. But soon all gigs would be this maximal, even for acts who don't have this deathless a back catalogue.

(December 2025)

The Rolling Stones: Live at the Max airs on Sky Arts tomorrow night (Fri 23) at 9pm.