I've met Mick Jagger, watched him live - he doesn't get old
Mick Jagger on stage was mesmeric. Amidst a loud roar of the crowd filling every inch of the stadium, he ran onto the stage and dived headlong into the first song.
For the next two hours he jumped, strutted, showed the versatility of his pelvis. He was a peacock on stage. Fatigue? What's that?
His flashy costume did not betray any signs of sweat. His wizened face exuded a youthful glow. He held the crazed fans in the palm of his hand. "If you start me up, I'll never stop," was his credo.
He was 60 but showed no evidence of it.
Before the show, I had the good fortune of meeting Mick, and his comrades from the Rolling Stones - Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood. They laughed and joked - down to earth, regular guys.
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| The author (extreme left) with Mick Jagger and his band mates. |
On July 26 Mick will turn 73. At this age, people slow down, take it easy, and relax. They don't have a manic lifestyle. They play with their grandkids. And they certainly don't procreate. But not Mick.
Birthdays are usually an occasion for stock-taking. On the professional front, both Mick and the Rolling Stones are going strong. They are showing no signs of ageing and have their collective foot firmly on the accelerator.
They have just finished a tour of Latin America and played the last gig of the tour in Cuba.
How's he as a singer?
When I first heard Mick in the 1960s, in comparison to the Beatles his voice and style was unconventional.
But I was hooked. Though he may not be technically perfect and often described by music critics as unexceptional, his voice is one of the defining male voices in the history of rock 'n' roll.
It's the way he uses his voice that makes Mick great - his aggressive style, his talky-singy delivery, employing a bit of country twang when needed, hint of nasal reeking of sleaze, the phrasing and attitude.
His sense of pitch and melody is spot on. He can sing a perfect falsetto. And he's outstanding when he sings super-raw. His unique contribution is the jagged-edge incantation. It's not just "Wild Horses" but "wild, wild horses".
The acceptance of Mick's voice on pop radio opened the door for singers with uncommon voices. Suddenly Neil Young and Van Morrison, even Bob Dylan, weren't so strange after all.
Over the years his voice has become stronger though the texture has changed. The reason why his voice still retains the magic is because of what every artist knows - practice and more practice.
Mick is a disciplined artist, completely dedicated to his craft. People tend to write him off as a jet-setting celebrity these days, living the high life, rather than the serious artist he was and still is.
His writing skills are underrated but history will credit him - along with Keith Richards - of brilliant, soulful, soaring, incantatory anthems.
The team has written powerful songs that will live forever. Most of them are written for Mick's voice, for his persona. Their last studio album "A Bigger Bang" was released in 2005.
Richards has confirmed that a new studio album is on the anvil and the duo's writing skills will again be on display.
The band's famous logo of a licking tongue has become the most famous icon in rock - and still is now.
It distils the essence of the band into one single visual reference. Mick wanted a likeness to Kali, the Hindu goddess of everlasting energy, who boasts of a large mouth with her tongue sticking out. But the logo also draws inspiration from the size of the lips and mouth of Mick himself. That's as far as Mick, the musician is concerned. How about Mick, the person?
He's a lothario who's believed to have slept with more than 4,000 women. His philandering and infidelities are legion.
A look at his colorful history will show a trail of scorned women he's left behind - Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Perez-Mora Macias, Jerry Hall, Luciana Morad, L'Wren Scott, and many more.
Yet, women find him gentle and charming. Though they know him to be a dangerous sexual predator, they feel that the romance is worth it. His charm and status is a toxic drug to them.
Kids? Mick has seven children ranging in age from 45 to 17. He has five grandchildren, and in 2014 became a great-grandfather.
And now he's expecting his eighth child from his current girlfriend - the 29-year-old ballerina Melanie Hamrick, who is, by the way, younger than some of his children.
Mick's in good company. His band mate, 69-year-old Ronnie Wood, and his third wife announced the birth of twin girls.
Not for any other reason has Mick and his band continued to rule over the rock n' roll landscape for more than 50 years.
At the rate at which the front man and his buddies are going, they will be playing gigs into their 80s.
They are stoutly defying their own iconic rendition - "Time waits for no one, and he won't wait for me."
But even after they have packed their equipment and left the stage for good, the Jumpin' Jack's legacy and that of his band members would live on forever.