TV REVIEW : Pay-Per-View a Poor Medium for Drama of Stones’ Concert

Football, boxing, movies, sitcoms, game shows, wrestling, basketball, talk shows, the nightly news, Michelob commercials, Paula Abdul videos, documentaries, reruns, evangelists, even congressional hearings work on television.

Rock ‘n’ roll concerts usually don’t.

Repeat those words slowly the next time your local cable company invites you to pay 20 bucks or so to watch a rock concert--even if the publicity push claims it to be the “concert event of the decade” and promises surprise guests.

Both statements were made in association with the Rolling Stones’ pay-per-view concert originating Tuesday night from the Atlantic City Convention Center, the next-to-last stop on the Stones’ triumphant 3 1/2-month North American tour.

Neither was justified. The concert wasn’t even close to being the pop event of the decade (try “Live Aid”) and there were no guests beyond the four musicians announced ahead of time.

And those guests--Eric Clapton, John Lee Hooker and Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin--didn’t exactly “join” the show as much as pass through it.

Rose shared lead vocals with Mick Jagger as Stradlin played guitar on the Stones’ old “The Salt of the Earth.” Clapton later checked in for a tasty guitar solo on Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster” and stuck around as bluesman Hooker took over for a song. They all did return at the end for a bow.

Otherwise, it was the same Stones show that played across the country in recent months: a striking display of musical precision applied to the Stones’ magnificent catalogue of songs.

But the telecast magnified the chief weakness of the show: It’s a parade of hits rather than a presentation with a revelatory or thematic point of view. It also neutralized one of its chief strengths: the spectacular lighting and staging effects.

The music was compelling at times and the camera work steered free of the gimmicky extremes of so many TV concerts. Still, it was all too easy--especially if you had seen the Stones’ tour live--for your attention to wander during the lengthy program.

At a concert, a fan is caught up in the atmosphere and drama of the evening in a way that keeps you involved in the show even if there is a momentary dip in the action. At home, there are options if things get slow, and it was too easy Tuesday to drift away from the set.

To overcome the absence of arena drama, a TV concert needs to be more than a replay of the arena show. It needs to involve more potentially historic moments--especially in the area of special guests--so a viewer gets caught up in the excitement of anticipation.

Without that degree of involvement, TV concerts are a risky proposition. If a live Rolling Stones concert can’t hold your interest, imagine trying to concentrate for 2 1/2 hours on Phil Collins or Whitesnake.