A Rock-Hard Case for Stones’ Throne

Opening for the Rolling Stones at the Pond on Tuesday, Bryan Adams’ music was so undemanding of its listeners and so unchallenging to the performer--not to mention just dang loud--as to make a reunion of Journey redundant.

Adams seems like a nice guy, but not so nice as to keep one from wondering, Why are the Rolling Stones doing this to us? Maybe Adams works cheap; it’s very much in Mick Jagger and Company’s character to explore bold new vistas in fan exploitation.

Witness the “No Security” tour’s $300 tickets and $30-minimum T-shirts. One could almost believe that the bare-faced greed of the Stones’ touring machine is calculated to leave fans nothing to like about them but the music, to rest their credibility on the stage and nowhere else.

And here they came, in black-and-white cinema verite footage projected above the stage, Mick, Keith, Charlie and Woody striding through the backstage area with grim, resolute expressions on their faces, as if they were about to clock in for a long day at the slaughterhouse. And then they rocked.

That’s what the Stones do: They rock. Tuesday in Anaheim, they were doing that better than they have onstage since 1973, playing living, breathing music with an edge and vitality one wouldn’t have thought possible after their moribund “Steel Wheels” tour--and only hinted at in their most recent “Bridges to Babylon” outing.

The Stones opened with “Jumping Jack Flash,” which they’ve usually reserved for encores. From its first crunching chords, you were willing to forgive them anything. They could be milking us like aphids at the concession stands. Who cares? Just render unto Caesar and enjoy the funky gladiators.

Who would have thought the band that sang “What a drag it is growing old” in 1966 would be, by example, helping a generation stave off that feeling?

There’s no question Keith Richards is growing old. The guy looks like he’s made of beef jerky, yet still charmingly like rock’s most elegantly wasted buccaneer--bedecked in a purple shirt, red sash and black stovepipe pants. He slid across the stage on his knees as if he were Pete Townshend circa 1972, not a man, who after last year’s birthday, qualified for a senior discount.

Fellow Glimmer Twin Mick Jagger, at 55, can still do his frenetic monkey dance for 2 1/2 hours without getting winded. His singing was, by turns, forceful and vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the indomitable Charlie Watts seemingly without effort gave each song the drive and rhythmic tension that has always been the Stones’ secret weapon.

Ron Wood’s guitar work never kicked the music to a higher level, but he did a competent job of keeping it grooving along.

The Stones hadn’t played Orange County since July 24, 1978, when fans spontaneously tossed thousands of shoes onstage at the then-Anaheim Stadium, an event the band members have recounted as a highlight of their touring careers. Sadly, local fans did nothing to follow that act.

The Stones, however, did toss quite a few surprises the audience’s way, with a set list of songs they rarely play--and, in some instances, never played live before.

“Some Girls,” for example, wasn’t even played on 1978’s “Some Girls” tour. You had to wonder if Jagger dusted off its mildly misogynistic lyrics over the divorce action wife Jerry Hall recently filed amid reports he’d fathered a child with a Brazilian model, what with its lines about women who take his money and “give me children I never asked them for.”

Jagger spat out the lyrics with a punkish ferocity. To the other extreme, the moody, lushly atmospheric “Moonlight Mile”--a song recorded in layered tracks in the studio, and never played live--offered Jagger’s most human vocal of the night. Other little-heard hits included “Paint It Black,” “Before They Make Me Run,” “Sweet Virginia,” “Live With Me” and “Respectable,” which was given a new, almost country tempo.

Even most of the old warhorses seemed fresh, with Richards giving his incisive “Honky Tonk Women” solo more teeth than he likely has in his mouth. “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll,” a song the Stones usually have performed on autopilot, sounded as alive as a box of kittens, given the sort of irresistible drive typically reserved for “Tumbling Dice,” which was also none too shabby Tuesday.

The recent “Bridges to Babylon” songs worked well alongside the classics. Even Richards’ “Thief in the Night” offered a certain snaggletoothed charm. The only real disappointment of the evening was the worn-out version of “Sympathy for the Devil” the group served up as an encore.

Perhaps the relatively small indoor venue and stripped-down stage (made to resemble a loading dock, with yellow and black ramp stripes)--without the inflatable toys and pyrotechnics of past stadium gigs--reminded the Stones that the music comes before the packaging. That was doubly evident during a portion of the show when the four Stones and core adjunct players Daryl Jones on bass and Chuck Leavell on keyboards repaired to a boxing ring-sized stage at the center of the floor.

As they launched into their Chuck Berry-ized version of “Route 66” (which Jagger dedicated to its author, Bobby Troup, who died Sunday), it became clear that the Stones aren’t just the stadium spectacle we have made them, but also what they initially set out to be: earnest enthusiasts for the American roots music they’d heard on records in their youth, still in love with the music and thrilled to be part of it.

Following that with the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination” and a sinewy “Midnight Rambler”--with its dramatic tempo changes propelled by Watts’ drums and Richards’ slashing guitar, and Jagger’s working the crowd like a shameless stripper--you had to think maybe, and not just by attrition, the Stones are the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band.

* The Rolling Stones and Bryan Adams play tonight at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, 2695 E. Katella Ave., 8 p.m. Sold out. (714) 704-2500.