Review: Great, Inside Journalism - A Document of a Time Which Seems So Long Ago
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 26, 2013
This is a fantastic account of life on the road with the Rolling Stones as they toured America after a three year hiatus in 1969.  At the time, the Stones were the ultimate ticket and everybody wanted to see them.  If you've ever seen the movie "Gimme Shelter," then you'll recognize this as the same tour which ended with the tragedy at Altamont.Lydon does an excellent job describing the pleasures and the agonies of being on the road with one of the biggest rock acts in the world.  I particularly enjoyed Lydon's analysis of what the individual city's fans were like.  From glam, pretentious LA to defiant Oakland to crazily energized Detroit.He also does an excellent job describing the constant human circus around the Stones.  He explains very early on that access to "the boys" was extremely limited and very controlled by their handlers.  One of the problems with access becomes clear around halfway through the book; although Lydon was invited to travel with the band, he is clearly an outsider and subsequently his contact with the actual band members was as limited as everyone else outside their inner ring.  There is some cool info about the band, but most of it is observations from a distance as opposed to actual personal interviews or discussions.  That's not so bad though because it sort of placed him between the Stones and their adoring audience which definitely gave him a unique perspective on what was going on.This is a fun read if you are a fan of good times rock and roll in an era just before the corporations took control and rock concerts became stadium spectacles.  It is also a great document of one last wild fling of the 60's before the Hell's Angels brought down the curtain on the community born of the Summer of Love.