SHINE A LIGHT

It’s funny, watching Martin Scorsese fussing over things like set lists. The great director isn’t new to concert movies, having made one of the best ones ever in The Last Waltz, which documented the final concert by The Band at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco in 1976. In that film, performance footage is interspersed with intimate interviews with the musicians, and the evocative venue itself becomes like a character in the story.

Scorsese uses a similar approach in Shine a Light, the new IMAX concert movie about the Rolling Stones, filmed at the Beacon Theater in New York City during the band’s 2006 “Bigger Bang” tour. Scorsese, the auteur, wants a set list so he can plot specific camera shots. He finally gets the list just as the band launches into “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” to kick off a great set of Stones staples that’s spiced with chestnuts like “Loving Cup” from Exile on Main Street (a Jagger duet with Jack White, for the kids) and “You Got the Silver,” featuring Keith Richards crooning like a pirate.

Christina Aguilera comes out to do a little grind with Jagger, and Buddy Guy joins in on a cover of Muddy Waters’ “Champagne and Reefer,” bestowing approval from the reigning king of Chicago blues upon the retirement-age Englishmen who promoted that sound to the world.

The band’s longevity is of course a thing of wonder, and the great thing about this movie is how it captures the rawness of their sound as well as their mischievous energy and charm. As Richards says: “When I’m onstage, I don’t think. I feel.” Thanks to an all-star camera team comprising Oscar winners and nominees, Shine a Light transports you right up on stage with the band, sweat flying, strings bending, lights flashing. It’s an invigorating place to be. That must be why, at the preview, people were sitting in the dark, clapping at the screen.

—buck quigley