Rolling Stones Rock Rio Today

The Rolling Stones are performing a free concert on the beaches of Rio tonight. (The city is paying $750,000 for the gig, according to the BBC. But it's unlcear if that is a payment to the Stones or just the cost of placing 10,000 cops in the area to keep the peace.) About two million people are expected to jam the Copacabana Beach one week before Carnival is launched. That's not a record by the way: Rod Stewart played to 3.5 million people on that beach in 1994. Given the setting and the fact that Barry Manilow just topped the charts, can I make one suggestion for a cover? "Copacabana (At The Copa)." That would be silly fun, but of course the Stones set list is arthritic and incapable of change. They'll play "Brown Sugar" and "Start Me Up" and the same other 15 songs they always play. (This is the 35th anniversary of perhaps their greatest album: Exile On Main Street, which hit the charts in June of 1972. Wouldn't it be great if they did concerts and played the damn thing straight through? Jut a thought.)