Stones Get Their "Flicks"

The Rolling Stones will release Four Flicks -- a four-DVD set-on November 11th. The package features three discs of footage from shows at Madison Square Garden in New York, Twickenham Stadium in London and the Olympia Theater in Paris during the Rolling Stones' recent Licks Tour.

The fourth disc is composed of a pair of behind-the-scenes documentaries from the tour, titled Licks Around the World and Tip of the Tongue. The former keys in on the preparation for the tour and the latter chronicles gigs in the U.S., Japan, India, Europe and the U.K.

Highlights of the package include the band's first live versions of tracks such as "Monkey Man" and "Rocks Off," as well as DVD bonus features like "Band Commentary" (that allows fans to cut to footage of the group discussing the writing and recording of the song in progress) and "Select-A-Stone" that lets viewers single out camera shots of individual Stones.

Marty Callner directed the concert filming at the New York, Paris and London shows, and let the physical shape of the venues dictate the way each show was shot. "With the Madison Square Garden Show we tried to give the viewer a front-row seat," he says. "The Paris show was punk and rough, sort of garage-y, so there was an aggressive camera style with cameras flying around, tilting, zooming. The Twickenham show was bigger than life and that's the Stones -- that's what people expect from them."

The DVD set will be sold exclusively at Best Buy for four months after its release.

In other Rolling Stones DVD news, legendary director Jean Luc Godard's 1968 film Sympathy for the Devil will be released on October 21st. The film, originally titled 1 Plus 1 uses the Stones' attempts at capturing the perfect take of the title song as a starting point to tackle hot-button social issues of the late Sixties.

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Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

More Song Stories entries »

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