The Rolling Stones are returning to Austin for a second time.
Photo by Jacob Power
After days of wild speculation, secret murals, and hush-hush releases, the rumors are confirmed: The Rolling Stones are coming back to Austin. The iconic rockers will hit the Circuit of The Americas Super Stage on Sunday, May 24 as part of their 2020 No Filter Tour.
The band will also play Dallas’ Cotton Bowl Stadium on Friday, May 29.
The new dates are an extension of their sold-out 2019 tour by the same name, which Rolling Stone the magazine called “a triumph" for Rolling Stones the musical group. While that 13-city tour did hit Houston and New Orleans, it largely bypassed the South and Southwest U.S. The last time the British rockers played Austin was in 2006.
Heralded as a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience, COTA is offering specialty packages for the appearance, including premium camping, luxury outdoor boxes, trackside seats, picnic packages, and other luxe upgrades.
Tickets for the Memorial Day weekend show go on sale to the general public Friday, February 14 at 10 am CT. American Express cardholders can purchases passes before the general public beginning Wednesday, February 12 at 10 am through Thursday, February 13 at 10 pm.
The release did not stipulate what will happen to that Stones-themed mural that popped up on the LaBare building on Riverside Drive earlier this week, but considering the former strip club has been vacant for over a decade, we'll bet it's sticking around for a while.
Music biopics never seem to go out of style, although they’re rarely very good because most of them tend to tell the same story. A musician/band gets discovered, rises to popularity, experiences trouble at their peak due to (insert sex/drugs/alcohol/ego), and either finds a measure of redemption once they’ve been sufficiently humbled or dies due to their lack of control.
Paradoxically, what few music biopics fail to do is properly showcase the music that made the person popular in the first place, a mistake that A Complete Unknown doesn’t repeat, becoming a smashing success in the process. The film follows Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) over a roughly four-year period from when he first arrived in New York City in 1961 to his then-revolutionary electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
Dylan seeks out well-known folk singers Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and an ailing Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) when he first arrives, with Seeger taking him under his wing. Dylan starts to establish himself in the local club scene with his unique songwriting voice, meeting fellow singer Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), with whom he starts an on-and-off relationship. As his popularity grows, his reaction is antithetical to what’s expected, as he rarely engages with fans and focuses on his next song(s) instead of the ones for which he became known.
Directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line) and written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, the film may not be much of a revelation for Dylan superfans, but for casual fans or those who know nothing about him, it is one of the most effective music biopics in recent memory, if not ever. Not only does Mangold track the musical evolution of Dylan, but he gives the full context of the people who influenced him most, including Guthrie, Seeger, Baez, and more.
The film is not a musical in the traditional sense, but the amount of music in it makes it the next best thing. Rarely does more than a few minutes go by before someone is singing, either on stage, for someone close to them, or as part of the songwriting process. Whether you’re a folk music fan or not, the way the genre is showcased in the film will make you believe in its power and why it was so popular at that particular point in time.
Dylan is famous for his enigmatic personality, and Mangold does a great job of maintaining that elusiveness while still exploring what drove Dylan early in his career. His relationships with Baez and the fictional Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning) give him some dimension, but why he continually went back-and-forth between them (or why they put up with him) is only lightly explored. The film keeps most of the drama focused on the music, and it’s this decision that makes it as compelling as it is.
Chalamet has been “The Next Big Thing” since his Oscar nomination for Call Me By Your Name, but the combination of the Duneseries, Wonka, and now this has firmly established him as the star he is. His Dylan impersonation (including singing) is subtle-yet-clear, and he has the cool factor that makes him completely believable in the role. The supporting cast is also off-the-charts good, with Norton and Barbaro making the best cases for awards notice.
While 2024 has had its fair share of great movies, A Complete Unknown — in this critic’s opinion — should now be the favorite to win Best Picture at next year’s Oscars. It bucks the trend of mediocre music biopics by giving moviegoers the transporting feeling of what it was like to experience Dylan’s meteoric rise, and why his early songs remain so indelible.
