Rolling stones adv

The Rolling Stones: that 50-year itch …
Level 3 Advanced
1 Key words
Fill the gaps in the sentences using these key words from the text.

swaggers demented hellraiser vice sanguine
frisson surreal weather-beaten poignant hell-bent

1. A ______________________________ is a bad habit or personal quality.
2. A ______________________________ face has rough skin from being outside for long periods.
3. If something is ______________________________, it is so strange that you cannot believe it is real.
4. If a person ______________________________, he or she walks in a proud and confident way.
5. If you are ______________________________ on doing something, you are determined to do it.
6. If you are ______________________________ about something, you are confident and hopeful about what
might happen, especially in a difficult situation.
7. A ______________________________ experience or memory gives you feelings of sadness.
8. If someone is described as ____________________________, they behave in a strange, stupid or crazy way.
9. A ______________________________ is a person who causes trouble by heavy drinking, taking drugs or
being violent.
10. A ______________________________ is a sudden strong feeling of excitement, fear or pleasure.

2 What do you know?
Decide whether these statements are true (T) or false (F). Then check your answers in the text.

1. The youngest member of the Rolling Stones is now 65 years old.
2. The oldest member of the Rolling Stones is now 70 years old.
3. The Rolling Stones have sold more than 200 million albums.
4. The Rolling Stones’ 2005 A Bigger Bang tour is the highest-earning tour of all time.
5. One and a half million people saw the Rolling Stones live on Copacabana beach in Rio.
6. Brian Jones, a guitarist with the original Rolling Stones, died in a car accident in 1969.
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NEWS LESSONS / The Rolling Stones: that 50-year itch … / Advanced
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The Rolling Stones: that 50-year itch … for one, only gave up drugs in 2006 after falling
Elizabeth Day out of a tree and undergoing surgery for a blood
13 November, 2011 clot on his brain. When I speak to him over the
phone from his home in Los Angeles, the 67
1 When a Rolling Stone admits that coffee is his year old is sanguine about cleaning up his act.
greatest vice, you know times have changed. “Everybody’s got to grow up eventually,” Richards
During his time as guitarist for the band, Ronnie says in a dry voice. “All of my stuff, I considered it
Wood estimates he’s burned through £20 million all an experiment that went on too long.”
on drugs and alcohol. But nowadays things
are rather different. The Stones have all grown 6 The re-release of Some Girls is especially poignant
up – Wood, at 64, is the youngest in the band; for Wood because the album marked the first
drummer Charlie Watts the eldest at 70 – and, time he was officially recognized as a member
they are still working. They have just released a of the band – “I felt I was finally home,” he says.
remastered version of their hit 1978 album Some Although the Rolling Stones were formed in 1962
by Jagger and Richards (who were at primary
Girls, including new tracks from the archives.
school together), they have undergone a series of
2 When I meet Wood in a central London hotel, personnel changes over the years. Guitarist Brian
he looks essentially the same as he did three Jones, one of the original line-up, drowned in his
decades ago – a bit more weather-beaten, swimming pool in 1969. Mick Taylor took his place,
perhaps, but still sporting the same hairstyle and before eventually being replaced by Wood, while
skinny jeans that seem to have come directly from bassist Bill Wyman retired from the Stones in 1992.
the 1970s. Does it feel surreal looking back on the
7 The Some Girls tour in 1978 produced some of
old photographs now? “Yeah,” he says. “It doesn’t
the most electrifying live performances of the
seem like it’s been all those years. What is it, 30?”
Stones’ careers. A DVD featuring unseen footage
Thirty-three. He gapes in mock horror. “The ‘80s
of the band playing a tour date in Fort Worth,
only seem like yesterday to me. The ‘90s went so
Texas, has just been released and shows Jagger
fast. Before you know it, time has flown by.”
at the top of his game, strutting across the stage
3 In their time as the world’s most famous rock like a demented cockerel. “I started off thinking
band, the Rolling Stones have sold more than 200 about what being a performer meant when I was
million albums and released eight number one about 16,” says Jagger when I ask him about the
singles. When they took to the road to promote tour. “I hope I’m not being immodest, but I realized
their 2005 A Bigger Bang album, it became the I would go out and do it, and the more people
highest-grossing tour of all time (since bettered by seemed to like it the more I seemed to do stupid
U2’s 360˚ tour of 2009–11). At one concert alone, things and dance. You sort of realize that’s your
on Copacabana beach, 1.5 million people turned fate and you develop it.”
up to watch them live.
8 Apart from the music, the partying and the trail of
4 As a band, they have swaggered their way through beautiful women, perhaps the most fundamental
the decades: a multi-headed, hard-partying, hard- reason for the enduring public fascination with the
living, rock’n’roll beast that produced some of the Rolling Stones is the friction surrounding its central
finest popular music of the 20th century, including creative partnership. Jagger and Richards seem
‘Wild Horses’, ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’, ‘Gimme Shelter’, forever locked in an epic battle between love and
‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Paint it Black’ and hate, admiration and mistrust, that has twisted and
‘Sympathy for the Devil’. And they’re still going. turned throughout the last half century.
5 But arguably the Stones’ greatest achievement is 9 Is it, I ask Richards, a bit like working with your
the simple fact of their survival. In 2012, the band brother? “No, it’s like working with Maria Callas,”
marks its 50th anniversary, a feat that seems all he replies.” We’ve been fighting cats and dogs all
the more remarkable in the face of their seemingly our career. We’re like brothers in that sometimes
hell-bent desire to kill themselves. Keith Richards, we love each other and sometimes we hate
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Level 3 Advanced
each other and sometimes we don’t even care.” daughters. Nowadays, Richards tells me, “The
Relations between the two probably weren’t best drug is breathing”.
helped by 2010’s publication of Richards’s
11 But despite the fact that they are all happily settled
autobiography, Life, in which he claimed – among
and doing their own thing, there is an undeniable
other things – that Jagger was “unbearable”.
frisson when the question of a Rolling Stones
10 These days, Ronnie Wood is contentedly single reunion is mooted, as if none of them can quite
(after a brief relationship with Brazilian model Ana let go of the excitement that comes from being in
Araújo) and concentrating on his art – a solo show the band. Wood says he is ready for action next
of his charcoal portraits and oil paintings opened year just in case. “Fifty years!” he shrieks. “It’s got
earlier in November. Charlie Watts, meanwhile, is to be done.” Jagger gives me predictably short
much in demand as a jazz drummer after having shrift. “I’ve no idea,” he sniffs. “We don’t really
survived a battle with throat cancer seven years get together that much as a group.” And what
ago. Jagger has formed a new band, SuperHeavy, about Richards? Can he envisage a reunion tour?
with singer Joss Stone and Eurythmics founder “Envisage?” he laughs. “Yeah. I dream of it.”
Dave Stewart, and continues to produce films
© Guardian News & Media 2011
through his own production company. Richards,
First published in The Observer, 13/11/11
the former hellraiser-in-chief, is married to former
model Patti Hansen with whom he has two

3 Comprehension check
Choose the best answer according to the text.

1. Why is it so surprising that the Rolling Stones have survived for 50 years?
a. because most rock bands only last for a few years
b. because they seemed determined to kill themselves through their lifestyle
c. because U2 became much more successful than the Rolling Stones

2. What does Ronnie Wood look like compared with thirty years ago?
a. He looks much older.
b. He looks exactly the same.
c. He looks almost the same.

3. Why is the re-release of Some Girls poignant for Wood?
a. because his friend Brian Jones died just before the album was released
b. because he was officially recognized as a member of the band when the album was first released
c. because the remastered version includes new tracks from the archives

4. How did the band members react when the possibility of a reunion tour was mentioned?
a. They had mixed opinions about the idea.
b. They all dismissed the idea.
c. They refused to discuss the idea.
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Level 3 Advanced
4 Find the word
Find the following words and phrases in the text.
1. a two-word adjective meaning earning the most money (para 3)
2. a two-word noun phrase meaning a soft mass of almost solid blood that blocks a tube in your body (para 5)
3. a verb meaning to walk in an especially confident and proud way (para 7)
4. a noun meaning a feeling of disagreement between people (para 8)
5. an adjective meaning extremely annoying (para 9)
6. a verb meaning to suggest something as a subject for discussion (para 11)
7. a four-word expression meaning to refuse firmly and immediately to do something, give something or deal with
something in a sympathetic way (para 11)

5 Verb + noun collocations
Match the verbs in the left-hand column with the nouns or noun phrases in the right-hand column.
1. take to a. surgery
2. clean up b. someone’s place
3. take c. a band
4. release d. the road
5. undergo e. an album
6. form f. your act

6 Word-building
Complete the sentences using the correct form of the words in brackets at the end of each sentence.
1. The new album features _______________________ footage of the band from their 1978 tour. [SEE]
2. Ronnie Wood looks _______________________ the same as he did thirty years ago. [ESSENTIAL]
3. Their greatest achievement is their _______________________. [SURVIVE]
4. They produced some _______________________ performances during the 1978 tour. [ELECTRIFY]
5. Ronnie Wood is _______________________ single. [CONTENT]
6. There is an _______________________ frisson when the possibility of a reunion tour is mentioned. [DENY]

7 Discussion
How do you think a group like the Rolling Stones has managed to survive and be successful for so long?
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Level 3 Advanced

KEY

1 Key words 4 Find the word

1. vice 1. highest-grossing
2. weather-beaten 2. blood clot
3. surreal 3. strut
4. swaggers 4. friction
5. hell-bent 5. unbearable
6. sanguine 6. moot
7. poignant 7. give someone short shrift
8. demented
9. hellraiser
10. frisson 5 Verb + noun collocations

1. d
2 What do you know? 2. f
3. b
1. F 4. e
2. T 5. a
3. T 6. c
4. F
5. T
6. F 6 Word-building

1. unseen
3 Comprehension check 2. essentially
3. survival
1. b 4. electrifying
2. c 5. contentedly
3. b 6. undeniable
4. a
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Rolling stones adv

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