The Royal Stones Mick And The Boys Treat Themselves Like Kings During Grueling Tours

It’s three hours before the Rolling Stones’ “Bridges to Babylon” concert gets under way here, and Keith Richards and Ron Wood are already attracting attention.

Instead of prowling the giant stadium stage before 35,000 fans the way they will shortly, the guitarists are circling a bright green snooker table before a couple dozen friends and VIPs in the backstage Babylon Bar, a lavish lounge stocked with $50 bottles of wine to wash down the tempting Southwestern cuisine.

At first, the game looks like simply a way to kill time before the concert begins at 8:30 p.m. Yet there’s an intensity that suggests the whole thing isn’t just a casual diversion.

“This is definitely part of the tour therapy,” Wood explains later. “The concentration that the game requires helps us start focusing on the show itself. Sometimes we’ll have two or three games, but even one is enough to get our heads together. There’s also music playing, which, too, helps you get into the mood.”

While Richards and Wood are playing snooker, the parking lots around the University of New Mexico football stadium are starting to fill. Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts - the other famous faces in the legendary band - meanwhile are going through their own pre-show rituals.

Jagger is down the hall in his dressing room, conducting a series of meetings about band business matters. Drummer Watts is in his own dressing room, conserving energy for the show.

It’s all part of a preparation process that begins when the musicians wake up.

Back in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, when the Stones were defining the concept of “bad boys” in rock, it was easy to picture nonstop partying with the only preparation for the stage being a few shots of Jack Daniels - or something even more potent.

But touring, especially at a stadium level, is such a demanding process that you can see during a day backstage how they have to keep focused in order to survive. It’s a remarkable blend of glamour and tedium. The shows are invariably a rush, but the drain of travel can, after a few weeks, make hotel rooms feel like prison cells.

Albuquerque is the 17th stop on a yearlong tour that began in Chicago on Sept. 23.

By the time the “Bridges” tour ends in September 1998 in Europe, it will have been seen by more than 3 million people and grossed more than $150 million.

“The secret is to keep focused at all times … to never lose track of the two hours you are on stage,” Jagger says, sitting on a sofa in his dressing room, which is a couple hundred feet down the hall from the Babylon Bar.

“It’s not like you have 22 ‘free’ hours and then you suddenly step on stage. Everything you do in the day should help you prepare for the show. You have to find a way to deal with the emotional and physical toll, or the road will destroy you and the show itself.”

On this day, Jagger got up about 11 a.m. He’s big on exercise, especially jogging, but he has to conserve his energy on show days. “You can’t go hiking in the foothills here, for instance, because you’ll be tired when it comes to the show,” he says. “Even on off days, you can’t really play tennis hard because you might twist your ankle or something.”

Today he took his wife, model Jerri Hall, and their children (ages 5 to 13) to lunch at a quiet Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of town. The other band members, too, are joined at various points on the tour by their families.

Ninety minutes before the show, Jagger will close himself off backstage to warm up his voice and go through a bit of dancing and stretching to get his body ready for the high-energy performance.

It’s 6 p.m. now and you can sense the adrenaline starting to build. Outside, the crowd is taking its seats. Down the hall from Jagger, Watts is packing his bags for the band’s charter flight after the show to Dallas. At 56, Watts is the oldest of the remaining Stones, and life on the road seems to hit him the hardest. But it’s not the wear and tear of the constant travel so much as simply missing being home in England, where he and his wife raise horses.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about it,” he says matterof-factly, neatly folding a shirt before placing it into a suitcase. “You can’t bring your home with you. My ideal thing would be playing in my living room and putting the music out on the Internet or something.”

Watts spends most of his time in the hotel room. He’s normally up around 10 a.m., has breakfast in the room and then watches television. If he’s in a city such as Los Angeles or New York, where he has spent a lot of time, he’ll go out shopping with friends or perhaps visit a museum.

Wood, who joined the Stones in 1975, replacing Mick Taylor, also spends much of the day in the room, but he’s not likely to be watching television.

“I love to sleep,” he says, with a bemused air, as he sits in a stadium office. It’s 6:30 p.m., and you can hear the roar of the crowd as Sheryl Crow, the evening’s opening act, takes the stage.

“It takes a long time to get to sleep after a show because of the adrenaline and all, but once I get there, I stay there until it’s time to go to the venue. I probably average about eight hours a night, but I’d prefer 15.”

What about days off?

“I love them,” he said, smiling broadly. “More sleep.”

Like Wood, Richards, who is married to model Patti Hansen, seems to have adjusted well to the road. He’s the modern-day blues man who would probably play clubs on his own if the Stones ever broke up.

“I’ve been doing this for so long that I find it hard to spend more than a few weeks at home between tours,” he says, leaning back on a backstage couch shortly before 7 p.m. “There’s a restlessness that is as much a part of me as the music. So, we kind of travel around a lot as a family whether I’m on tour or not. I’ve always loved traveling. … I wanted to travel even before I imagined it would be possible for me.

“When we are on the road, I try to bring my family along with me for two or three weeks, or I’ll go home if there are a few days off. During the ‘Voodoo Lounge’ tour, we were in Australia, Africa and Japan and the kids (daughters, age 11 and 12) came with us all the way. It was a better geography lesson than they could ever get in school.”

During the two-hour-and-20-minute set, the Stones will do some songs from their new “Bridges to Babylon” album, but the emphasis is on the classic hits, from “Satisfaction” and “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” to “Tumbling Dice” and “Honky Tonk Women.”

By the time the band gets to the encore number, “Brown Sugar,” several vans are in place near the edge of the stage. Within a minute of the final notes, the band will be in the vans and en route to the airport for the chartered flight to Dallas.

They like to leave town right after the show because it’s less taxing not to have to worry about flying on the day of the show. At various points on the tour, in fact, the band will base out of one city and fly to the show and then back to the home base, which eliminates the packing.

“There was a time when the ‘lifestyle,’ if you will, was as important as the show itself,” Richards said before going on stage. “A time when it all seemed to be one blur. But eventually it’s the music that wins, and everything else becomes just a means to that end.

“The truth is the time on stage is the only time you can really relax, because no one is going to bother you. You have total freedom. You can just play. That’s what you live for.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The Rolling Stones will perform Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Kingdome in Seattle. Tickets are $60 and $39.50, available through Ticketmaster. Call (509) 928-4700 for locations or (206) 628-0888 to purchase by phone.