It was a long time coming, but Aaron Neville finally performed with the Rolling Stones over the weekend, when he joined them onstage Friday in Philadelphia for the Drifters classic “Under the Boardwalk.” It’s one of the few songs that the Stones and Neville have in common: They recorded it back in 1964 and put it their second US album 12×5, hardly ever playing it live since then. It was one of the vintage R&B numbers that Neville revived for his current album My True Story.
There’s been a strong Stones/Neville connection in the past—though usually through Aaron’s son Ivan Neville, who’s played in Keith Richards’ spinoff band the X-Pensive Winos and been in the studio with the Stones. The band’s been bringing big-name guests for most of the shows on its current tour; other cities got Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. We’d say the audience in Philadelphia on Friday got the better end of the deal.
