Stones toast Scorsese concert movie

The annual Berlin Film Festival kicked off on Thursday with an unusually packed press conference. The Rolling Stones were in town to attend the gala premiere of Martin Scorsese's movie, Shine a Light, shot over three nights of Stones concerts at New York's Beacon Theatre in 2006.

According to The First Post's Berlin correspondent James Woodall, "Ronnie Wood appeared sleek and pomaded, like a pantomime dame. Charlie Watts always looks like a slightly pissed-off bank clerk, and did so in Berlin - but with such besuited elegance. Keith Richards was himself, more or less drunk, with a strange hole in his hat, as if he had been shot at."

As for Mick Jagger, within seconds of striding on to the press platform, it was obvious as always who's in charge. "Well, I would I just to like to thank everyone for being here," Mick intoned, as if conducting a corporate press conference.

The four Stones' sashay down the Berlinale's red-carpet was conducted with aplomb and elegance - until Richards went slithering down some steps during the screening.

The film itself is generally reckoned to include some of the most stunning concert footage ever taken of a rock band in action, interspersed with archive clips of interviews and shots of the band as shy young men who never dreamt the gig would last this long.

The most surreal moment in the film is when Bill Clinton shows up at the Beacon with Hillary's mother, Dorothy Rodham. "Hiya Dorothy," leers Keith Richards, with his best Jack Nicholson smile.