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I was jonesin'. It had been one thousand eighty-five days since I had heard live Stones at Atlantic City and I was jonesin' bad.

I don't even remember how I found out about the Glimmer Twins. You know how it is when you're jonesin', you find yourself in places you wouldn't ordinarily be and you don't remember how you got there. And you're thinking about doing things you'd never do in your right mind. Things like seeing a tribute band. Yea, I was that low.

Woody didn't make things any better when earlier in the week he said , "It's all very good. I saw Mick and Charlie last week. Everything is great." When asked about the rumored tour, Wood added that he was confident that the Stones will be out on the road in 2010, adding, "Let's hope so, yeah!"

So Nov. 6, there I was headed west on 70 with my girl. Looking for Potomac street in Hagerstown. The Glimmer Twins were going to post there. I downed two bombers on the way up and listened to the boys 35 years earlier on the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Time travel. Nice. I needed to blot out the reality of what I was about to do.

I have never seen the Stones younger than I am. They always had a couple years on me. Color TV was still 10 years in the future for my household when I first saw the Stones on TV. I never thought about their age we were always more or less the same age. That is how they managed to play the soundtrack for my life so well over the years. They knew what I was living.

I bought two tickets, on the floor, Keith's side, end of the aisle-and they had them. The Maryland Theatre is the first piece of the fantasy. This, my friends, is where you want to see the Stones. Thirteen hundred seats, they claim. I doubt it. Built in 1915 it was built at a time when nothing was more important than acoustics. And the bawdiness of the burlesk house era, complete with six overhanging boxes. One of America's countless hidden venue gems sprinkled across the (once) small towns of America.

There is not a bad seat in the house. Whyte Bread was the opening act. Drums, bass and a good lead guitar. All but the good guitar were my age. You know the size of Meatloaf? The singer was the size of Meatloaf and a loaf of Whyte Bread. I better understand Mick's appeal. They did an eclectic too long set beginning with Steppenwolf and Led Zeppelin and ending with the Southern Rock of Skynyrd.

While waiting for my fix I was overcome with doubt. Maybe I shouldn't be here. Maybe I didn't need this hit as bad as I thought I did. The intimate stage was decorated with six old tour posters revised for the Glimmer Twins. A drum set, a keyboard, two racks of guitars or tow guitar players and a bass were onstage.

The theater floor was approaching two-third full, the balcony was busy but not full. All the men in the first two rows looked like John McCain, no one looked like Cindy. The women were thick bodied and rectangular, lots of the men were apple-shaped. Most of the crowd was in their 50s and 60s with a strong minority of thirty somethings. Other than a child being hoisted into the air by its father there were no young people here.

There was a smattering of tour shirts, a couple pairs of spiked heel boots but mostly sensible shoes. Lots of cellphones and beers in clear plastic cups from the Theatre bar. Low key anticipation never quite grew to excitement but we were all waiting for the show.

I sat quietly, dealing with my continuity anxiety. What if he comes out as omega man (circa '69) singing Start Me Up (circa '81), then what? How am I going to enjoy a show where omega man sings songs that did not exist? As with most worry, it was all for nothing.

My girl knew another woman at the show. She went to say hello and came back with some the degrees of separation insider info that the Glimmer Twins had a "new" singer. Damn those jungle drums! A new singer? A new singer? Saying the Stones or a tribute band has a new singer is liking saying the '27 Yankees have a new leftie batting third. The Glimmer Twins may have anew Mick but they do not have a new singer, the man is not a singer, please!

Three guys, now four have walked onto the stage. A Smallville Clark Kent in white shirt and suspenders sits behind the set. Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle, takes the keyboard. A young Indiana Jones will be Mick/Woody and occasional Brian. On bass think a grown member of the bad news bears complete with backwards hat. These guys are not trying to be Stones. I am wary.

I look once more across the crowd, both hair and dope are in short supply tonight. The lights blink once and go down a DJ says things I do not hear. The classic Ya-Ya's intro clip comes up loud it morphs into the big band intro into Continental Drift and a damn good Start Me Up riff splits the noise into two segments, before the show and after the show. The show was on.

Keith rules across the stage, an oddly enjoyable character this one. We forget how long it took Keith to become Keith. It did not just happen at the first 1965 show I saw. It took decades to accumulate the shoulder shrugs, the head tilt, the grin, the skull ring, the chin bracelet, the crouch, the hand draped across the mic, the comfort with himself. But here it all is in this young impostor, all at once, 40 plus years of Keith in a 20-something version of this old rock and roll legend. And he did a helluva job all night long. He played Keith as well as anyone this side of the Stones is ever going to do. His opening rif fwas on a five string yellow Strat, he played the neck, he prowled, he stood sentry for Charlie, he was the forty plus year veteran in 1970s style.

Bernie/Keith could both play that guitar and he could play Keith well enough to stop your jonesin' and that is all I really wanted. But he was even better than that. They did a set that will wear you out for over two and half hours. I'll pull three out of their set list for special attention. Monkey Man has always been a favorite of mine buried in the tracks, but it has such a great play it loud vibe to it. Recent versions by the Stones have been accentuated and slowed down to accommodate the inevitable demands of traveling around the sun for as many decades as our boys have. But the Glimmer Twins with two guitars, a bass, a keyboard and a tireless excellent drummer played that tune as well as I have heard it played in a long time.

Don't anyone misunderstand me, these are not the Stones, but they are more than fun, they are a damn good bunch of musicians playing someone else's music. Carol was just good old kick ass rock and roll, Chuck Berry meets the Rolling stones, brought to you by the Glimmer twins. And when Brian/Keith got to his solo, Happy, he out keefed keef. Pure entertainment. More than four decades of rock and roll's purest pirate jammed into a single tribute tune.

There was not a single bad song in the set that ran to 25 songs.

Start Me Up

Tumbling Dice

Bitch

Get Off My Cloud

Shattered

Monkey Man*

IORR

Dead Flowers

Beast of Burden (Valorie)

Sympathy for the Devil

Carol*

Satisfaction

Midnight Rambler

Gimme Shelter

Paint It Black

Sweet Virginia

Ruby Tuesday

Angie

Live with Me

When the Whip Comes Down

Happy*

JJF

Honky Tonk women

Brown Sugar

Street Fighting Man

Back to the opening. Keith/Mick (don't get confused on me now)began a 150 minute plus imitation of London's most famous perpetual motion machine. Where Brian/Keith nailed the look of our young pirate, Brian/Mick had a tougher task matching the build, clothes, moves, looks, lips, voice and charisma of Rock's front man. He got the build, clothes, moves and stayed pretty faithful to the 1970's Mick in his performance. The longer Keith/Mick was on stage the more Mick and the less Keith you saw.

No one can sound like Mick. No one can growl, no one can reproduce the energy or the menace of those years. But a damn good impersonator can get you a whole lot closer in a perfect hall in a (once) small town in Maryland than anyone is ever going to believe. It is not easy being Mick on stage and Keith/Mick did a very nice job on the vocals. The demanding set list fatigued his voice later in the show but Keith/Mick gave you moments you have seen before and that is the highest praise I can offer.

Valorie Steel is Mary Clayton and Lisa Fisher. Like the other performers she combined decades of experiences into a single persona. She enters in a bad trip Brady Bunch 70s dress and takes her position as 'the' backup singer. She gets her solo on Beast of Burden (what???) and then plays Lisa to Mick and pays homage to Mary's 1969 Gimme Shelter that will please you right out of your seat.

Ben/Bill is pretty stationary but he moves more in one night than Bill did in a career. With the drummer he lays down a solid rhythm section that will make you think about the good old days. Mike/Mick/Woody is an exceptional guitarist who happily takes a back seat to Brian/Keith. Mike/Chuck plays the keyboard and provides the few effects that really sell Monkey Man and a few others. Perhaps the one downer is that these are the Glimmer Twins. Only the Mick and Keith characters try to sell you on the look. And everybody was buying. These guys gave us time travel. The rest of the band does not bother trying to sell themselves as Stones. And we don't expect it or need it when you play that well. But maybe dressing the 70s part would smooth the sharp edge of their incongruity.

You sat in your seat and for a few moments you forgot they were the Glimmer Twins and that this was the Maryland Theatre and that you actually ate at Bob Evans earlier in the evening. But the very best part is that there were moments you will remember. Not about the Glimmer Twins, but something different.

We've all had those days when we awaken unaware of our dreams and begin the day. Then at odd, spontaneous moments someone will say something, you will see something that triggers an ancient memory from the night before and a dream segment, never the whole dream, comes back to you. And you are momentarily living it. This is what the Glimmer twins will give you, if you are a Stones fan. They will gift you with a moment from nineteenseventywhatever and put you there, right there.

It does not last long, but it is real. And a little while later they'll give you another one. In between those moments you'll hear the Stones played as well live as anyone is going to play them and you'll have a lot of fun along the way.

If your jonesin' and someone approaches with a "Pssst," and shows you some Glimmer Twins, buy. Find a friend and consume together.