The Rolling Stones (Rogers Centre, Toronto, September 26)

Earlier this year, notoriously erratic singer-songwriter Ryan Adams played Toronto's Lee's Palace. As Adams swigged from a bottle, stopping and starting often unrecognizable versions of his songs and growing increasingly incomprehensible, audience reaction was mixed. As half celebrated his renegade genius, the other half looked on in disgust or headed for the exits, put off by the unprofessionalism and self-indulgence of it all.

It's fair to say that if those two sides had been at the Rogers Centre last night, their reactions would have been reversed - those favouring the erratic unpredictababilty that's long defined rock 'n' roll fleeing in horror, and those looking for a flawless night of musical theatre looking on in delight.

They may once have been the ne'er-do-wells who holed up in a French mansion, took an absurd amount of drugs and recorded Exile On Main Street, but the Rolling Stones of today are a well-oiled touring machine. Even if they've spent much of their 40-plus-year career feuding with one another, and Keith Richards looks like a walking Just Say No commercial, there is less chance of something going awry in their live show than there is with perhaps any other band currently on tour.

We knew the set would be even bigger and more elaborate than the last one, though in this case the structure behind them looked rather like the sort of industrial park the Stones' infinite number of sponsors might do business in. We knew they'd open with a video display (a play on the title of their new album, A Bigger Bang), pyrotechnics, and Start Me Up. We knew that Mick Jagger would make a dramatic entrance in suitably flashy attire (a glittering silver jacket and equally sparkly black shirt), then undergo several wardrobe changes and end by showing a little skin. We knew they'd offer a taste of the new stuff (Rough Justice) - but only a taste - to a polite reception. We knew Richards would take his turn at the mike to endearingly warble out two songs (The Worst and the new Infamy), no more and no less. We knew they'd dot their set with old favourites that occasionally go overlooked (Dead Flowers, the underrated early '80s hit She's So Cold), throw in the odd cover (including, on this night, a genuinely terrific take on Ray Charles' Night Time Is the Right Time), but never dare to overlook the standy-bys that really get the baby boomers' fists pumping in the air.

This is the same show, give or take the odd trick up their sleeve, that the Stones have been putting on ever since the Voodoo Lounge tour more than a decade ago. And so far as being a polished rock 'n' roll spectacle, it's a vastly superior one to the shows put on by the band in its early incarnations - big, bright and fun to look at, Jagger working every inch of the stage, Richards and Ronnie Wood riffing off each other, the brass section and backup singers helping create smoother, more grandiose renditions of the classics than the studio ones.

A cynic might point out that the entire well-choreographed performance is more Vegas act than rock concert. Mick, Keith and the boys clearly enjoy what they do, and they do considerable justice to some of the best rock songs ever written. But on their third mega-tour in eight years, they could also do it in their sleep.

But then, when you shell out up to $450 for tickets, it's probably not unreasonable to want a guarantee that you'll get what you paid for. For the few members of that other contingent of music fans - the ones who crave something less polished and more unpredictable - who found their way in, there was always Beck opening the evening with a set that included his band members eating around a table while he played acoustic songs. But to most of this crowd, that probably just seemed unprofessional.