"I was very worried it would be a remake of 'The Last Waltz,' which was great, of course, but it was then. I was concerned that it would look like the 'The Last Waltz,' which is why I said no interviews. This needed to be different. Then there were other matters: How much was this going to cost? Who's going to pay for it? Who's going to release it? We were on tour, and this would require cutting a week out, for rehearsals, the shows, all of that . . . I was thinking, 'Oh, um, do I really need this?' I'm still thinking that."

For Jagger the problems were in the months leading to the show, but for Richards the problems were during the show itself. At one point a female fan jeered him -- "You screwed up!" -- when he flubbed some chords. The salty Richards jeered right back: "Shaddup!" (Jagger and Scorsese got a good laugh from it in the editing room but softened the volume on his scream for the sake of the soundtrack.)

Richards also looked a bit flabbergasted right before the band launched into "Live With Me," that raunchy classic from "Let It Bleed." "This girl came out and I was, like, 'Who is that?' I had no idea." It was Aguilera, one of the most famous pop singers in the world. "Yeah, that's right. I don't know. I'm still not sure who that is. She can sing, though. And she looked good."

The show was assembled from a two-night stand and, like those old Stones movies, there was an unexpected tragedy. Ahmet Ertegun, the stately music executive who co-founded Atlantic Records and was a dear friend and supporter of the band, stumbled backstage and hit his head. He died within weeks. Jagger was asked about the grim footnote to the evening and, for once, seemed at a loss for words. Not Richards: "I know, it was awful. There we are on stage, rockin', and there he is backstage, croaking. What can you do? I loved him. But you know, what better way to go? Backstage at a Stones show? That's how I wanna go."

When first conceived, "Shine a Light" (named after a song on the 1972 "Exile on Main Street" album) was going to be a "big" show -- Scorsese was going to bring his battery of cameras and document one of those massive Stones shows that approaches a NASA launch in its decibels and mission-control calculation. There was even talk of filming the Stones in Rio de Janeiro where a beach concert was expected to bring a million fans. But after seeing a few Stones shows in person, Scorsese wanted to zoom in, not out.