It also offered a workshop on how pure enthusiasm can trump, or at least momentarily outwit, age and its alleged limitations.

As has been observed endlessly, the self-proclaimed World's Greatest Rock-and-Roll Band is hurtling toward the retirement bracket, and is now as notable for its "we're still here" tenacity as anything else. But surviving on rock-veteran autopilot is one kind of feat; performing with the ruthless intensity the Rolling Stones displayed is quite another.

At each of their Licks Tour venues - which also included Veterans Stadium on Wednesday and the First Union Center on Friday - the Stones turned up for work as though something important was on the line. They came out breathing fire and didn't stop, an iconic institution yanking itself from the safety of the history books into the messy here-and-now through sheer force of will. And spiky rhythm-guitar riffs. And that almighty riveting backbeat.

It was something to witness, this crew of over-50 road warriors, working without crutches such as TelePrompTers, digging deep to locate new approaches to "Honky Tonk Women" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," seeking musical peaks uniquely suited to each setting.

Much of the credit goes to Mick Jagger, who was in remarkably strong voice throughout the run. The famous mouth interpreted the songs with lacerating conviction and none of the dismissive glances he's given them on previous stadium outings.

Watching him up close at the Tower was like seeing Superman ready to bust out of the phone booth. His gestures were outsized and exaggerated in the 2,900-capacity theater, each move pushing the music upward. Jagger has no peer as a pop showman: As he jerked and pouted through the emotional ripples of "Hot Stuff" and "Heart of Stone," he was part clown and part cheerleader, doing whatever was necessary to take the crowd higher.

From the very first chorus of opener "Jumping Jack Flash" (which was the last encore at the First Union), Jagger fed greedily on the energy he helped to create, and celebrated, openly, what many younger rock figureheads have failed to grasp: If you don't embody every sassy ripple of the songs, if you don't believe in them, nobody listening will either.

Save for a massive lighting rig, Sunday's Tower show had none of the elaborate production of the Vet and First Union Center, where the audiences numbered roughly 38,500 and 20,000, respectively. There was no fancy staging, no video screen plastered with the tongue logo. (Perhaps sensing a lost merchandising opportunity, Jagger appeared after guitarist Keith Richards' two vocal numbers wearing a black muscle shirt emblazoned with the trademark tongue. It was the most curiously unsubtle gesture of the night.)

The absence of gee-gaws was a blessing to fans who have witnessed the Stones become puppets in elaborate tableaus of their own creation. Sunday's intimate setting offered the chance to focus on the outfit's musical and personal chemistry, not the media myth, and it didn't disappoint. Among the highlights were an impressively loose version of "Rocks Off" and a greatly expanded "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," which began as a wobbly groove and gathered steam slowly, inspiring remarkable solos from the revitalized Ron Wood on guitar and Jagger on pitch-bending blues harmonica.

For all the buzz attached to the Tower show, the First Union concert (which, like the Vet date, wasn't a sellout) proved the most consistently awesome evening of the three. Happy to be indoors and comfortable with the scale of an arena, the band put a little extra heat on everything. It was only the ninth show of the Licks Tour, but the Stones made it seem like the 99th, particularly when Wood and Richards engaged in a guitar duel during a definitive treatment of "Gimme Shelter," and when Jagger, singing from a satellite stage on the arena floor, scatted through the falsetto howl of "Miss You."

Watching the Stones three nights out of five was to learn there are different ways to achieve "Satisfaction": in the ballistic, stadium-rattling encore of Wednesday, the more nuanced arena-rock stomp dropped casually into Friday's set, and by not hearing it at all, as was the case at the Tower. It wasn't missed: Though diehards probably grumbled at some of Sunday's song selections (A third night of "Start Me Up"? Is "Hot Stuff" really worthy of an update?), even the jaded had to admit that staples such as "Brown Sugar" and "Tumbling Dice" were executed with enough boogaloo grease and who-cares looseness to make them almost like new songs.

That's one indication of just how intense these shows all were: Even during the perfunctory hits, stuff hard-core fans can hardly be bothered with, the Rolling Stones sparked off each other like a bunch of young hell-raisers, and they didn't let up until they had exhausted every possibility.