Hail and Farewell to the Rolling Stones at Sofi—Pretty Great for 52 Bucks

The longevity of the Rolling Stones almost seems a mystery—in former times a rather dark-hued one—but a mystery that everyone who sees them live in concert can solve with decent accuracy. (You know, the greatest rock band in the world. Somebody has to be. The trick is, they keep proving it).

You will have noted the lads above, who happened to be seated alongside me and my wife in the rafters this past Saturday night.  The mere happy presence of these young gents at their first Stones show was in itself a kind of guarantee that our same-day ticket buy was the right move. Upon settling in, my take to them was, “First show? Lucky you. You’ll need no further introduction to what’s coming.”

Since 10 a.m. that day, I’d been scanning that dynamic pricing leg hold trap,  Ticketmaster, for bargains. The price vacillations that can be so loathsome under high demand quickly dropped the third digit, and then sank further until by 4 p.m., when we bit for $52 per seat.

Five hours later, in confirmation of lifelong fandom, Keith Richards stood before us—two hundred or more yards before us, it was true--cranking out crunchy, brittle, time-defying guitar jangles, and Mick was—well, you know.  

As they have done for so long, the Stones swell up readily to confront the skeptics,  the  ageist non-believers. As witty and crucial 40-something rock savant  Steven Hyden says in his book, “Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me”: “I do not subscribe to the obnoxious notion that music that existed before I was born is somehow an affront to me.”

As he ponders great band rivalries, he slags off deniers of the Beatles’ greatness (“I suppose there are weirdos who also hate cheeseburgers and chocolate cake, too,”)  but ultimately avers that “when the Stones were great, they were better than The Beatles…the run from 1968 to 19872…is the best for any rock band ever…that shit is elemental.”

(Here’s the run: Beggars Banquet/Let It Bleed/Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out/Sticky Fingers/Exile on Main Street)

All that said, even after a fine time at SoFi,  I  understand Hyden’s gibe twitting the Stones for “not breaking up… and [then] raking in all that nostalgia cash in the 90s and `aughts. …cold-blooded but adorable from a business perspective.”

And yet, the inner urging that made me finally punch the "buy" button was the stirred-up cache of memories of a lifetime with what some announcer memorialized as “the rock and Rolling Stones”.

To wit:

 November 25, 1969, Spectrum Arena, Philadelphia: Emboldened by a warm-ish Pennsylvania winter day of 40 degrees, I hitched  two-plus hours east to Philly with a friend known to our  cadre of more conservative frat bro’s as Mr. Weird. As we walked the last mile down an off-ramp and with showtime closing in, a thundering helicopter, no doubt stuffed with the band, came out of the rosy twilight to alight on the arena roof.  We walked up to a ticket window and (using  cash money with no fees to Ticketmaster)  hurried in to stand on the floor. 

They kicked off with Chuck Berry’s “Carol," and later added Chuck’s “Little Queenie," both --or either--of which might have been part of  Keef’s audition for the nascent  Stones combo known as Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys, as led by a skinny-for-life lad then known as Mike Jagger. They closed at the Spectrum with “Gimmie Shelter,” which would never again resonate as innocently as it did that night for me--six shows later came the tour’s end  with death at Altamont.

 October 17, 1973, Forest National, Brussels: Living in Paris and employed as a messenger for an international firm, I played hooky to hop in a cramped green station wagon—Edith Fiat was the vehicle’s moniker–with a Brit friend. Three-plus highway hours (and some crappy ValStar beers later), we watched Billy Preston energize what became a classic, authorized bootleg set:   

 https://alldylan.com/today-the-rolling-stones-recorded-the-brussels-affair-in-1973/

June 14, 1978, Passaic, New Jersey: A typical Wednesday afternoon at Rolling Stone, and my friend and mentor Chet Flippo’s face and lanky frame appeared in the door: “Wanna go see the Stones in Jersey?” 

We all but sailed up Broadway to the G.W. Bridge and 17 miles out Route 4. 

The gig was a one-off, impossible ticket, a promotion-minded news-making event (pure Stones lick, that).  The marquee of the funky old Capitol Theater in Passaic would read CLOSED FOR REPAIRS and there were already hordes of kids milling haplessly about in hopes of getting one of 3300 $10.50 tickets. 

First up was a Chuck Berry tune: “Let It Rock”. Oh yes. 

The second number, “All Down the Line,”  with its evocation of the madness at the notorious “Exile On Main Street sessions in a mansion outside Nice, France, plunged us into "Honky Tonk Women," "Star Star,” "When the Whip Comes Down,” and “Miss You”. (I’d see it  48 years later at So Fi on Saturday.) And then Mick surprised even go-to stones expert Chet by strapping on a Strat to cover the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination”.

It’s easy to lose all attention to any fanboy’s setlists of Stones classics, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a rock show close any better than the band closed this one:

Tumbling Dice"/"Happy"/"Brown Sugar"/"Jumpin' Jack Flash"/Encore: "Street Fighting Man"

October, 1989, New York, Shea Stadium:

As the group  rounded off the first leg of a the nation (and globe)-spanning Steel Wheels tour, it was determined they—meaning Mick in this case—would be willing to chat a bit about the  elaborate staging, including the two 40’ inflatable dames who bracketed the stage at a certain point in the set. The assignment was for a briefly revamped LOOK Magazine.

Interview Mick? I’m down. 

Cut to backstage, probably early in their row of Shea Stadium dates, and the introduction is made. Jagger is attentive to a pinball machine in the band lounge—as to me, not so much. But when his last pinball clunked into the chute, he turned and rather seriously, with full eye contact, stated, “If you’re doing this piece, I’ll help you out.” 

In due course, the show began; soon, two dollies puffed up with many a pneumatic wriggle during “Honky Tonk Women.” I was watching on the risers where the mixing board sat, crammed alongside a trio of  laminate-bearing exotic dancers (so I presumed) much resembling the inflated ones.

And then--June 13, 2024, SoFi, L.A. : Per the above, your correspondent and wife Kate caught a ride with our pal Hunter, who used Inglewood’s back alleys to avoid the constricted routes to the $85 parking lots. Once there, we summited the SoFi obstacle course (a “Guns of Navarone”-scale mission) to our seats. 

However hounded by marketing-induced FOMO I’d felt when acquiring our tickets, after comparing notes with the gents behind us (I sheepishly—or was it pridefully?--admitted  to paying but $52 to their $175 per roost), I met the two chipper guys in the above picture. That’s Caleb to the left—his dad had supplied the seats and as a longtime Stone fan, was on the floor much nearer to where an ant-like figure who simply had to be Mick was cavorting. 

Wham!--with the opening chords of “Start Me Up,” the pair next to me were was rocking out to the very songs I’d seen across the decades in those above-enumerated shows. The mere happy presence of these lads at their first Stones show was worth double my knocked-down price. 

(Also, thanks for that beer you brought me gents, I didn’t dare leave my seat through a long run of  winners.)

The best moment for this yob was easily “Gimmie Shelter” (see amateur video below). Chanel Haynes—who has played Tina Turner on a London stage—poured out glorious sounds that Merry Clayton, who famously did her studio take in curlers,  would surely approve.

So, thanks again, Stones, and newly hatched fanboys. I’ll just say if it’s the last time, they did the job. And struck a great blow example of not going gently when you have so much to give.

Link to Mick and Chanel doing "Gimmie Shelter":

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0a4chYtKgBo0NfGcDgZi_KLQw