By Carol Young
SATISFACTION….and a whole lot more.
An inside look at the Rolling Stones stop in Phoenix
I write this still recuperating from the reliving my late teen/early 20’s years by going to the Rolling Stones concert. Actually, living them for the first time would probably be a more appropriate way of phrasing it. Oh I had my share of fun in the 60’s and 70’s, but I wasn’t a Stones fan back then. They were okay, but I was into seriousness, heaviosity, and Pete Seeger back then. The Stones were rude, crude and just not respectful. (what can I say?)
So anyway. It’s 1997, I’m pushing 50. I’ve lived a lot. I’ve learned a lot: STONES RULE!!!!! MICK RULES!!!!!
A truly ab fab experience. Loved every minute. The Rolling Stones make it super-okay to turn 50 (a major concern for me these days) because they still rock hardy and they should really be dead. But they're not. They haven't killed themselves. They haven't killed each other. They opened their concert with a burst of fireworks and that wonderful, driving guitar riff from "Satisfaction". And I realize that song is 32 years old!!! Think about it. Hit number one in the Summer of '65. And it still plays great. And Keith Richards still plays great. The Stones perform on stage like they really still enjoy each other's company and what they’re doing. It’s wonderful to watch.
They didn’t have a lot of gimmicks: no giant blow-up dolls for "Honky Tonk Woman" , no huge dice for "Tumbling Dice". Just lots of lights and lots lots lots of speakers and amps. I know it must have been a good show because I couldn't hear well for about an hour after it ended. Planes were flying over the stadium -- the airport runway is less than 5 miles away. The landing gears were down. And you couldn't hear the planes overhead. Them Rolling Stone gee-tars drowned them suckers out. Yes, this is what rock and roll is all about.
I stood up for most of the show and just kinda bounced in place with all the other old Boomers who were there with either their far-too-young dates or their 16 year old kids. There was a front-page article on the mother who was taking her 16 year old daughter to the concert (on her motorcycle mind you) to commemorate the fact that when the Stones played in Phoenix in 1981, she had to be air-lifted from the stadium because she went into labor during the show and delivered said daughter a short time later. Mother/daughter bonding is soo kewl, don't you think? It was that kind of night.
A small fire broke out in back of the stage toward the end but no one missed a beat either on stage or in the audience. I was just worried that they'd make us evacuate before they got to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" or "Brown Sugar" (don't I have my priorities straight?) but it was extinguished quickly. We think the flares used as backdrop for Sympathy (I truly always thought it was "Symphony") for the Devil set something on fire in the empty bleachers behind the stage. The fire moved up the seats, but didn't really spread outward. You could see crew running up the stairs with water bottles like Arrowhead delivery guys on speed. Someone finally used a fire extinguisher. The air drift went away from the stage and crowd so there weren’t any problems with smoke and the show went on.
Meanwhile, the Stones were doing a boom-boom-boom, one-right-after-the-other rendition of 1) "Sympathy for the Devil", "Honky Tonk Woman", "Start Me Up" (say, do the boys now have to pay royalties to Bill Gates for using that song?) and "Jumping Jack Flash" to end the concert. And came back with "Brown Sugar". My concert experience was complete. By the time it was all over, I not only couldn’t hear, I couldn’t talk so good either. Singing out lyrics as loudly as you can will do that to you. But it was all so therapeutic as only primal scream therapy can be.
Mick still struts around in twitchy-jerky moves after all these years. Keith Richards could be a "before" poster for something like Oil of Olay , Ron Woods needs a lighter shade of Clairol -- black is just not for older men anymore and Charlie Watts has male-pattern baldness in addition to the gray. But they’re like teen-age guys in a garage when they strap on their guitars.
My view was swell. If the Stones were in the end-zone, I was on about the 25 yard line, 26 rows up from the field. On the ground level, I would have been about row 15 or so. Not too acute an angle to the stage. Good shot of everything. And there was a truly state-of-the-art big screen in back of the stage, nearly the size of an IMAX, but oval shaped with stunningly clear images.
The weather was perfect: in the low 70's, dropping into the 60's, very very gentle breeze. Perfecto. And so I lived my late teen/early college years again. The flash was good.
I know. It’s only rock and roll. But I like it.