It was an eerie feeling....

The first Stones gig I've ever been to where passing a J didn't seem appropriate...

More bald heads than not in the row in front of me... where not one person was out of their seat save for perhaps the last 2 songs, not sure even then...

Young kid maybe 10 in the row behind...

For the first time I realized... the Rolling Stones is now an "all-ages show", a "family event"... not unlike a professional sports event but far different from "an edgy rock concert"...

And why should I be surprised, the Stones age, their fans age, new fans come along wanting to see these legends, the older fans want to bring their kids and so-on...

NOW... this is certainly the most financially lucrative road for them to choose. And it may be the road they found rather than the road they created...

BUT... they could have "stayed" bluesy... stayed edgy... refused superbowl gigs and Ameriquest sponsorships and all the "corporate rock" trappings... But when you think about it, this probably translates to lower total income... or does it ?

They can still try the other road... old bluesmen sitting in chairs like they did playing As Tears Go By last night.... they really can do BOTH edgy tours AND corporate tours... but the $$$$$ is probably with the corporate route, the "family show", and, alas, not nearly as many j's passing around

For the latter show you really need another band at this point.

"It's just that demon life has got me in it's sway..."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-25 07:40 by BornOnTheBayou.

That's really the point. I had the same in mind last time, even my hair has gone too :-)

I can definately see that viewpoint but I was in attedence last year at Soldier Field in Chicago. I brought 5 friends with me, and all of us are in the 19-22 bracket (me being 22). Ofcourse we brought a few J's, and the crowd was older and what not, but about 3-4 numbers into the show the people in the two rows infront of us started passing joints left n right. So naturally we whipped ours out and contributed to the whole section. Point is, that mystic Stones concert experience still exists. Granted its not the same as it used to be, but its as good as we can get in this current day and time. Maybe if we bring back general admission we'll get a new vibe at the shows... You'd also have none of that $450 per ticket crap...

I agree that you have got to have some GA for the real experience. It must be far better on stage with a GA crowd as well. I think it's also worth top price for the FOS standing experience (though it's not in Europe), even if it is morally wrong. The UK and US audiences are being taken for ride in a slick black limousine.

Oily.

Maybe I over-thought this post...

But I am impressed with just how different their concerts are today than 30 years ago...

And what has changed ?? Hands-down, the audience has changed more than the band has... and the audience's REACTION to the music has changed quite alot. Instrumentally it's in many ways much the same band as it's always been.

"It's just that demon life has got me in it's sway..."

Yes, BOTB, you are right. Sorry, if it hurts everybody over 40, but what i really feel is: how good a stones show could be with 20 000 people all in their teens and twentys. The Stones should do festivals sometimes.

I always wish I could've seen them in 1978 and 1981 the most. I love that era. I can only imagine what that must have been like. Seemed so much more decadent and dangerous, so to speak. True rock and roll. I should've been born 25 years earlier.

gaigai Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes, BOTB, you are right. Sorry, if it hurts
> everybody over 40, but what i really feel is: how
> good a stones show could be with 20 000 people all
> in their teens and twentys. The Stones should do
> festivals sometimes.


Man I agree !! There ought to be at least a few shows with like an age-limit policy... nobody over 27... and all edgy music. Would be a riot.

"It's just that demon life has got me in it's sway..."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-26 00:21 by BornOnTheBayou.

Of course things have changed with the Stones audience. It is supposed to change isn't it? We all get older and can't stop the process. I believe it is wrong for any of us to expect a Rolling Stones concert experience to be what it was 10,20,30, or 40 years ago. The world we live in is not perfect, and alas the band we love is not what we wish it to be sometimes. They are playing though for better or worse and that is pretty cool in itself. Some nights they are much better then others. The setlists will make many fans happy and piss off plenty more at the same time. In any relationship it is a give and take affair. I would love to see the Stones diversfy their setlists and wing it a little. Think back though, they have NEVER really done this. Some long time fans feel the Stones are not giving back for the money they are charging. They have the right to say this, and to a degree the complaint can be justified. Lots of fans though leave concerts happy as can be. Yes, the concerts are a much more all ages thing as compared with the tours from 1969-1995. Hell, my kids love this band and want to see them, so I bring em along sometimes. At the Chicago show Monday it was fantastic to see 3 young brothers right in front of me dancing and having a ball, fully into it. What a Stones concert has become for many is a trip down memory lane while for others it is a reafirmation that the band can still rock, and make us feel good about hearing live music that we grew up loving. Enjoy them while they are here. Someone will always buy the tickets.

-



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2007-12-23 01:30 by cirrhosis.

the no-smoking rules make smoking pot at shows a little more difficult - i guess i'm paranoid of the ever-lurking security - i just go in the bathroom and blow smoke into a wad of toilet paper - i'm pretty good at it! however, i must say, in my 11 FOS shows in Europe - I only encountered pot at one of them. i usually consider the european tour a time to dry out - unless i make it to amsterdam.

In SF you can be thrown out of a show for not smoking pot

At the Houston show last month, a guy in front of me brought his kids that looked to be about 12-14 years old. During BS a video is played over the stage that borders on pornographic for some people. I just about fell out of my chair watching this guy trying to keep his kids eyes on the stage rather than on that video screen!

What a fantastic thread!
OK, I've come out of my hole...

The point is that there are very few things that aren't marketed as an "event" nowadays.I saw the White Stripes with my nephew and his girlfriend in Blackpool, and to my surprise there were all these kiddies there. And I mean "kiddies", a few were perhaps 8 years old. And we're standing there, my nephew and I, next to these four children with their father. They were perhaps 9 to 13 years old. And my nephew whispers in my ear "shit, I can't roll a joint standing next to these kids!" And I just shrugged my shoulders...But, after about two songs, my nephew shouts at me "On the other hand, he should have taken them to a Rachmaninoff concert instead !", and we both almost fall about laughing while he starts rolling the first of many joints, and the kids got the visual rolling workshop for free .As the mother of a twelve-year-old in a way it strikes me as bad, but if you take your kids to R&R concerts, what do you expect????.Once our concerts in Europe become as poilitically correct non-smoking zones and no one lights up as is the case in most of American venues, then I don't want to go to concerts anymore, I'll stay at home on the couch and watch the DVD or whatever has replaced it......
You simply have got to make the best out of the concert you go to, ESPECIALLY at today's Rolling Stones ticket prices....The fat gits constantly moving backwards and forwards with trays of beer are the ones that test my patience the most, but overall I have a blast!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-26 03:16 by jostorm.

Those bald heads have the best pot!

T&A Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In SF you can be thrown out of a show for not
> smoking pot


So that's what happened to the guy next to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

. . . but it's still the best show on this planet. Enjoy it while it lasts.

out of my head Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I always wish I could've seen them in 1978 and
> 1981 the most. I love that era. I can only imagine
> what that must have been like. Seemed so much more
> decadent and dangerous, so to speak. True rock and
> roll. I should've been born 25 years earlier.


"78" was open stadium.........complete general ad at the show I saw (7-26 Oakland Coliseum) Cost a whole $12................"81" same thing at Candlestick Park............a fun time indeed.

yeah, a Stones show is now a family event...it's been that way for quite a while....but what state of mind are we in?...........sneak in the pipe, have a toke and let the spirit fly (without intruding on someones elses space).....there are 18 year olds that seem like 40 year olds and vica-versa.....personally i go to a show with tunnel vision....focused on the band and the pipe...i'm an old geezer with a 46 year old body and what i think is a young spirit....but you're as young as the girl that ya feel...and the one that i feel is the type that will go into a slam-pit (she's 39 years young).......and i understand that for a young teenager, it's tough to identify with somebody as old as your grandad.........but the bottom line imo is the music, the music and last but not least, the music.........if it lifts yur spirit, that's all that matters

It's perhaps nice to have a family event, but to me it looks like that some bold hair fathers wish that their kids could see the Stones at least for ones.
On the 2nd Hollywood Bowl show 3 little kids with his father stood or let's say slept right besides me during the whole show. It has been dreadful for the kids and boring for the father. I think the family event is only given if the whole family wants to go... but by far very young people get much quicker bored than older ones. I often saw young people sleeping or even leaving the show on a 450 USD seat. Gave me a better view to the stage, that's fine, but I would never ever pay that money for my kid and then he /she is not even interested and feels pressured to go.

About Seating on the pitch: I was very reluctant to this until I went to the US shows and I enjoyed it a lot. You still can move and you have much more space to move from your chair. And even if I stood on the chair to take a photo the security was quite polite and asked me to go down again. Still the audience wass great.

About FOS: I do not think that the Stones get a better feeling on stage when there is a lame FOS audience and you only run around to grap a glimpse of the Stones especially when being short-cut like me. I remember show where Mick was running round like a beserk and tried to get in touch with the audience, but just no chance and that was during the open pitch seating times.

About shit/pot: Yes it was much bigger during the times 73 to 82. If the concerts where really that much better at that time I will leave open to another discussion in another threat. The whole thing changed with all the health issues etc. I never smoked during a concert and also do not drink to much booze. I would like to enjoy the music in my REAL brain and not the one which may pass out having seen so many times.

Geez I better coat ma crown with hair remover jell, before I see the next show..



ROCKMAN

Or ya just gotta crawl into those uniforms them viking dudes have.
Ya tear yer hair out while dispairin for obscure Exile-numbers...

I took my 6 & 9 year olds to the concert Monday night because they were absolutely pissed that my wife & I were going without them. I had bought the original 2 tickets last July & for the heck of it went out Saturday night to see what tickets were available. I managed to find 2 tickets in the back for $160 that were upgraded when we arrived to $450 tickets & my kids had the time of their lifes. They danced through most of the show while the 50/60 year old next to me who was at his first Stones show fell asleep halfway through it.

The Stones must market towards a family event. Because us old farts can fork-up $450 X4 tickets no problem. Times have changed since the 70's- the 70's weren't as great as you think. 1978 Stadiums were chaos. "Festive Seating" was chaos.

If the atmosphere was insane again teh folks that could fork-up the $450 would not go.

Leonard Keringer: what exactly is a slam-pit???? Sorry, but I'm from the First World and have never heard that expression before......

presumably a mosh-pit

Dont worry, I'll show ya in Berlin....

Oh, you mean those maniacs at the front being passed on horizontally above everyone's heads towards the stage??? Never been in one....And, unlike ballooning, not something I would like to try before I die....And are you shure ze Germans allow such zings happening on German soil, Herr USF Gazza????
Which reminds me that at the White Stripes there was an inordinate amount of people in the FOS section who were passed, sometimes feet up, towards the security man at the front, I really couldn't make up my mind whether this was done out of sport or because the people had collapsed, they looked slightly floppy and unconscious to me....

Come on, people, times have changed. When I went to see the Stones 30 years ago they still were very 'in' but now them and us have grown older. So in order to hold up their status and business they play a show dominated by the warhorses. I doubt that they sould fill places like they do if they would only accept new people. Of course we babyboomers go to walk once again down memory lane because the songs remind us of the time when we were young.

Therefore, since 1989 it's the perfect show with really big stages and a technical overload which makes the concerts more 'theatrical'. There is of course not much space for improvisation. When we were young we wanted to attend a concert. Today wealthy people go to see the Stones for $ 450 because they can afford it. I still do not have the money to afford such ticket prices...

... and if I could it would not be a Stones concert anymore. That's the reason why I never attended a concert after 1990.

The danger has really not seemed like it was there since at 1989 tour. Hell, I even took my kids in 2002. We just party before we go in.