...................kick butt and take names.


Me and Mick Jagger have been watching each other for four
decades now, and we're not quite as sprightly as we used to
be. Mick, according to most records is 54 now ... born July
26, 1943 in Dartford, Kent. Me, I'm 53, born June 27, 1944,
in Philadelphia, Pa.
Now, I must admit, Mick hasn't ever been watching me,
except when he looked out over tens of thousands and just
maybe saw my bobbing head.
That was a white lie to get you reading this yarn. I'm
positive the readers want Mick - so I'm writing about Mick
and the Stones, from the viewpoint of a contemporary - a
contemporary fan.
I could no more make music like Mick than a chimp could
recite the Gettysburg Address. I'm just a fan who's
happened to see the Stones in all four decades that
they've been around. From the '60s to the '90s, its been
plenty of gutsy music, bluesy ballads and bad-boy images
from the self-billed "World's Greatest Rock 'n Roll
Band."

It was Nov. 9, 1969 when I first saw the Rolling Stones,
live at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. The facility was brand
new and so was I to the counter-culture life, having just
been discharged from the Air Force in February. I was
attending graduate school at Stanford, with the help of a
part-time job and the G.I. bill. Stanford tuition was $715
a quarter. Reserved-seat tickets for the Rolling Stones
show were going for $12.50. A struggling student, I could
only afford general admission ducats for me and my date.
How I got the date - and the tickets - is a long forgotten
detail. I do remember driving my 1960-something vintage
Rambler to the Coliseum parking lot, while my date,
Teresa, changed her clothes to something more
counter-cultureish in the seat next to me.
Stones concerts are pretty "far out," I thought to
myself as the Rambler putt-putted into the parking lot.
There were two! shows that evening; I had tickets to the
early performance. Also on the bill were Ike and Tina
Turner, B.B. King and some English stiff named Terry Reid,
who led off and was promptly forgotten.
I didn't know much about either Ike and Tina, or B.B. but
they were both smokin.' I can still hear Tina and the
Ikettes belting out "River Deep, Mountain High" Baby,
baby, baby - The Examiner's Philip Elwood praised Tina's
"great looks and sensuous choreography." Then there
was B.B. King, who introduced us to Lucille (his guitar,
for more casual fans), and we still didn't have the
Rolling Stones.
The air was thick with smoke and anticipation. And the
smoke of choice that evening wasn't that evil tobacco ...
this was the end of the '60s, after all, and the fans were
there to party. I had never been in a building where that
many people were smoking that much marijuana, let alone
seen anyone shake their booty like Tina. There was yet
another first that evening ... looming over the stage was
a giant TV screen, the better for adoring fans to see Mick
prance, pout and dance. It made Jagger's every move easy
for the sold-out crowd to see. Since the TV was just black
and white, it lent a surreal overall aura to the
proceedings, as many in the audience had never seen
closed-circuit television used like this. Remember, we
were only a year removed from the mind-blowing lightshow
ending of 2001, A Space Odyssey.
When I first saw Mick that night, he was wearing that Uncle
Sam hat, long scarf, big studded belt and black pullover
with an Omega symbol. It was a simple, but sensational
costume. Elwood wrote of Mick's performance that
evening, "His raw, dirty tones and low sexual allusions
are magnificent and real." Yes, a bit from the dark side.
The simple equation from the time was Stones=Naughty,
Beatles=Nice. The Stones had last toured in 1966, with the
Beatles. The Beatles were pretty much kaput. The field was
left to the Stones and they were out to prove it.
There was a stunning "Love in Vain." The audience was
feeling no pain. According to yellowing accounts in
Rolling Stone's bound volumes, amps blew out, much to
Keith Richards' disgust, and new Rolling Stone Mick
Taylor (the other Mick) played his 20-year-old heart out.
The Stones ripped into Chuck Berry's "Oh Carol" and Mick
took off his belt and whipped the stage to climax
"Midnight Rambler," (and maybe several members of the
audience). Then Jagger Mick said he wanted to "take a
look at us," in his inimitable British drawl, the lights
came up and we had "Jumping Jack Flash," "Satisfaction" and "Honky Tonk Women."
The crowd surged forward, stood on the chairs set up in
once-neat rows, and generally shouted and raved like wild
banshees. I looked down on the floor and the number of
cast-off joint remainders would have overbooked any
Roach Motel. In those days you saved and/or ate the
roaches, but the excitement level was way too high for
that. I simply marveled that I was in a space/place that I
had never visited before. Jagger really knew how to push
the crowd's buttons.
"I've got so used to playing these big places," he told
Rolling Stone after the Oakland shows. "There's a
special kind of buzz to get all those people at it. It's
real easy to get 2,000 at it, man. I tell you, it's a
walkover." Well, a few weeks later, there was Altamont. I
passed on that, even though it was free. Good choice. I had
my Stones fix for the decade, anyway.

Although the Stones toured a lot in the '70s, it was no
walkover for me to see them again. I finally caught them on
the tail-end of the summer 1978 tour. It was Oakland, but
this was outdoors in the Coliseum, a Bill Graham Day on the
Green, July 26, 1978 (Mick's birthday). I was a working
lad now, in my first year at the Examiner.
There I was, with 60,000 others who packed the field and
roamed the stands. We settled on the third deck of the
Coliseum after being entertained by Peter Tosh, Eddie
Money and Carlos Santana from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. And then
the wait set in. For more than two hours,the audience
waited - and waited.
Then there was the sound of helicopters, and the crowd was
"bombed" with colored ping-pong balls and inflated
life-size female dolls, the kind you can buy in one of
"adult" shops. No band should make an audience wait that
long, but when Mick appeared through a trap door in the
stage, they gave another great performance for the 100 or
so minutes they played, and the long wait was mostly
forgotten.
Ron Wood had replaced Mick Taylor, but otherwise the group
lineup was the same. Some newer (for 1978) tunes, "Starf
- - - - -," "When the Whip Comes Down,"
"Respectable," mixed with old standards, "Honky Tonk
Women," "Love in Vain" and "Jumping Jack Flash." I
can't forget the vividness of those bright orange pants
Mick was wearing as he pranced around the stage.
Now it's 1989, and the stage and staging has become much
more than an afterthought. Would this be the last-ever
tour for the Stones?
"It was not discussed, but I would think so," said
promoter Bill Graham, announcing the tour dates. "Once
you get to be 30 years old, you know how it is."
But Mick proved to be as lean and mean as ever. And if ever a
stage was build to measure up to a band's reputation, it
was the stage for the Steel Wheels tour.
It rolled into the Coliseum on Nov. 4, 1989, a little more
than two weeks after the Oct. 17 earthquake that rocked
the Bay Area and postponed the World Series between the
A's and the Giants. The Stones had already rocked
Candlestick Park in 1981, which marked the last time they
toured in the '80s. I gave away my Candlestick Rolling
Stones tickets (obtained through sources in the Examiner
Sports Department) to my landlady's daughter, so I hadn't
seen my friend Mick and company for 11 years.
I lined up at the local BASS outlet and got tickets for the
second show, on Nov. 5.
It's hard to describe the sight of the huge stage that went
clear across the bleacher area of the Coliseum, with its
soaring, metallic snakelike tower and enormous runways
for Mick to prance and the rest of the band to reaffirm why
they were still the World's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band.
What was on that Steel Wheels album anyway? I don't even
own a copy. But that night, sitting in the third deck, down
the right field line, so I was up and to the far right of the
stage, I saw an outdoor show like I had never seen before.
On this metallic monster of a stage (some likened it to a
great industrial ruin), Mick worked, sweated, danced,
climbed around and exhorted the crowd while Keith and
company laid down some ferocious musical licks that kept
the audience worked into a near-frenzy. And then when the
giant inflatable dolls joined in, expanding along with
the pyrotechnics and dizzying lighting effects, it
became a reaally big shew.
A stage to match the Stones ... with a repertoire of golden
oldies, it was no matter that the new material didn't
match up to the old.
As the Examiner's Rob Morse put it in a follow-up column:
"Hell, the Rolling Stones were over the hill in 1968. Or
so we said then. The Rolling Stones will outlast us all.
... Budweiser sponsored the Rolling Stones tour this
year. Says (reader) Steve Jamison: "If they wait another
eight years to go on tour, Rogaine and Retin-A can sponsor
it.' "

I must not slight my only visit with Mick so far in the
'90s, the "Voodoo Lounge" tour in '94. It came right
around Halloween, and started with an exciting wait in a
BASS line; a $28.50 ticket in 1989 had become a $50 ticket
in 1994, with the added thrill of having added shows
announced while you were still in line. Three shows (Oct.
28, 29 and 31) were sold out in two hours. I got tickets for
Oct. 29. A fourth show, on Oct. 26, was added later, but
didn't sell out.
The behemoth stage, so stunning in 1989, was just as big
for 1994, but the newness had worn off. Despite all the
steel (170 tons), eight miles of cable, 3.8 million watts
of power (think 10,000 home stereos cranked up full
volume) and a silo so tall that the FAA required warning
lights, it was in the end, another version of THE STAGE.
Perhaps I was getting a bit jaded or the stage had become
so well integrated into the 1994 show that it didn't call
as much attention to itself ... except when the giant
inflatable figures came to life.
The energy the Stones exerted was just as amazing in '94 as
it had been in '89, though. Imagine a Seniors golf tour
where the players birdie almost every hole, and even throw
in an eagle or three. Yes, "Voodoo Lounge" finished way
under par, but maybe not quite the course record. I looked
it up, and they did 24 songs in 2-1/4 hours, much like 1989. I
know Mick watches his diet and exercises, but you still
can't help but marvel. This guy is no Perry Como, sitting
near-comatose on a stool. When he launched into "I Know
It's Only Rock and Roll," it's obvious he still likes it,
likes it.
The Stones promoted the Voodoo Lounge album with "Sparks
Will Fly," and "You Got Me Rocking," but didn't forget
the oldies, that were their bread and butter.
A group of friends and I took BART to the Coliseum, and
missed the opening act. But when the Stones came on, they
had our rapt attention, as they will next weekend, which
will make it a pair of Stones concerts for me in the '90s.
Ladies and Gentlemen, eight years after Steel Wheels,
it's the "Bridges to Babylon" tour, sponsored by Sprint
- not Rogaine or Depends, or even Budweiser. I guess me and
Mick aren't really getting older, just better. Thanks,
Mick, for four decades of kick-ass shows. You make me feel
so young.

<I>Examiner Magazine production manager George Powell, an
Air Force and '60s veteran, does not think being a Rolling
Stones fan and a Deadhead are incompatible.</I>


[www.sfgate.com]



I guess me and
Mick aren't really getting older, just better. Thanks,
Mick, for four decades of kick-ass shows. You make me feel
so young.




I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

Thanks for the good read, Sway honey...

Three shows (Oct.
28, 29 and 31) were sold out in two hours

Comments anyone ?


Hey ,texas fan ! T-storms today in Texas ?



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .