Rome On Fire.
Italy has always been very welcoming for me. Rome was the first city I ever visited outside Romania and it had quite the impact with all it’s historic, cultural, cinematic, culinary and dolce lifestyle legends.
I’ve since traveled several parts of Italy and Europe and even made it to new continents.
A couple of weeks back I was in Rome for one hour as part of my complex plan to get home via 4 countries in one day. I could only visit one place so I went to Circo Massimo and walked to Coliseum.
From the announcement of the tour Rome and Madrid were top on my list of concerts I wanted to attend, they had been sold out before I got the word they were going on sale so missed out tickets.
I made it up by working out a scheme to attend other shows for which I was able to get Lucky Dip tickets, find creative ways of getting there etc.
Last week I had a one way flight to Rome, no return flight, no ticket and no idea if I should simply get on the plane and take it from there or maybe stay home and keep it cool for a while.
It’s been a very intense year so far, many trips, mostly all around the Stones tour, a lot of countries and fun memories only now the budget became a memory as well
After deciding that I have waited 5 years for this tour, that I am 100% determined I want to go and taking into consideration things have been falling into place during this adventure I decided to go.
I left home Sunday morning at 4am, got the early flight with a spectacular landing over Rome seeing the Vatican, Coliseum and the 14 On Fire stage from the sky.
At the airport, while waiting for the bus I met Ivano, a Italian fan who had traveled from Sardegna for the show. We shared a lot of stories about concerts and places and stopped for some coffee and breakfast at Termini before heading on to the city.
I met Gabor at the Spanish Steps and we went on a walking tour of Rome starting at Villa Borghese. There we met little girl-scouts who were asking us if we’re going to the concert, they as well wanted to go.
Wandered the streets from Plaza del Poppolo, Via del Corso, Pantheon, until we got to the Roman Forum. From there he went to the venue and I went to meet Martha Tuesday.
It was a very fun encounter, not much time but so many things to say. Martha had agreed to sell me her ticket for the price of a lucky dip ticket and I felt a little bad as she had spent more money. So I thought I could make it up by offering a ticket to BST Hyde Park that I won from AEG following the concert experience from last summer.
All in all things worked out great for everyone I think. I went to the concert, many filters before getting inside. At first I headed towards the hilly lateral part thinking I would get a better view but it was so packed so went back.
Once on the ground, slowly but surely I made my way towards the first part of the audience on Keith’s side.
There was a bottleneck area but after that there was a lot of room to breathe, dance or sit down.
I joined forces with a group of fans from Padova, they had special t-shirts they made for the event showing Grregrory with a Roman soldier cap and the date 22.06.2014 written with Roman numbers.
They were incredibly excited to be there and once the concert was on they jumped 3m in the air.
John Mayer came on the stage and his concert had the feeling of a perfect summer day which we were experiencing at the time. It was my first time seeing him live and I enjoyed the show. It became slightly obvious he would join the band on stage later on and the song they would play.
After his set the audience with many young people was getting anxious, singing all sorts of Stones lyrics during the song breaks.
I was standing on my toes trying to see the audience towards the back and I couldn’t see it all, it was massive!
The concert started with an interesting intro: “Friends, Romans, Countrymen…please welcome The Rolling Stones”, then Keith came on with the meanest, loudest, heaviest Jumping Jack Flash I’ve heard so far. He was rocking it and this was a very Keith adoring crowd, they were all singing theirs lungs out, jumping high in the air to the Flash and by the time Mick sang the first lyrics it was absolutely clear that we’re in for a fantastic night.
It was crazy, wild and a lot of fun.
There was no awkward silence between songs, everyone was shouting and singing like they should at a proper gig.
Second song raised the stakes even higher, “Let’s Spend the Night Together” with a new intro – all crowd singing “ta da da dam, ta ta ta ta”. Brilliant!!
I tend to love this song when it has it’s own proper place in the setlist rather than being voted there, can’t explain why, just a feeling.
Song was going great and the tens of thousands of voices were adding power to every chorus.
You could see that the band is feeling great, they’re smiling, playing loud and are again playful and improvising.
Then this simple thing happened that changed everything: Keith was supporting the vocal part and dancing Mick went over to his mike and they sang together sharing the same microphone, this was the absolute sign that the band is “on fire”.
Charlie was laughing from the drum set almost constantly, what a wonderful night!
Ronnie seems a bit preoccupied at first but quickly started jumping around with wide smiles.
It was beautiful, breaks were longer between songs and that gave me the feeling they’re preparing some special moments.
And what an IMMENSE surprise to hear Mick saying they’re doing a special one for this crowd: “Streets of Love”. Needless to say I had never heard it live or that I was not expecting that to happen at all.
And they brought Mick Taylor on stage for this one too.
We all sang it together, probably half the song was simply accapela all-around and it was magical! Watching it on YouTube or some other recorded form cannot show the magic of that specific moment.
When it got down to band introductions and Keith’s set, all these 71000 people exploded with applauses. For everyone in a very loud way but for Keith it was insane. He was loving it and said something like “this is a pretty good joint”
. Indeed it was.
They brought John Mayer on stage for song of choice “Respectable” and they rolled it pretty good. Both Gary Clark Jr in Lisbon and John Mayer in Rome were good but I think I liked Rome a bit better.
As I mentioned earlier I found the band particularly playful in Rome, a very warm audience. Towards the end of the show people were throwing water into the air (not sure if this is an Italian thing), Mick was at the end of the catwalk in the middle of the crowd and got a rain of water from someone in the audience. He was not bothered by that in fact he stayed there for a good while of the song. Keith added a little extra at the end of Sympathy for the Devil, surprising Mick Lisa and Bernard.
This was the first time I noticed there is a crane behind the stage that light an actual fire during Sympathy For The Devil, it’s visible through the screen and creates a very “realistic” fire. I was wondering in Hyde Park how they made it look so good, it’s actual fire!
It was a spectacular show, so much energy from everywhere, so much fire, the kind of concert you want to celebrate, discuss over beers, smile about. So I met Gabor and Wilfried in Trastevere where we did exactly that.
At this point I was at 24h full drive since leaving home.
Early in the morning I caught the bus for the airport and on the bus I (again) met Gerhard. Frist met him in Sydney while we were both “stranded” in Australia visiting Jaime’s collection. Then he randomly walked into the same pub in Oslo, met again at the Oslo show and a couple of times more. It’s fascinating how we keep meeting by chance in all these countries.
So we went to the airport together talking about the show, the tour, the future shows. Apparently most of the people I’ve met don’t have a ticket for Madrid and mostly all want to go
We said goodbye and I got on the plane to Barcelona. Part of my grand scheme to make this work is to spend a few days at my friend’s house in Barcelona where I can easily move around and can also get some work done as people in my team work in the Barcelona office.
I arrived in Barcelona the day before San Juan holiday, in time to catch the famous summer fireworks from a great lookout point on the hill.
40h+ after leaving home I was on this rooftop terrace having a lovely dinner, drinking champagne, watching the Spanish celebrations and thinking once again… how lucky I am to be here!
I am writing this on a bus traveling from Barcelona to Madrid, cheap and slow option to get to Madrid. I don’t yet have a ticket or too much money but I have faith things will work out.
I would like to thank all the wonderful people I met in Rome for an amazing adventure, hope to see you all again very soon!
Video I made in Rome:
I make daily videos on the tour at [
youtube.com]
Going to: London - Manchester - Twickenham - Berlin - Marseille - Prague - Warsaw