what are your favorite good times, with friends and shared Stones-related memories?

can be anything, long drives to a show, listening to lots of Stones..

great parties, maybe a backroom jam, playing Stones tunes ..

dorm room parties, house parties, Exile on loud..

the times just sitting around talking about Stones albums and listening..

those were great times.

I know for several of you, its getting to actually meet and greet the band..or a chance encounter with one of them..

Many many many but one early memory sticks out. Being in high school, just gotten the freedom that comes with a car and having discovered weed and beer. Driving with friends down Ogden Avenue from the suburbs through very seedy neighborhoods of Chicago. Never getting out of the car. Just taking in the sites, enjoying the ride and music of the Stones. And knowing we were where the blues had its roots.

Driving to LA with my cousin from Phoenix to see Bob Dylan, June 1978. Some Girls had not been released yet, but the LA radio station had it and we tuned to it as soon as we were within range. Every half hour or so, with no introduction, they played a track. So this was my first listen to Shattered, Respectable, Before thay Make Me Run, and Some Girls (the single, Miss You, had already been out). I don't think I have ever been as excited to hear new music.

- The first time I bought a Stones record (Tattoo You and Steel Wheels). My mom thought I needed some new clothes and shoes instead of records, so she didn't liked to see me coming with these records at home;
- when I was 15/16 years old and late at night I was trying to catch an AM signal (very poor, of course) of an Argentinian radio to listen to them, since the Brazilian radios didn't played their 60's stuff;
- my first-ever concert, back in 1995;
- all the good friends that I've met in Lisbon in Zurich last year.

And so on...

- The first Stones track I heard (Worried About You)
- My first Stones show (Oslo 1990, first show)
- The build-up, the excitement and the vorspiel in Bergen in 2006. The whole town turned into Stonesland. Cool to meet the Stones Vikings as well
- The Bærum rehearsals and the Oslo production rehearsals
- Walking right into FOS in Roskilde, a few minutes before they went on



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-11 18:37 by DandelionPowderman.

1978 Stones in Philly. Ran away from home to go, I was a kid, The Stones were contemporary, only when they played JJF did I really realize how "old" they really were. THis is now considered a dud of a show and although I had a great time I remember thinking Mick Jagger can't sing. I was very surprised 10 years later to hear Mick sing in the studio and sing great. Despite my limited knowledge of The Stones in 1978 I clearly recall missing Taylor on LIV and I was keenly aware of his absence. I was up front close to Ronnie, of course we were all tripping and the audience was drunk and out of control like only the late 70's were. You'd be standing on the field and the person next to you would just drop, time after time like a Gettysburg of drug abuse. When Ronnie tried to light up LIV my entire section in front of him seemed to go "yeah right", I kind of empathized with him and Ronnie wasn't playing badly. Taylor was just that enormous a figure hanging over The Stones even in what may have been their greatest success resurrecting themselves with SG.

The Stones have been etched in my blood stream since 1981, when I was eight. Some kids were raised on Sesame Street, but I was raised on Exile on Main Street.

The best times that I had were going to shows in the '90s with my sister, who was in high school. The trips with her were as fun as the shows. I was a heavy tape trader back in the day (remember Maxell XL-IIs?) and met a lot of cool Stones fans in the process. It was pre-internet when you had a personal connection with people when trading and collecting the music. It was fun to meet up with some of them at the shows. We had some great adventures.

Like many here, The Stones's music is part of the soundtrack to my life. It is like the air or water. It is equipment for living.

I'm hoping that the band comes back to Seattle or Portland this year. My sister, who is now 36 and has kids etc., said that she wants to see the band again. I think it will be another good time and another good Stones memory.

Well so many!
Seeing them for my first time in 81 with my crew of good friends. Being young, naive, and a general admission show at the Pontiac Silverdome. Was quite a spectacle and one my friends and I often will talk about.

Many days and nights of hanging with my friends listening to the Stones, making mixed tapes of their best stuff, and driving around in my Dad's station wagon listening to tapes.

Meeting Ronnie Wood was a big highlight.

Smoking a joint with Mick Taylor was another big high light ......Kaboom!

1978 seeing the Miss You video on TV, I was 12-13.

I remember thinking...what is that idiot preening pouting and primping for. I have no time for this, Meatloaf and the Bee Gees are AMAZING!

Two years later, Emotional Rescue. What, this moron again?

Two months later, She's So Cold on AM radio...my life changed forever.

To many to relate really but one that always makes me smile is how in me and my first roommates used to wake each other up by sneaking a huge speaker next to the bed and CRANKING Can't You Hear Me Knocking! Can't tell you how many times I woke up to that glorious intro and pulled the same act on my mates. It was a good way to start the day!

PEACE

2 occasions come to mind:

My first concert, July 25, 1966 at the Hollywood Bowl. What a great setlist, too! I couldn't believe I was seeing them live.

Then, along with 11 friends (sometimes I get the number of us mixed up. I know I bought enough tickets to where we had a full row and half the row behind us) seeing them again in November, 1969 at The Forum in LA.

My first show 1969 "the breakfast show" at MSG and my favorite 1995 Brixton Academy London!!And all of the other 400 plus shows in between!!!

its a long time and a lot of shows, going back to the first one I went to, in 1975..

had a great time, wish I'd known more about the opener, the Meters..saw them but in my excitement and anticipation for the Rolling Stones, I wasn't paying much attention to them. I don't think I'd even heard of them at that point..

now I know..

the same for the opener for the '78 show I saw, Etta James..I'd heard of her but at the time, didn't care, just wanted to see the Stones!

that's all the more credit to the Stones, and their choices for openers for those shows..

they intentionally were educating and entertaining..

Hmm... fascinating topic..

I guess nothing can surpass the early years when I started digging the band and collecting their records.. Getting hooked with TATTOO YOU in 1981, and then within a year or something I had purchased all their major albums they had released by then... What a thrill it was to get another gem every two weeks or so... "hmm.. This is one is called EXILE ON MAIN STREET, I wonder what it contains... better than last week's BEGGARS BANQUET?..." I was on my teens, but listening the Stones left an eternal mark on me; everything is build on that early passion.... Sometimes it is funny to think that how now, over thirty years later, a kind of grown up man still is fascinated about the same stuff as he did when he was thirteen...

I need to also add that seeing the film LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER in 1983 at cinema was a huge thing for me. That was as close as it can be see for seeing the Stones live, and there wasn't so much live footage circulating yet (even though VHS was around, and pretty soon I had collected some basic bootleg material).

Then I need to pick up my first Rolling Stones concert - a realization of the dream I never even believed during the 80's. Helsinki 1995. I missed the 1982 because I was too young, and in 1989 I was doing my military service. The gig surpassed all my expectations, and there is no way I could ever have such a live concert experience agian. I had waited that miracle to happen some 13 years... Most of the Stones gigs have been great experiences ever since - like seeing Taylor with them, wittnessing Jagger's phenomenal performance last year at Stockholm - but first time is the first time, and I could have died happily without ever seeing them again.

Lastly, probably readjusting my fanhood and a kind of medium to explicate all the things I have 'studied' all those year s on my own, I need to mention IORR and "Tell Me" - it is great to share this kind of personal passion with alike-thinking people all around the globe. Writing here has been a nice hobby for me and a kind of place to relax and escape from other commitments (even though sometimes I might do that too much...).

- Doxa

Turning my friends, who were all Led Zeppelin fans, onto Some Girls when it was first released in 1978. I remember getting drunk and singing "Far Away Eyes" for them when it was still available only as the B-side of "Miss You," and then playing it for them when the album came out, and them wondering how I could possibly have known the song "before it was released."

It was also right about that time that my friends started calling me "Tatters."

Also doing coke at a New Year's Eve party and then listening to Let It Bleed full blast in the car on the way home. It's never sounded quite as good as it sounded that night.

Mostly, though, my enjoyment of the Stones was kind of a solitary thing. Many a time I'd spend the night drinking with my friends, and then go driving along isolated country roads alone at three o'clock in the morning, listening to Sticky Fingers on the cassette deck by myself.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-12 16:55 by tatters.

Doxa-

thank you for reminding me of this:

"I need to also add that seeing the film LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER in 1983 at cinema was a huge thing for me. That was as close as it can be see for seeing the Stones live, and there wasn't so much live footage circulating yet "

my sentiments exactly. I clearly remember seeing this, late at night, around that same time ('83)..

close as I could get to seeing that version of the Stones. I didn't get to see the band with that great lineup.

I enjoy your writing..

So many good times and memories, but three that immediately come to mind:

- My older bro taking me to my first Stones concert L.A. Coliseum 1981. The anticipation built up months in advance, listening to Stones' albums religiously.

- Waiting in line at Vredenberg 2003 all day with a friend, trading off to give eachother a break, eating Dutch pancakes and smoking herb.

- Mick Taylor May 20, 2013 at Staples Center: Sway, Can't You Hear Me Knocking. Midnight Rambler.

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

When so many fans from here and elsewhere, including the Stones Vikings, gathered in London for
the close of ABB, that was much fun, at the Pilot, the hotel St. Giles' bar and the Jack Horner, meeting
people and talking, and enjoying the band.

~"Love is Strong"~

Choosing one from a million isn't easy, but there is a standout.

In early 1989 I was told that the band would be touring later in the year, but in the USA. (I was in the UK at the time). That annoyed me more than a little as I could not forsee a way that I would be able to get to any shows.

In early August by surreal twist of fate I found myself making plans for a work related visit to the USA, and even more surreal was the fact that Philadelphia was one of the places being visited, and yet stranger was the fact that the opening night of the Tour (previously scheduled to be elsewhere) had been moved to Philly on a date I'd be there!

So, sitting in the stadium, right behind three Stones-wives (literally the row behind) and assorted kids (Alex & Theodora were tiny excited kids!), hearing 'Continental Drift' (released the following day) and then later on seeing Mick dancing at the top of the tower for SFTD are memories that still excite me!

(The swift increase in security around the families when the power went during Shattered was interesting to experience.)

--
Captain Corella
60 Years a Fan

The Oslo rehearsals last year comes to mind first. Great hearing the band rehearse and meeting other fans there. That was a great week! Also beeing fos at the show was great.

Then meeting other fans before the first Hyde park show (2013) and the first O2 show (2012) made good memories.

I also have good memories from when I listened to my first Stones albums in my room and trying to learn to play the guitar riffs on my guitar.

And then of course a lot of memories from all of the live shows I have attended...

Getting to the 1st LA steel Wheels show, finding scaffolding where our seats were, being directed to the lady at the side of the stage and watching her smile and peel off a couple 2nd row center seats for us.

peace

The moment in 1966 when it sank in that I was in the same room--well, the same Royal Albert Hall--as the ROLLING STONES, those impossibly distant godlike creatures whose music I was obsessed by and whose, er, personalities were the objects of my constant fantasies. I did what any red-blooded fan, male or female, would do, I stood on my seat and screamed.

That was some night. I can still remember where I sat (or stood) and what I wore. I knew if Mick sould see me, he would find me irresistible.

Many memories, but one that comes to mind is watching the band in 1989 doing YCAGWYW. More specifically, it was the power of the delivery of the chorus, with Mick's singing, the band playing, the backing vocals, the superb sound system, the amazing light show - it all gelled together into this primal force that was so much greater than the sum of the individual parts. It was so moving and so powerful, it just blew me away. It was one of those moments where everything was in "The Zone" and it was an incredible experience. It was one of those "peaking" moments of life. It was a long eight-year wait and that moment said and meant so much.

Rolling back the clock further, when Hot Rocks came out, that was the real deal. That album and the movie Gimme Shelter created a whole "second generation" of Stones fans that were just a bit too young to have experienced the Sixties as musically-aware teenagers.

Quote
Aquamarine
The moment in 1966 when it sank in that I was in the same room--well, the same Royal Albert Hall--as the ROLLING STONES, those impossibly distant godlike creatures whose music I was obsessed by and whose, er, personalities were the objects of my constant fantasies. I did what any red-blooded fan, male or female, would do, I stood on my seat and screamed.

That was some night. I can still remember where I sat (or stood) and what I wore. I knew if Mick should see me, he would find me irresistible.

hilarious if not brilliant.

peace