The original question was "Can a stadium show NOT suck???" not if it is better than a club show. I think that yes, they can not suck depending on the stadium and where you are seated. That doesn't mean its nesisarily better than a club show because mostly they aren't although there are probably exceptions. If stadium shows sucked no one would go and they wouldn't have them. And many-most of the people there have attended stadium shows before (I would assume, since there's so many seats) so if it sucked would they come back? Maybe some people think that they suck, but it would appear that the majority doesn't agree. Of course, most people would probably prefer a more intimate club show with better sound/view, but if they can't go to one than a stadium show seems to be a good option.

Yes, a stadium can, not suck. Since that is where most of the stones shows have been, they do have it down to a fine art. Actually a little to polished for my liking. I will take a smaller venue anyday. If they actually put real stones fans in a theatre, then maybe people would get into it a lot faster.

Until Dodger Stadium earlier this month, I would have agreed that ANYTHING smaller than a stadium would be better, since the only time I didn't see them in a stadium was at Staples Center in 2002, and it blew all my other Stones experiences away.... However, the 2006 Dodger show is now my favorite (out of about 10 lifetime shows). Maybe it was the seats we had, as others have mentioned - but the sound, sightline, performance, everything was great.

ever since i missed Hampton 1981 (parents thought 13 was too young for rock and roll) i've taken revenge to see every show possible!

After the 81 tour i thought "well thats it i'll never see them", but Steel Wheels came to rescue me. I was disappointed only that they were not playing arenas and i knew Hampton (or Virginia) would be out. I did finally see them at North Carolina 89. After again in stadiums 94,97(and a freezing Washington DC Oct 97) my dream came true in 1999, Washington MCI arena. I just love arenas and believe RnR concerts should only be there. It was great to see them ,maybe for the last time, in Baltimore in an arena even smaller than my beloved Hampton Coliseium.

While I love The Stones in any venue, the North Carolina stadium shows over the years since 89 were magical, Arenas are where they belong!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-11-28 21:50 by Donkey Girl Scout.

Stadium shows are a gamble sound wise,i've had good sound and then horrible sound.Arenas are where i've seen the stones play their best and everything always sounds better indoors

KSIE Wrote:
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> I liked Anita Pallenberg's answer. She said she
> only went to stadium shows, because if you get too
> close the Stones are "really old".
>
> Karl

like she should talk! they look way better than her.

if you're up front, the stadium show can be as intimate as the theater. you can't get quite as physically close but they intereact with the audience in the front just as they do at a theater.

A stadium show does suck when its 30 degrees and 50 mph winds!(Chicago)

Depends on the attitude and disposotion of the audience member.

If you're a sucky wet-blanket set-list-crunching nerd, it will suck for you. Much like life will for you.

If you're there to party, this may increase your chances of non-suckedness.

The question was: Can a stadium show NOT suck ???

Yes, I think it can NOT suck. Rather like Gazza who saw 3 UK shows from within the first 5 shows, so did I see all 5 from within the first 3 - and as a result I will NEVER EVER consider a Stones stadium show unless I can be within those crucial first few rows. Although I'm a fan of pitch or floor seating like we have in the UK and also in the U.S. too, I think I'd probably go for free standing FOS tickets for whichever shows they do in Europe next year that don't have pich seating. I'd find it quite tedious and painful to be honest, but there's unquestionably something you get out of being close to that stage that is just lost when you're a further distance away. If I compare the enjoyment I got out of the Licks shows I attended (where I was sat in the lower tiers kind of looking across at the stage with about a 45 degree angle) and the ABB shows where I was within the first 3 rows, there IS no comparison. From hereon certainly, I'll always struggle to get as close to that stage as possible.

Outside of stadium shows, I think the best type of venue in which to see them which offers a good compromise between "being able to get into the show" and "proximity to the band or stage" is an arena. I've seen 3 arena shows in the States on this tour so far, MSG, Albany, Atlantic City. They were just great. If you've got good seats, I think an arena is hard to beat. OK, club/theatre shows perhaps, but to be honest I think if you've got a good spot in an arena setting, what you see and hear is every bit as good a spectacle.

J.J.Flash Wrote:
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> A stadium show does suck when its 30 degrees and
> 50 mph winds!(Chicago)

yeah, the setlist was great and the band gave it all they got, and i made the most of it, but the weather made it my least favorite show of the tour

When the Stones announced the "on stage" tour many of my friends told me how much they wanted to go after missing all the past tours. So I took 5 of my friends to the Soldier Field concert in 05. They were blown away. Every last one of them still talks about how amazing that show was and how it put to shame every concert they had ever been to. Arena shows are great but it doesn't have the same impact for new fans that it does for us veterans. The casual fan would do much better at a stadium gig for the excitement.

I'm just really surprised by the title. I haven't seen a single Stones show that sucked. And if you had bad seats at a show you have no one to blame except yourself. If I can't get good seats, I don't go.

-Drake

<<<<< And if you had bad seats at a show you have no one to blame except yourself. If I can't get good seats, I don't go >>>>>

Well, not quite true. In the event of buying tickets for certain venues within Europe, you can all to easily find yourself not knowing what the hell you ARE buying, because the ticket agencies don't provide adequately informative seating plans. If you DO know what you're buying and you subsequently go ahead and buy crap seats, then sure .... no-one to blame but yourself. I'm just thinking of buying tickets for (a) Nice/France, (b) Porto/Portugal, (c) Barcelona, Madrid, Valladolid/Spain - ALL of these venues had one thing in common. The f***ing ticket agencies were absolute crap in terms of the information they provided prior, to and at the time of, ticket sales. There wasn't a decent seating plan available.

In a stadium, the difference between decent seats and crappy seats is a much bigger difference than a smaller place. The farthest seats are a lot farther away. And if you're under a concrete overhang: forget about it! A horrible muddy echo!

Stadium shows can be great like other shows, even though they never can have the intimacy of a smaller venues. I remember a great stadium show I saw at Giants Stadium in 1994 in the rain! I think the Stones gave something extra... sort of a soaked solidarity with the wet fans.

paulywaul that sucks about those ticket agencies. I admit I still don't understand how they can legally sell you a ticket without telling you what section/row its in. Thats pretty horrible.

-Drake

Charlottesville....Awesome sound! and I didn't have "great seats" and I believe Scott Stadium holds 60,000. Yes, Virginia, a stadium show can NOT suck.

But the fact is most of us will go wherever they play.

Donkey Girl Scout Wrote:
(and a
> freezing Washington DC Oct 97)

i was at this show..my first show.. such a bad experience i did not see them again til baltimore this year... totall different.... the stadium experience in 97 at which i had a terrible seat was just horrific...

if i hadn't had such a bad expeirence i have no doubt i would have checked 10 more shows by now..

thankfully the ship was righted to its logical course this year and now we're flying again

i'm sure with great seats a stadium show can be cool but my experience turned me off for 9 years

I've gone to Stadium shows with folks who've never seen the Stones only to see them walk away being utterly astounded. So the simple answer is yes, a stadium show can not only NOT suck, it can be world-changing.

If it's your 40th Stones show, however, that's less likely to be the case.

I saw them in Chicago's Comiskey in 2002 where they did such songs as Undercover, Monkey Man, Lil Red Rooster and Midnight Rambler . . . as an encore. This show . . . it did not suck.

In fact, one would be hard pressed to say that this concert sucked.

Put differently, a bad Stones stadium concert is better than a great day at work.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2006-11-29 05:46 by camper88.

camper88 Wrote:
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> I've gone to Stadium shows with folks who've never
> seen the Stones only to see them walk away being
> utterly astounded. So the simple answer is yes, a
> stadium show can not only NOT suck, it can be
> world-changing.
>

i'm sure if one has a good seat stadium shows can be great..front row is front row no matter whats behind you... but there are far more bad seats in a stadium and the sound tends to diffuse.. where i was at the stones show in 97 it took 3 seconds for sound to get to me so what i was seeing on the jumbotron was not what i was hearing..

camper88 Wrote:
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> Put differently, a bad Stones stadium concert is
> better than a great day at work.


Except as far as your bank account is concerned.

schillid Wrote:
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> camper88 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Put differently, a bad Stones stadium concert
> is
> > better than a great day at work.
>
>
> Except as far as your bank account is concerned.


True, but then there's my soul account.

stoned_in_dc Wrote:
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> there are far more bad seats in
> a stadium and the sound tends to diffuse.. where i
> was at the stones show in 97 it took 3 seconds for
> sound to get to me so what i was seeing on the
> jumbotron was not what i was hearing..

Sure, there's no question that a Staduium show suck. It's clear that stadium shows wouldn't be one's first choice (bv excepted). But that wasn't the question. Can a stadium show not suck? Absodamnlutely!!

It was only during this tour that I came to my senses about getting good seats. Watching the big screen sucks. Stadium shows don't suck. Luckily, I indulged myself (again and again and again, ETC.) and bought those upfront tickets. I didn't think that a stadium show could be wonderful -- but yeah, if you can see the band w/o looking at the screen, it makes a huge difference. I had a blast at the Twick II show and, being with my 14 y.o. at Oakland it was one of those, downright, spiritual things!!

I mean, during that SF ABB show, I had paid $166 (which at that time I considered a lot of money!!HAHAHAHA!) and just watched the screen and realized that it was THAT important for me to truly get THE experience that money would be no object -- and, now...I'm eating cat food, but what the @#$%&!

..... the stage itself is a marvel..

Its pretty easy to answer..

if you are on the pitch/Floor and lets say FOS..or within the first half of the pitch at least, a Stones stadium gig can be a fantastic experience...
BUT:
if you are far away from the stage, a stadium show can be the worst experience of your life..
I have seen both versions....so I decided that, if I go to stadium gigs, it has to be FOS...and I am fine then.

No.

drake Wrote:
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> paulywaul that sucks about those ticket agencies.
> I admit I still don't understand how they can
> legally sell you a ticket without telling you what
> section/row its in. Thats pretty horrible.

I don't know where they stand "legally", but to me it just seems like a massive oversight and completely unprofessional and unnacceptable to sell tickets with so little information available. For the Spanish and Portugese shows for example, the seating information available at the time of purchase did NOT EVEN INCLUDE block, row, or seat numbers. All you knew was that you were being offered seats within the particular price category you'd selected and within a particular "area" of the stadium. The "area" was as large and as vague as as say "the lower tiers" or "the 100 blocks". So you had to buy "blind" and in effect end up literally ANYWHERE. This is exactly what happened to a friend of mine who bought seats for the Porto/Portugal show. She had NO idea what she'd bought until the tickets arrived through the post. Even then, with tickets in hand, trying to correlate what you were looking at in your hand with a seating plan online was impossible, because you simply couldn't FIND a seating plan anywhere. So the first time we realised where our seats were was when we entered the stadium 2 hours before the show, and much to our dismay discovered that the seats were in the mid tiers about TWO THIRDS of the depth of the stadium BACK from the stage end. This was a location that we would NEVER EVER have selected, we'd both almost rather not attend a stadium show than sit that far away from the stage end.

I hate to go on and on, but I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope that some of the European ticket agencies can get their shit together in 2007 and provide customers with adequate information before their sites go live and ticket sales start, because otherwise, it quite frankly SUCKS !!! For all its faults (and it does have a good few), at least Ticketmaster U.K. does provide decent seating plans specifying blocks, and furthermore specifies rows and seat numbers at the point of purchase.

the same happened with ticketsales for Wembley Stadium, on Ticketmaster, almost a year ago.
Admittedly, the stands hadn't been built at that time, but all tickets (apart from those on the pitch) were unallocated rows and seat numners.
.... i wonder if the same will happen, with any upcoming, Wembley Ticketmaster sales.

Adrian-L Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the same happened with ticketsales for Wembley
> Stadium, on Ticketmaster, almost a year ago.
> Admittedly, the stands hadn't been built at that
> time, but all tickets (apart from those on the
> pitch) were unallocated rows and seat numners.
> .... i wonder if the same will happen, with any
> upcoming, Wembley Ticketmaster sales.

But I think that was a one off, simply because at the time, as you say, the stands in Wembley hadn't been built. What I'm on about unfortunately appears to be an atrocious matter of routine for certain European ticket agencies, they just DO NOT provide decent seating plans.

I have heard a lot about bad sound in stadiums, and I can only attribute to seat location. However the first time I saw the band back in 97 on the BTB tour in Foxboro, I was at the opposite end of the stadium, and I don't recall any sound problems there. But since then, I've always bought tix as close as possible in the lower tier to the stage. I completely agree with BV here. THe band looks and sounds 1000% better outside than inside. I bashed the albany concert because they didn't look and sound that good. When you see the band outside in the open air, that helps to keep them refreshed and energized and then go catch them a few weeks later in an indoor arena that is hot and stuffy, you see the toll that it takes on them. The same I think was true for the Licks tour in Hartford - they didn't seem as fresh indoors as when I'd seem there last on the NS tour. Now...the 1 exception to this rule is MSG. For whatever reason, the boys just bring it to that arena, and I was completely blown away by that experience. Course sitting right next to the B-Stage didn't hurt either. After Albany, though, I had sworn that I would never go see them in an arena again. We'll see...

VoodooLounge13 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have heard a lot about bad sound in stadiums,
> and I can only attribute to seat location.
> However the first time I saw the band back in 97
> on the BTB tour in Foxboro, I was at the opposite
> end of the stadium, and I don't recall any sound
> problems there. But since then, I've always
> bought tix as close as possible in the lower tier
> to the stage. I completely agree with BV here.
> THe band looks and sounds 1000% better outside
> than inside. I bashed the albany concert because
> they didn't look and sound that good. When you
> see the band outside in the open air, that helps
> to keep them refreshed and energized and then go
> catch them a few weeks later in an indoor arena
> that is hot and stuffy, you see the toll that it
> takes on them. The same I think was true for the
> Licks tour in Hartford - they didn't seem as fresh
> indoors as when I'd seem there last on the NS
> tour. Now...the 1 exception to this rule is MSG.
> For whatever reason, the boys just bring it to
> that arena, and I was completely blown away by
> that experience. Course sitting right next to the
> B-Stage didn't hurt either. After Albany, though,
> I had sworn that I would never go see them in an
> arena again. We'll see...

Funny that, I was at Albany and thought it was FABULOUS, a truly magnificent show. Just goes to show, no two people see it quite the same way.