You Can't Always Get What You Want

Well, this has been a sweet week for me when it comes to concerts. Saturday my good buddy P from England rang and asked if I was a Rolling Stones fan. I said, "A bit." He then asked if I wanted to go to the concert Sunday night at PacBell Park. I asked how much tickets were and he said, "Free." I said, "Sold!" Suddenly, a weekend that had started out crappy (several plans got cancelled) was looking up!

Friday night I just sat and watched some movies. Also practiced spinning poi. Saturday I was incredibly domestic and did laundry, cleaned my room (kinda), etc. My low back started acting up around noon - right when my chiropractor leaves for the day. It's all about timing. That night I drove down to Fremont for a girls' night out at The Saddle Rack. It was surprisingly fun. I figured dancing might help loosen up my lower back. Not so much, but it wasn't terrible. Got home around 3:30am. Sunday played volleyball in Golden Gate Park. It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day! Minus a few people's attitudes it was good fun. Probably didn't help my back at all. Then it was off to shower and change for the show.

I've never seen the Rolling Stones live before. Though I like some of their stuff, a lot of it is so overplayed it just doesn't do much for me. I've never been willing to pay their ticket prices, though I have always wanted to see them because I hear they put on a good show.

Do they ever! Man I was impressed! If I hadn't seen it myself I wouldn't have believed it. Mick was running all around the stage, bouncing, dancing, etc for 2 straight hours. The man has to be 65. He has more energy than all the people that read this blog combined! We had great seats - lower level, just slightly off center.

They do need to do away with the jumbo screen though. Well, maybe not the jumbo screen, just the closeups of the guys. They are not aging well! You can see the jumbo screen below. Sorry for the crappy quality.




Someone please tell me how Keith Richards is even still alive. That man should be studied by science because I'm rather certain it's a miracle he still exists. The stage setup was kinda cool, though the photos won't do it justice. They even have one smaller "island" that moves through the crowd and ends up at the far end of the ballfield. Pretty cool!! They were nice and close to us then. As I said, the photos here don't do it justice. Note to self, buy a new digital camera so you're not dependent on the phone camera.




They played some of the new stuff which is...new stuff. Toward the end they ended up playing a bunch of their hits which rocked! They only did one encore which was surprising. Well, maybe not considering they didn't have oxygen tanks off to the side of the stage to puff on between songs. Still, with 40+ years of music, you've got a lot of songs to choose from for another encore!

Metallica was the opening band. Now, if it were about 15 or so years ago, I'd be super stoked to Metallica. As it was, they were ok. I have no clue about any of their new stuff. They also played a "hit block" at the end of their show which was great. That was the Metallica I knew - Unforgiven, Enter Sandman, etc. That was the stuff I used to hear on the radio or see on MTV. Yes, I'm old enough that I remember when MTV actually played music videos. Anyway, the songs I knew were great. The remaining songs made me feel like my parents when I said they were mostly just noise. Maybe I just have a hard time respecting a metal band that decided to go clean-cut.

Here are some decent Stones photos for you:

The SFGATE review is here.


Anyway, well worth seeing the Stones before they die! If you get a chance, I definitely recommend it.

Oh, and any other cool friends that want to give me free tickets to concerts - you know how to reach me! ;-)

This week of music was brought to you by the letters R and P and the number 2