Me and the Stones

 

At my first Stones concert I wore my dad’s WWII leather flight 

jacket. Outside the Spectrum, there was a rumor I was selling 

acid. 

I wasn’t. But I got to see “Star Star” and the pink balloon.

The Stones were a bit raggedy then, as was I. The radio station of Stones fans in Philadelphia was WMMR. For years after this concert, they used the pitiful Jagger attempt to pronounce the call letters correctly. The concert was great, but the Stones were, as I was, still trying to recover from the late Sixties. “Goatshead Soup” got bad reviews.  The only thing the critics noticed was the cleverly misfitled ‘Star Star.’ 

1973. I was 20. The Beatles were long gone. I wasn’t. 

And Mick Jagger wasn’t. Just waiting for a comeback.

[Have to intervene here. Blogger is Google, and Google does not like me. I’ve done dozens of music-centric posts, but none have encountered this level of difficulty in the posting. They don’t want me to restore left alignment after showing a YouTube music video. I am fighting line by line against this refusal to show what I intend… even at this moment. Has to be centered, because Fuck you, Instapunk.]

Here’s what Google presents as the Stones discography before my next citation of my personal experience with Stones concerts (five lifetime…)

Missing? A great album dismissed as a Fail called “Black and Blue.”in 1976. From which a comeback was needed. No. Then the Comeback album called “Some Girls” in 1978. And the amazingly omitted “Tattoo You” released in 1981 before the biggest rock concert ever held. Which I attended. In Philadelphia. At JFK stadium. 100,000 plus in attendance. Also, Emotional Rescue. Which I remember because WMMR in Philadelphia came out hatefully against the Stones doing disco. I first heard the song Emotional Rescue driving up Broad Street in Philadelphia with the top down in my 440 Chrysler, and I didn’t know how I felt about the song. Until later When I loved it. 

I was there. No Jumbotron. Just the biggest stadium ever, stocked to overflowing before the age of drone cameras. Too big a stadium ever to be filled without people in the far seats being too far away to see, Why the actual playing field was crammed with dope-smoking people. I was aaaaalllllllll the way at the back. Jagger was an ant in an Eagles Jersey. What I can tell you. The band with the Number One Song in the nation opened the show. Followed by the Delaware Destroyers, who kicked ass. Big time. Then came the ant at the extreme end of the dumbest stadium ever built…

They keep talking about records. This was it.

They just weren’t counting concert crowds then.

After that I saw three more Stones concerts. All interacting with my own personal life. Saw one in the rain at Veterans Stadium with an audiophile who was just ticking off an item on his bucket list. I didn’t want to go. Got talked into it by, oh well, the assholes around me who wanted to see a fail and one woman who wanted to see me. This was the “Bridges to Babylon” tour. The audiophile turned his wet face to me in a rush, saying, “I had NO idea. He’s a fucking star!”

Why didn’t I want to go to Vet Stadium? Long before that was the “Steel Wheels” tour. Which was in Cleveland. When I was living in Ohio. What I remember most from that was the parade to Municipal Stadium. We were a train from middle Ohio to Cleveland, and you could read the finger marks on the backs of other cars.. “Stones…” Thought that was an experience never to be topped.okay. It was great too.

Then there was the No Security tour. At the Spectrum. Swingback from a world tour filling soccer stadiums. She bought tickets from a hacker. I didn’t have a good feeling about the concert. I’d seen Aerosmith by her parking lot cleverness. I was closer to Stevie Tyler than I’d ever been to Jagger. At the Spectrum. Philly boy. Always was. 

Worth it for this…

We had to leave early. Almost got into a fist fight with a man preying on my loud woman. She was scared. Last time I threw a punch in my life. 

Guess I should have shown you the bridge to Babylon. It was spectacular. Here you go.

I lost track of them after the Spectrum fiasco. They were old. Charlie Watts died.  I was old. I did NOT want them to tour again again [sic]. But I did finally see that they were still there…

What the hell…

Something I do remember and want to share. Many many years of not liking the first hearing of a new Stones album. You listen because you can’t not listen and then, finally, you get it. It’s the best album yet.  One in particular was a strikingly dramatic moment in my life. I was driving up Broad Street in Philadelphia (in my 440 Dodge convertible with the top down down down) when WMMR played the first single released from the 1980 album “Emotional Rescue.” I was simultaneously outraged at their sellout and their magnificent sendup of the Disco genre. Took me a month to validate the emotion I felt when I heard it first. 

Thing is, it’s the whole key to who they are and have been for all of us all this time. They’re the Stones. They do every genre of music. And it’s always the Stones. Meaning they’re always us listening, processing, making it our own. The very most American way to be. Nothing more anti-racist anti-sexist anti-hateful music in the world. We’re just dancing. All of us. Dancing with Mister D…

[They won’t let me link to Dancing with Mr. D… something I said must have P.O.‘ed them. Fancy that.]

Finally (a day later). Got it…

Been dancing with that guy for a loooong time now. He’s over 80 now. Don’t think I’m going to make that milestone. Moving into the territory of my favorite Stones song…