The Rolling Stones - This May Be The Last Time

 

I know some of you are going to think I’m out of my mind, and maybe I am. I bought tickets to see the Rolling Stones. Yes, the guys who are in their late 70s and early 80s; the guys whose faces have more wrinkles than a cotton shirt left in the dryer; the guys whose tour is sponsored by AARP - I’m going to see those guys.  When their new song came out, which is great by the way, I forwarded the video to a lifelong friend of mine who’s a big Stones fan. My message at the bottom of the email said 4 words: anytime, anywhere, any price.  I kept true to my word.  They’re coming and we’re going. 

If you haven’t bought tickets for a concert lately, you are going to be in for a shock. Ticket prices for premium artists haven't just gone through the roof; they’ve gone beyond the stratosphere.  In the case of the Stones, they know their fans who paid five bucks for tickets fifty years ago can now afford to pay a hundred times that much. Nostalgia ain’t cheap folks. However, the way I look at it is, in the unlikely event they ever tour again, I probably won’t be able to climb the stadium stairs, and they probably won’t know where they are. This will be the fifth time for me to see them in concert, so I’m calling it a “last in a lifetime opportunity”.  

The first time I saw the Rolling Stones I was 12 years old. They were co-headlining with The Beach Boys at Legion Field in Birmingham - the “Shower of Stars”.  My mother dropped me and a friend off in the front of the stadium, then said she would be back to pick us up in few hours.  Nowadays if a parent did that, DHR would probably get involved.  Although the primary reason I went was to see The Beach Boys, I became an instant Stones fan when I heard their high energy rock ‘n’ roll sound. I was also mesmerized watching the lead singer strut on stage like a rooster on amphetamines.  I believe his name was Jagger. 

We bought our tickets at the stadium for five dollars. The presale price was four fifty, and despite that huge fifty cent price savings, my Mom opted for convenience and we paid the upcharge. I walked right up to the ticket window, plopped down a five, got my ticket torn, and went thru the gate. That was then. Now, you buy the tickets months in advance, and you have to use the Ticketmaster app on your phone.  And you had best be prepared.  There’s almost always an internet frenzy when the tickets are first available. If you’re lucky enough to have a presale code, which may take dozens of tries, you pick your seats out, then hope you’ve put the in the correct credit card number. If all goes well, soon the tickets magically pop up on your iPhone.  It may be aggravating and stressful, but it is certainly better than what you did years ago. Fortunately for Millenials, they never had to spend the night on cold, hard concrete in front of a box office window to make sure they got that precious piece of paper for a concert. Softies. 

Personally, I wish we still got an actual ticket. For so many of us who grew up in that era, that torn paper stub was a souvenir  that we would stick on our bedroom mirrors and admire for months after the concert. Of course, a lot of people threw them away – I’ve heard stories about thousands of Woodstock tickets lying in the mud in upstate New York. That certainly won’t happen any more because it’s all paperless. When you get to the venue, you simply pull up the “ticket” on your phone, get the bar code shot with a laser gun that looks like it belongs to Captain Kirk, and in you go.  A word to the wise, be sure your phone is fully charged! And I don’t know about you, but about every two weeks I’ll check my phone just to make sure they are there. When the day of the concert finally arrives and my ticket is scanned, I get a bit nervous.  That paper ticket was just more reassuring to me. 

I don’t recall if they were selling merchandise back then - oh, that’s the wrong term. Nowadays, it’s just called “merch”, and it’s a highly profitable component of any concert. Case in point: a perfectly good $15 T-shirt costs at least $50.  (And in 20 years when my kids are cleaning out my closet, one of them will grab it and sell it for $500 on line). There were no $14 beers for sale either - in fact, no alcohol was available at all. Most of the, um “mood enhancers,” were more organic, and brought in discreetly. 

Of course, in the early years, concerts didn’t have lasers, and smoke, and fireworks, and giant stages, and huge inflatables, and such. On that particular night in 1965, there were no frills; just incredible music that featured The Beach Boys at the height of their formidable powers, and a band beginning to march to their coronation as kings of rock n’ roll - The Rolling Stones. 

So to my wife: Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Valentine’s, and Easter. We’ve got tickets to see Mick and the boys in June. 

At least I think we do. I’m going to go check my phone again. 

#AARP#rollingstones#showerofstars#concerts#tickermaster#merch