Who the fuck decided that this was a good idea? I feel cheated. Halifax gets Sloan as an opening act. Chicago gets Elvis H. Costello, for crying out loud. East Rutherford, New Jersey? We get Kanye Fucking West.
The only reasonable explanation that I could come up with was that they were catering to the New York faux hipster crowd who think that it's cool to like the Rolling Stones. I think that sucks. I've been listening to the Stones since I was literally in diapers thanks to my older sisters. If you don't recognize the opening base line to "Live With Me" they shouldn't let you in.
I'd love to say that this is the end of my bitching, but it's not. I'll get on with my recap, though.
Paul (who has stolen my thunder by already blogging about the show, thus creating a lack of motivation on my part) and I got to this show early, even though I had been saying all day, "Eh, Kanye takes the stage at eight. So that gives us extra time." We arrived at our seats off to the side of the stadium at the very last row on the top long before he went on.
I'd like to take a moment right now to say an extra special "Fuck you!" to Ticketmaster. Lots of fans totally got dicked on advanced ticket sales. They did not actually give the best seats available in each price range to people on the pre-sale, which we were able to utilize. Had we purchased our tickets after the pre-sale at the same price range, we could have had tickets on the floor. This is not my only issue with Ticketmaster and I really think someone should investigate their practices. But that is another blog for another day.
You can probably guess right now about how I feel about Kanye West. Oh, I love his politics! Anyone who has the balls to go off script and bad mouth the President on national tv is ok with me. His music? Well, eh. I mean, I know that one song from an episode of the Boondocks. And I saw him do something on the Chappell show. But no, I'm not a fan of his music really. And I can't imagine too many other people at the show were, either. Hardly anyone was at their seats. He kept saying that he was doing his music for the people just coming to his seats and for all the haters. Thanks, Kanye. But that's really unnecessary. At one point, I looked at Paul and said, "I really wish he'd stop talking over the music like that." That pretty much sums up my thoughts on his performance. He's no Elvis Costello.
There was a really long intermission. We expected the Stones to come on stage no later than 9:15, but we were worried when a half hour after that had passed. To make matters worse, there was a group of 38 people from some work organization seated directly next to us. No one wanted to sit in their assigned seats and this caused them to stand in our row directly in front of us for long periods of time while they tried to figure out who would sit where each time a new group of drunk assholes arrived. After they stood in front of me for over five minutes, I schwoopie eyed the security guard to come over and handle things. He got them all to sit rather quickly. Unfortunately, I found myself doing this throughout the show. At one point, a guy was standing in front of Paul smoking and had his cigarette just inches from his face. I asked him to watch what he was doing. The guy said he was sorry, but when he walked away, he deliberately ashed all over Paul. Security Guard #774 (aka My New Boyfriend) asked us if we wanted him escorted out. We told him no, mostly out of fear of retaliation from the other 37 drunk assholes that were with him.
There were also two other drunk assholes to my right who were independent of the large group. My lover #774 had no patience for them and threw them out after accusing them of bumping into me. The crowd was such a pain in the ass.
Wow. I just realized how miserable all this sounds. I must say that this was by far the best Stones show that I've seen. The setlist (It's Only Rock'n Roll, Live With Me, Monkey Man, Sway, Far Away Eyes, Streets Of Love, Just My Imagination, Midnight Rambler, Tumbling Dice, You Got The Silver, Little T&A, Under My Thumb, Rough Justice, Start Me Up, Honky Tonk Women, Sympathy For The Devil, Jumping Jack Flash, Satisfaction, and Brown Sugar for an encore) was by far the best of the three times that I've seen them. I love the more obscure stuff. I could do without the crap that you hear all the time like "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Honkey Tonk Woman," "Satisfaction," "Start Me Up" and "Brown Sugar" personally. I think they all sound too much alike. When Mick announced that they were doing "Far Away Eyes" Paul and I both looked at each other in disbelief and yelled "Holy shit!" in unison. The Keith Songs were great. The only way they could have been better would be if he had done "Before They Make Me Run." But I'll take this. I've already seen him do "Happy" at a different show. I also had fun trying to figure out what they were going to play next and called "Midnight Rambler" before they even started playing it really.
And yeah, they look old. They *are* old. But they still sound great and they still have such great energy. I'd love to see all these assholes who go around saying that they're ancient and about to break a hip run around on stage like that when they're in their late 60's. They're amazing.
Toward the end of the show, when they started to play all the songs that I mentioned before that I don't like, the crowd finally got into it. You can tell the only people who can afford these tickets are the people who just go for status. That's sad. I wish there had been more "true fans" there. At this point in the show, Paul leaned over and said, "Enjoy these last few songs. This might be the last time we see them."
I said, "If I have to enjoy these last few songs, they're going to have to play something different."
The show finally finished some time around midnight. We still had a long drive home and work at 7 am the next day. Plus, my boss was visiting my office. I went in the next day extremely tired.
But it was so so worth it.
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