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When the Rolling Stones first announced their 50 & Counting tour there were only five dates on the docket: two in London, two in New Jersey, and one in Brooklyn. To make amends for a past Rolling Stones SNAFU involving m’lady I was compelled to attend at least one of these dates (which was fine with me, Rolling Stones fanatic that I am) so we shelled out about $275 each for cheap seats (I can’t believe I just called them that) to the Brooklyn show, and it was fantastic.
When the tour-hungry, money-loving Stones later announced a further eight million dates on the 50 & Counting tour we ended up seeing them four more times, twice in Toronto, once in Montreal, and once in Quebec City on the Plains of Abraham. But get this: we didn’t pay more than $90 for any of the shows.
How?
Aside from the Quebec show (which was part of a festival where tickets only cost $85 or so for the whole two weeks of music) we were lucky (and vigilant) enough to score tickets for the other three concerts at a hardly-known and hard-to-get price of $85 per ticket. This in a room where regular prices were truly outrageous; I mean tickets in the 100 levels were around $400 each and tickets in the pit were over $800, and I’m talking regular prices here – not scalpers, not “dynamic pricing” or Platinum seating” or anything.
And further, these mystical, magical $85 tickets that we purchased were for anywhere in the building; you only found out where you would be sitting once you arrived on the night of the show and picked up the tickets. And through this arrangement (as our luck would have it) m’lady and I did very, very well.
The first time was in Toronto and wow, can you believe it? We got pit tickets! It was amazing, it was breathtaking, it was the concert of a lifetime. In Montreal we scored really good 100 levels and we both enjoyed a bonne concertes par excellence; clearly the ticket gods were rocking and rolling in our general direction. But on June 6th, 2013 I walked into Toronto’s Air Canada Centre with so much excitement and exuberance I was able to cash a huge karmic cheque right there on the spot.
I was all smiles as we made our way to the venue and was nearly shivering with anticipation as we took our place at the end of the $85 ticket pickup line. I was so, so hoping we would be in the pit again that as we neared the front of the line I was literally jumping up and down like a little girl tingled with gusto.
I was really hoping that we weren’t going to just get handed an envelope. If we were, that meant the tickets weren’t in the pit. I knew from the first Toronto show that pit tickets came in marked envelopes so that the attendants would know to pull the lucky ones aside, give them special bracelets, and have them personally escorted by an usher past several security checkpoints and up to the front of the room. Please, oh please (I hoped like a jumping bean): don’t hand us the envelope!
When we were “next” I started chanting a singsong mantra (“We’re gonna be in the pii-iit! We’re gonna be in the pii-iit!) and when one of the nice ladies behind the desk called us up with a smile I was skipping behind m’lady waving my crossed fingers in the air, dancing a stupid (quaint?) little dance and mantra-chanting in a lilting sotto voce.
And you know what that wonderful, benevolent, gracious lady sitting at the ticket desk did? She quickly flipped though her stack of plain white envelopes, each containing a pair of tickets mysteriously selected from somewhere in the house (though let’s face it, the vast majority were probably in the rafters) until she came to an envelope with a checkmark on it. Then she pulled that marked envelope out of it’s place and set it on top of her stack. I saw this happen and froze mid-gasp.
She seemed so, so happy when she looked up from her stealthy move and asked us to please step aside and see an usher. I’m sure I wasn’t yet breathing when my face unfroze and formulated itself into a gaze of undying, unflinching, nearly disbelieving gratitude. All three of us knew what she had just done for us, and I gave her a look of such blissful thanks that I knew she knew how grateful we were.
I don’t remember what that amazing woman looked like, but I know just then she looked exactly like a beautiful, compassionate, glowing angel.
And boy, if you had pictured me dancing when I was in line, well, I can’t imagine how much you are picturing me dance as we were fitted with our bracelets of utter exclusivity and personally ushered all the way up, up, up through the crowd and all the way to the front of the floor. Oh, how you must picture my mile-wide smile as we ducked under the ramp that wound around and enclosed our coveted, exclusive, and prohibitively-priced private area where I would be standing just metres from Keith Richards (and others) for the next few hours.
And as vivid as your imagination may be, I’m absolutely sure that you’re not even close to picturing the actual joy that was spread across my face. I wish there were pictures.
If, however, you imagine that despite being virtually the same as the other Stones shows on the tour that this concert was still a one-of-a-kind rollicking, giddy, chest-exploding great time then you’d be right on the money. It was all of these things and so much more, but you are proving to have a pretty vivid imagination so I’ll let you come up with your own hyperbolic and oft-hyphenated adjectives to describe the indescribable concert the Rolling Stones presented, as viewed from the best stands (there were no need for seats in the pit) in the house.
Oh, the band was so close! If I chose not to glance at the vast crowd stretching out behind me then I could have easily convinced myself that I was seeing The Stones in a bar, or at most a small theatre. When Mick Taylor sat in (for three songs this time instead of his standard two) I marvelled that he wasn’t much farther away than when I saw him at the Spectrum in Montreal a quarter-century earlier. I had no need for big screens or binoculars; the lads were as large as life before my wide, naked eyes. Mick scurried around the stage and especially along the catwalk that encompassed us me like he was a manic preening bird trying to attract a mate. He was a dynamic force of nature – a constant whirlwind of rock & roll – and it was almost impossible to take your eyes off of him. In truth, the only time I could look away was when Keith would loom into view near the front of the stage*.
And when he did Keith took all of my attention, he filled my entire field of (tunnel) vision, and he stole all of my energy as I continually erupted with inner joy. I had the energy of an entire crowd of pre-teen Beatles fanatics as seen in early-’60’s video reels fomenting inside of me. Truly, if one could have farmed my musical soul during the performance the energy harnessed could have lit up a thousand Marshall double-stacks and had enough energy left over to power a mid-’80’s Genesis light show.
And it wasn’t just me – of course everyone else in the pit was going bananas the entire time as well, most of them fuelled by the coalescence of a significant financial investment coming to fruition, whilst a select few were (like me) flying on the thrill of miracle, luck, and/or exceptionally good karma. Either way, the energy of us “pitters” was most tangibly on display on those occasions when someone on the stage casually tossed a pick into the crowd. The result looked like those clips where people throw feed into a pond full of very hungry fish; in other words, it was an exaggerated combination of a melee and a feeding frenzy. One time a Keith pick (the ultimate prize) flew my way and, well, without wielding a serious weapon I had no chance whatsoever of getting it.
An example: the bass player (no, not Bill Wyman…the replacement guy Darryl Jones) tossed out a plectrum and it landed next to me. I instantly slammed my foot down and trapped the relic and can you believe at least two people immediately went to work lugging and pulling on my leg, trying to lift it off of the pick? I couldn’t.
“Dude’s…I got it…it’s over!” I yelled down at these leg-lubbers, and after a few more half-hearted tugs they both gave up. I crouched down and waited. After a careful glance in all directions I flung into action and deftly picked up the plecky and got it safely into my pocky.
And then finally – like all good things – the concert came to a close, deftly wrapping up all my ecstatic joy and packaging it into a seam-bursting pocket of magical memories. My goodness, The Rolling Stones are just the greatest.
So was that anonymous angel at the will-call desk. Bless her heart to the very heavens.
*It’s curious, but my father had died not too long before this concert after spending six months withering in hospital and I gotta say, I was shocked to notice that Keith looked to me a lot like my dad. I had never noticed the resemblance before and I know why: I have no intention of being unkind to Keith but it was only after months of my father’s degradation that the resemblance came to the fore. Keith didn’t really look like my dad, he looked like my dying dad. Poor Keith; poor dad.
Todd Man Out 