Posted by On July 15th, 2015 I saw The Rolling Stones for the (let’s see now…) eighth, and of this writing, final time. In this instance “as of this writing” refers to nearly a decade hence, which is a long time for me to go without a Stones show. As a matter of fact I have only gone this long without a Rolling Stones concert twice before. The first was a gap of nearly twenty-two years running from the day I was born until my first Stones show in December of 1989 while my second-longest Stones drought – a span of ten years, eight months, and twenty-three days – came between my second Stones show and my third.
And while this is nothing to celebrate I must admit that I feel like I have scratched my lives Stones itch, and I am sated. It’s not like I wouldn’t go see them again ‘cuz I sure would, and I rue to this day the two Stones shows that I flippantly opted to skip (Toronto’s SARSfest in 2003, which would have shortened that second-biggest show gap, and the lone Canadian show on their No Filter tour, in Burl’s Creek, Ontario in 2019, which would have broken up my current gap quite nicely). Damn me for not going to those! Ah well, I went to this one though, and it was in Quebec City.
I’m rather amazed that this was not only this concert-fanatic’s first time attending such a monstrous multi-day annual concert event as the Festival d’été de Québec, but it was also this national enthusiast and history buff’s first time stepping on the very dirt where Canada was born, the Plains of Abraham. The convergence of the two – for the Festival takes place on the Plains – made me a bit a-tizzy.
Though I suppose the astoundingly huge amount of people that I found myself sharing the experience with might have added to my sensory disorientation. I mean the crowd at this concert was massif. For a concert chaser like me standing in a crowd of 50,000 people or more is rather commonplace, but this was double that number, easy.
My crew and I found a perch a long way from the stage and a slight grade higher, where things were roomy and the sightlines were solid, if distant. Amazingly, even from such a distance the sound was incredible. When the band exploded onto the stage (with Start Me Up) I could literally hear every single note of every instrument on the stage. And Keith? I swear to you, I was standing hundreds of metres from the stage in an open field amongst 100K or more sound-eating humans and Keith was cranked so loud that when he strummed a chord I could literally hear his plectrum striking each individual string; honest and truly. I couldn’t believe it. As for the visuals, the bigscreens that flanked either side of the mile-wide stage easily brought the band all the way back to us in the faraway zone.
Not only were we far from the stage, but we were also pretty far from what appeared to be the only bathroom area. Or was it? We could see the official rest area in front of and below us and we could see that it was swarmed, so when it came time for a bathroom run the interested parties in my posse did what most of the crowd in our area seemed to be doing. We crossed our fingers and searched for a fresh spot amongst the historic rocky knoll behind us.
It was during one such run that a member of our crew went missing. Michelle left right around the time Keith took the vocals for a couple of songs and for the second half of the show she was gone. And as strange as it may seem, not a single one of the six of us owned a cellphone. So when she was gone, she was gone. Her partner Doug was quite worried but I knew it was going to work out. My faith in such things allows me to continue not having a cellphone to this day.
Come to think of it, there was a no-phone huge-crowd happenstance to do with Chris and Jennie too. Now, was it that we didn’t even travel from Ottawa together and we just randomly bumped into them in the city-sized crowd? I’m pretty sure that’s what happened and m’lady can’t quite remember either so let’s see if I can conjure up a convincing memory…yes…it’s coming…getting clearer now…
Aha!
It was shortly before the show started or maybe just a few songs in – still daylight, certainly – and our very good friends and regular concert-buddies Chris and Jennie just appeared out of nowhere on the pathway in front of us. Incredible! We didn’t even know that they were going to be at the show and after hugs all around we ended up spending the whole concert together.
Pretty convincing memory huh? Even I believe it.
Anyway, of course it was a great concert. The Stones just can’t crank out a bad show, they are just too damn professional for that. It seems that as long as they can breath they with be breathing rock and roll. I will report that Keith sounded a bit sloppy at times, which was a first in my experience and possibly due (or at least exacerbated) by the laser-like clarity and overt volume of his guitar. But I didn’t care; it was nothing short of glorious…all of it. The Rolling Stones truly are the World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band.
As for Michelle, one of us simply bumped into her without even trying during a late-show beer run, and we all enjoyed the You Can’t Always Get What You Want (with a choir and everything!) and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction encore together with nary a cellphone in sight. Afterwards we ended up at a pretty swanky party at someone’s airbnb smack in the middle of Old Quebec. It might have been where Chris and Jennie were staying. Doug and Michelle and m’lady and I stayed at some a cheap and dingy motel somewhere outside of the city, I remember that for sure.
Good times. Wonder if I’ll ever see The Rolling Stones again? Hope so.
It’s pretty amazing that seeing them live is still even a possibility. I mean, these guys have been playing shows since 1962.
Todd Man Out 