News last fall that Vancouver would be the only Canadian venue for the 2024 Rolling Stores tour was rather like hearing around the same time, about the upcoming eclipse of the sun. Both events seemed like last-in-a-lifetime opportunities. I am not a devoted Stones fan and only the rarest attendee of concerts. But I was tempted–– that is, until seeing the ticket prices. Sir Mick Jagger did not need my contribution to his $500,000,000 estate… My only previous contribution to Rolling Stones Inc. were royalties on two LPs acquired in my mid-teens.

When the Stones made their North American debut in late 1964, ‘the British Invasion’ was already wearing thin. Of course, I had been unavoidably caught up in Beatlemania.  But like many boys, I was tiring of the subsequent succession of British pop bands with choir-boy haircuts, matching suits and cutesy footwork. The Rolling Stones broke the mould. I can’t remember whether I’d known of them before their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in October that year:

They opened with a cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Around and Around’.  British rhythm and blues had been debuted by the Animals a few months earlier, but the Rolling Stones looked unique. Their clothes were unmatched and their long hair, unruly. Keith Richards pivoted and chopped his lead guitar while Bill Wyman on bass stood statue-still. Brian Jones, with sheepdog blonde hair, looked coolly indifferent. But the camera was mostly on front-man, Mick Jagger. Holding the hand mike to curling lips, he seemed to coil and uncoil with sensuality… Only for the Beatles had girls screamed louder…

From that time onward they had a succession of hit singles: ‘Get off my Cloud’, ‘Heart of Stone’,  ‘Not Fade Away’–– were among my favourites. Beginning from rhythm and blues covers, from 1965 onward, most of their hits were written by Jagger-Richards.  Many of the gems from 1965-1971 have remained standards played in their tours over six decades.

A few of their classics–– like ‘Satisfaction’ –– are rightly rated as the greatest rock songs of all time. Kids born forty years after its release instantly recognize its Fuzz-Tone riff. Yet it is impossible to convey the experience of hearing Jagger’s raunchy growl on a transistor radio in the summer of 1965. As with the Beatles’ and Bob Dylan’s, the Stones’ best songs through the 1960s were landmarks of growth and staggering change. The world in which a 14-year-old experienced ‘Satisfaction’ would seem at least a decade divorced from the 15-year-old first hearing ‘Paint it Black’ in the summer of 1966…

Up to about 1966, the Stone were adored as the bad boys of rock and roll. Of course, teens could not have known that such an image had been crafted by their promoter, Andrew Loog Oldham. He shrewdly understood the market potential for a band which parents loathed. Before drugs and psychedelia, the Stones shocked the adult world with stories of paternity suits and public urination. For such scandal as much as for their music–– in mid-teens, the Rolling Stones were my favourite band…

By the late 1960s, the Stones had competition. Even by 1967, the antics of upstarts like Frank Zappa, the Fugs or the Doors were making the Stones seem rather tame…

Jagger’s giving in to TV censors by changing ‘Let’s spend the night together’ to–– Let’s spend some time together’ was not unforgivable. Yet Jim Morrison’s refusal to change the lyric: ‘girl, we couldn’t get much higher’ got the Doors thereafter banned from the Ed Sullivan show. It was hard for teen fans of the Stones not to wonder who were the authentic rebels.

 Meanwhile, in awkward competition with the Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ album, the Stones released ‘Her Satanic Majesties Request’. Having received it as a gift for Christmas 1967, I remember it not for its music but for its silly lenticular 3-D cover.  In the year of Cream and Jimi Hendrix, the Stones were definitely in a slump.

Then in the spring of 1968, they came roaring back with Beggars Banquet’.  Featuring ‘Street Fightin’ Man’ and ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, the album was a raucous return to their R&B roots. It remains my favourite Stones’ album…  Many others would claim that their best work was on the albums that soon followed: ‘Let it bleed’, ‘Sticky Fingers’ and ‘Exile on Main Street’. After the early 1970s, I was paying too little attention to know…

By then, my tastes in music were changing. I was certainly tuned in to hits like ‘Gimme Shelter’, ‘Midnight Rambler’, or Tumblin’ Dice’–– but no longer listened to the entire LPs in which they featured. I hardly listened to any popular albums in entirely–– apart from those of Bob Dylan, the Band or Leonard Cohen. By my early twenties, my source of music was largely FM radio. Fancy stereos I regarded as “hippie TV…”

Tidbits of salacious gossip about the Stones and other rock royalty did unavoidably break though: news of arrests, break-ups and deaths… I’d certainly known that Brian Jones tragically drowned in 1969, a few months after he’d left the Stones.  I heard that Mick, like John Lennon, was dabbling in acting and had relocated to Southern France to avoid British taxes. The impression was that the Stones, like the Beatles, would soon split up.

From the mid-1970s, I was living in Africa and largely tuned out of Anglo pop-culture. I did receive cassettes of dubbed music from friends–– and periodically read American newsmagazines.  From such sources I got snippets of Mick and Bianca, jet-setting on the Cote d’Azur or a dandified Mick spooning with Baryshnikov at Studio 54. There was also the impression that Keith Richard’s Russian roulette with heroin was leading him to a reaper’s rendezvous with late bandmate, Brian Jones.  Still, even as late as 1982, I was struck by the old Jagger-Richards voodoo magic in new hits like ‘Start me Up’…

 In the late 1980s, I was back in Canada, struggling for a foothold. With a young family and insecure job, my musical entertainment was mostly confined to cassettes borrowed from the library…

In November 1989, the Stones rolled into Vancouver on their Steel Wheels tour. There was much hoopla in the local media about coke-snorting boomers arriving at the BC Place venue in stretch limos. For those with lucre in the age of ‘greed is good’–– the Steel Wheels concert seemed to be a celebration of decadence. The Rolling Stones’ red tongue logo flaunted it… In that jaundiced moment, wild horses would not have dragged me to see them…

A few months previously Eric Burdon, formerly of the Animals, had played at a nearby casino. Sadly, I missed hearing a voice believed bigger and bluesier than Jagger’s ever was. It seemed a notable juxtaposition that two singers who had been equally popular in the mid-1960s, would in 1989, be performing at such different venues. So why did Mick Jagger and the Stones command audiences of 50,000 while Eric Burdon sang before a couple of hundred gamblers and drunks? The most obvious reason seemed to be in the chops for self-marketing.   It did not seem irrelevant that Mick–– unlike Eric– had attended the London School of Economics…

A few years thereafter, it did not come as a shock to hear ‘Start Me Up’ as the advertising jingle for Microsoft Windows ’95…  The red tongue logo seemed to ironically capture the aging Stones shamelessness in milking the old brand…  Then in 2003, came the news of Mick Jagger’s knighthood.  At the time, I would not have been surprised to hear that Sir Mick had been appointed to the House of Lords–– as a tory…  

In any case, that period of antipathy soon turned to indifference. Over the last thirty years, I’ve heard of Rolling Stones tours (they were back in Vancouver twice) but have hardly listened to their newer music. I’d also heard that Mick has cycled though a few more young women and that Keith has acted as a pirate of the Caribbean.  In 2021, It was sad to hear of the death of Charlie Watts…

Yet until November 30th last year, I would never have expected to attend their new Hackney Diamonds concert. That was when my elder daughter called from Toronto with an unexpected offer.  She had just got a message from Ticketmaster about the online sale of tickets for the Stones’ Vancouver show. Good seats were expected to sell out quickly. Would I like her to buy me one?

“I was thinking that could be your Christmas present,” she said.

It was a nice idea, I told her, if it weren’t so expensive.

“O, all three of us can share it,” she said, speaking for her younger siblings.

The next day, she phoned back to confirm that she had got me a ticket. The concert date was seven months hence. Seven months was a significant portion of the rest of the lives of octogenarians, Mick and Keith. Poor old Charlie unexpectedly died in the midst of their last tour. Was it morbid to wonder about the odds of the three surviving Stones all making it to July 5th, 2024?  Was that future date any less uncertain for a septuagenarian like me? 

The question at least brought into relief the irony of any old man “looking forward to” anything…

Even with the Ticketmaster receipt, I doubted that the event would actually transpire. That was until spring 2024, when the tour was underway and getting good reviews. An article in the Vancouver Sun reminisced on the Stones’ four previous appearances in the city. For obvious reasons, it seemed the Hackney Diamonds tour would probably be their last.

Without counting Ronny Wood (recruited in 1975) the Hackney Diamonds tour featured only two of the original five Rolling Stones. With the late Charlie Watt’s replacement drummer, backup singers, instrumentalists and horn section –– the ensemble was almost a Rolling Stones tribute band. As in previous tours, the play list was mostly comprised of old hits.

Still, the reviews of their first appearances (in Houston, New Orleans, Seattle) had praised the new Hackney Diamonds material. In a touch of the old cheekiness, the album name was inspired by a London expression for broken windshield glass from smash and grab robberies…

In preparation for the concert, I listened to the album several times on Spotify. What it seemed to lack in originality (to my ears) was well compensated in vitality… The ‘Angry’ video brought to mind lyrics from ‘Start Me Up’. The hot blonde draped over the rear of a cruising red convertible, teased in a manner calculated to either “make a grown man cry” or “make a dead man come…” 

From idle Googling, I learned that Mick had fathered a son at age seventy-three. His partner was a woman forty-five years his junior. That seemed more a privilege of fame and fortune than a feat of super-virility–– but it was impressive… Then an article in ‘The Irish Times’ assured that Mick is a loving father to his eight off-spring. Since they will inherit enough ‘satisfaction’, he does not want to spoil them with too much loot. The same reporting informed that he plans to leave most of his estate to worthy charities like Doctors Without Borders.  It was a relief to hear that in his ripeness, Sir Mick is not the tory he was once suspected to be…

A clear impression was also taken that none of the surviving Stones were doing the Hackney Diamonds tour just for the money. In a lengthy interview by Jimmy Fallon recorded before the start of the tour, they spoke of the sheer thrill of performing.  All three–– especially Mick–– appeared to be in excellent shape despite wizening faces. In the closeups, their eyes shone. In seeing that interview on You Tube a few weeks before the concert–– a faintly boyish excitement began to build…

For the night of July 5th, my wife and I stayed in a downtown condo kindly afforded by my middle daughter and son-in-law. It was part of a combination Christmas, Father’s Day and birthday gift package. The plan was for my wife (who had zero interest in the Rolling Stones) to visit a spa while I attended the concert.

Ninety minutes before the start time, I crossed Expo Blvd. amid a widening stream headed towards BC Place Stadium.  Arriving forty minutes before the gates opened, I found a shady patch near the Terry Fox memorial and surveyed the crowd.

Despite the hot weather, there was a predominance of denim and leather. Tee-shirts from previous Stones concerts (dating back to the early 1970s) were much in evidence. Tattoos, earrings and headbands confirmed the popularity of Keith Richards’ pirate look. Biker vests, however unwittingly, harkened to the Stone’s notorious Altamont concert of 1969…

The median age of attendees appeared to be over fifty. Some oldsters hobbled on canes and a few were in wheelchairs. Many dressed in nostalgia for their edgier years. There were white pony tails, male and female; and bangles jiggling on withering arms.  Old women in short skirts or tight jeans–– perhaps just for that one night–– celebrated a naughty youth.  It was reassuring not to be conspicuously geriatric.

At about 7:15 PM, I moved with the crowd through the gates. After the digital ‘ticket’ on my iPhone ‘wallet’ was scanned, I stepped though the metal detector.  My fake arm predictably set it off, but unlike at airport security, I was not subjected to a further search. Once inside, I followed the signage that spiraled downwards into the bowels of the stadium.  

In entering the interior on the opposite side from my section, I waded through the lineups before every concession stand around the entire perimeter.  One counter, selling only Coors beer, had ten uniformed attendants.  At other counters, attendees loaded up on pizza, nachos and French fries––seemingly oblivious to the outrageously inflated prices. The longest lineups were for Rolling Stones merch.  Shirts bearing the tongue logo and the Hackney Diamonds tour schedule went for $65-$115. For bragging rights of attendance–– money was plainly no object.  As for my temptations amid the goody gauntlet –– I was resigned to stay parched before even parting with $5 for a bottle of water…

Near the entrance to my section leaning against a pillar there was an exquisitely beautiful woman. She was tall and reed thin with thick black hair spilling down her back. She could have been a Brazilian model. It occurred she could even have been there to entertain one of the Stones themselves. Struck by her contrast with the prevailing garishness–– I stopped for a moment to steal glances.

Much too early, I took my seat (#109, Row S, Section #246) in the half empty stadium. It was as cramped as in the middle of a row on a long flight.  Yet much more often than on a crowded  plane, I had to pop up and down for those squeezing past.  Many were laden with snacks and drinks. A few rows to my left, one big fellow carried four pizza boxes while his date, in arms as big as my waist, cradled four beers.

At 8:10 PM, the warm-up band took the stage.  Only then did it occur that I had forgotten my hearing aids. For about an hour the Ghost Hounds played competent but unremarkable indie rock… Midway through their set, my Oura ring tracking app texted a reminder that my usual sleep time was an hour away. Were it not for the sore back and stiff neck, I could well have dozed off. 

After the Ghost Hounds laid down their instruments, roadies in black began setting up equipment and performing sound checks for the main event… All eyes in the capacity crowd were on the empty stage, distant but for those with the $1000+ seats. There were a couple of premature roars of excitement.  One big-bellied man in a captain’s hat a few rows away pulled off his shirt and swung it around his head, yelping.  The building anticipation seemed more for a Stanley Cup play-off game than for a superstar rock concert… 

The waiting stretched beyond forty minutes. Sweating along with thousands under the open dome of BC Place on a hot summer twilight, I wondered how Mick, Keith and Ron were being pampered backstage. Of course, nothing better shows dominance than the power to make others indefinitely wait.  In the burn of impatience, I was tempted to abort the concert and huff out…

Finally–– like an announcement of the start of a heavyweight championship bout–– a voice over the PA proclaimed: “Ladies and gentleman, the Rolling Stones!”

A roar broke from 40,000 throats. The gigantic video panel backdrop lit up with jiggling diamond shapes which shattered like broken windshield glass. Gigantic silhouettes of three figures were displayed on the backdrop screen just as Keith, Ronnie and Mick stepped onto the stage. They were tiny figures in the distance, but the Jumbotron screens showed the three living legends in precise detail. With white hair flowing from his head tie, Keith crouched and slashed out the opening chords to ‘Start Me Up’.   Along with the multitudes, I spontaneously sprang to my feet.

On the Jumbotron, Keith and Ron grinned as they ducked around weaving their guitar riffs… They looked to be truly enjoying themselves.  Mick strode back and forth with the stamina of a body as young as that of his latest wife… For a non-concert goer, it was strange glancing between the live video on the giant screens and the doll-like figures on the distant stage. Most of the audience were too far away to be sure that the three featured performers were not talented impostors. Despite a few cynical observations, for the first forty-five minutes l was carried along with the excitement…

It was a treat to hear such old gems as ‘Street Fightin’ Man’, ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Tumbling Dice’… In the opening of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, I lifted up my iPhone at the same time as the entire upper balcony glowed with the firefly lights of thousands of other cellphone cameras…

Soon after, Mick announced that Keith would do a few solo numbers. When he left the stage, there was a shuffling of bodies towards the exits. I joined the mini-exodus–– not for beer and nachos–– but to ease my cramped legs. I stopped in the section entranceway just as Keith launched into ‘A Little T&A’.  I never returned to my seat.

After Keith’s mini-set, Mick returned to the stage and introduced the ensemble. Applause was especially loud for Charlie Watt’s replacement drummer, Steve Jordan. After the introductions, Mick paced back and forth doing his home-crowd connecting rap. It was a couple of minutes of tongue-in-cheek cheerleading with blanks filled in by local references (provided by cue-cards?). Between his rapid patter and the cheering–– I caught only references to the Vancouver Whitecaps, Nanaimo bars, Beavertails and Trudeau. Perhaps he was surprised that naming the Prime Minister drew the evening’s only boos…

There followed ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. Originating in their 1968 album and featured in a surrealistic film by Jean-Luc Godard released the same year, the song has been a perennial favourite of Stones’ concerts over the decades. Replacing the fire-belching props of past performances of the classic, the Hackney Diamonds Tour version featured dramatic CGI. In the back-drop screen, cobras curled up and down flaming columns. At the top of the screen were silhouettes of soldiers marching left to right.

Before Mick began the first verse (‘Please allow me to introduce myself’), the audience was chanting ‘woo-woo’ to the voodoo conga beat. Midway through, 80-year-old Keith ripped into the guitar solo with a fierceness that almost conjured all that wildness of 1968…

In the revved-up spirit of Bacchanalia, there followed: ’Honky Tonk Woman’, ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘Midnight Rambler’.  The latter was the only number in which Mick played harmonica. To my old ears, it sounded vaguely out of tune.  Near the end of the same song, the octogenarian legend dropped to his knees and sang in a posture which my mere septuagenarian kneecaps could not have tolerated.  Ballet and weight-training aside–– Mick is, indeed, blessed to have the genes of a gym teacher who lived to ninety-three……

He performed ‘Gimme Shelter’, with African American backup singer, Chanel Haynes. Her voice was not quite as strong as Merry Clayton’s who famously sang on the original recording. She was neither raunchy like Tina Turner had been in her back and forth with Mick at Live Aid in 1985. But the young woman was impressively soulful…

While Mick and Chanel were belting out “just a shot away, shot away”, a drunk in front of me inexplicably tried to get my attention. Sensing he could turn hostile if ignored, I submitted to a friendly fist bump. When he continued talking in the din, I stepped backwards. My view was then blocked in the increasingly busy entranceway.

I walked out into the concession area, intending to take a washroom break before returning to my seat. From above the urinals, the PA speakers began issuing ‘Paint it Black’. Associations with that song were rich–– but it was past 11:00 PM and I was exhausted. The concert, I guessed, was close to a finale. Staying for the encore would risk being caught in the crush of the crowd.

From the washroom doorway it took a couple of minutes to find an exit. All the while ‘Paint it Black’, played loud and clear. In stepping outside I caught an image of Brian Jones–– an eternal Adonis–– sitting cross-legged with the sitar while Mick sang:“I see a red door and I want it painted black…”

On the plaza, a gathering was enjoying the concert for free. Acoustics of the PA on the plaza were just as good as inside the stadium. Only the Jumbotron video was missed.

After I walked across the plaza to the crosswalk on Expo Blvd., ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ was distinctly heard from behind.  In walking west along Smithe Street, the song faded into the sounds of late-night traffic…

Only the next morning did I find out I’d missed ‘Satisfaction’–– played in a final encore.  Regrettably–– but predictably–– an aged early bird could not keep his eyes open past midnight. Not even for a last-in-a-lifetime event…

‘Did you have fun?’  My eldest daughter texted the following morning.  She surely knew ‘Was the concert interesting?’  or ‘Was it time well spent?’  were more appropriate questions. Of course, in the reply I dared not reveal having left early…

I did say I was impressed by Stones rousing performance (with a little help from their friends) of songs they’d played over half a century.  I ventured that the adoration of mass audiences must be more powerful than crack cocaine.  Still, the joyful excitement generated at the Stones concert was not to compared with the reactions of crowds stirred up by a “certain orange-skinned demagogue,” I texted.

Later in the morning, I read a review of the concert in the on-line Vancouver Sun: ‘The Rolling Stones blow the roof off…’ The other news item that caught my attention was the reaction to the previous evening’s interview of Joe Biden. He continued to defend his candidacy despite his disastrous debate performance.…

It seemed an interesting juxtaposition of contrasting ‘performances’ of two 81-year-old men: One was a musician who can sing and gyrate as vigorously as rockers half his age. The other was a frail president who stubbornly refused to accept that he was not up to performing the world’s most demanding job…

Still, it occurred that for old men who are up to their jobs–– even the highest praise is tinged with patronization. The exuberance of Mick Jagger at eighty-one is certainly amazing to behold. One might compare (if bearable) the last performance of poor Johnny Cash who was an unrecognizable shell of himself at seventy-one.  Still, Mick, Keith and even Ronnie (spring chicken at seventy-seven) have passed the age where they are lauded only for their talent and achievement.  They are extolled for talent that endures despite being old. Even with that ‘ageist’ patronization, hopefully, the three still-rolling Stones got the satisfaction they deserved…

Within three days, the Vancouver Hackney Diamond concert was available on YouTube… The video was sharper than any view I craned to get from my seat or from the entranceway of section #246 or BC Place… Of course, I was grateful to have attended the concert–– it was a thoughtful and generous gift. But admittedly––I would never have bought a ticket with my own money.

Yet there was a lingering sadness. For nearly seven months, the Rolling Stones concert had been a tiny silver bell of anticipation. The desolation of its absence was first felt in the moment I walked out on ‘Paint it Black’.  I could have been slipping away unnoticed from a fiftieth high school reunion reception at which I had been a stranger to everyone…

––2024, August

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