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THERE'S MORE ROLLING STONES STUFF AT THEIR MAIN PAGE... The Rolling Stones Came to Wichita, Kansas for Some Reason (Perhaps Inspired by the Pixie Queen) and Put on a Show That the City is Likely Never Going to Forget
Overall Concert Score: WHOAH!!!! There have only been a few moments in my life when I had to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. Reading the announcement that the Rolling Stones were going to put on a show at my college campus, Wichita State University, was one of them. I was spending the summer at my parents' house in Seattle when I was checking up on the WSU Web site for some reason I forgot. And there it was; the announcement. I skipped a few breaths!! If you've been reading my Web site for awhile, you know that I'm willing to drive ungodly distances to see some of my favorite musicians on stage. Right now, my record is about 800 miles, and I expect I'll probably even surpass that sometime in the future. But the Rolling Stones, the group that pretty much invented the modern concept of a rock band, came right to my back door. Furthermore, they came at a time when I was at work, which is ON CAMPUS. So technically, they came to me WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE!!! Oh, and this was also a huge deal for the city of Wichita. The Rolling Stones made headline news for several issues. And, I'm not kidding, when the opening act was announced, The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, it made headline news. I guess it's no surprise that this concert turned out to be the biggest selling show in Wichita history. (Our city is notoriously awful for concert turn out. Rod Stewart can attest to that. It's basically because we're situated in the middle of nowhere.) Naturally, I bought my ticket the MOMENT they went on sale. I probably could have weaseled out a press pass if I was slick enough, but I figured that I would get screwed in the end, so I decided not to chance anything and buy my ticket. (I also wasn't sure how quickly this concert would sell out. If it was anywhere besides Wichita, I might have even had a problem buying it the second they went on sale.) OK fast forward to the day of the concert, I was feeling pretty hesitant about going! I hate big crowds! The biggest reason I don't go to clubs is because I don't like crowds. WSU also proved something to me: They're really not good at putting up concerts. I bought $100 floor tickets, and I ended up having to stand in two separate, long lines to get seated. There was the line to get into Koch Arena, which I stood in for about 15 minutes and then another line inside to get into the floor area. Why they had to only have one entrance to the floor is way beyond me! I missed 1/4 of the opening act because of this. (To their credit, I normally arrive an hour and a half before a concert begins, because I always think I'm going to get lost. Since this was my university, I knew I wasn't going to get lost ... so I went at the last minute.) I had a ticket for a seat in section DD2, which I quickly realized didn't exist! So, I had to stand in a third line to get that ticket exchanged. But I shouldn't complain about that, because I ended up with a $160 seat! As I was standing there, there was a weird guy dressed like Keith Richards who walked in front of me. More curiously than that, there was a group of about 10 people following him. Did they think he was really Keith? His face looked more like Geoffrey Rush to me! I got my new ticket and watched the remaining 2/3 of the opening act (they really weren't that great) and then waited about 60 minutes for the REAL show to begin. I scanned the elaborate stage set-up. It was an absolutely mammoth structure that, at the time, was one of the largest buildings on campus! It was about six stories high, and it contained an absolutely huge, three story video screen! The construction guys took a week to build that thing, which a lot of whiners on campus hated, because they used 200 parking spots for it. (Everyone at WSU who complains about parking obviously never went to any other major university in the United States. When I went to K-State, I used to have to walk a mile and a half to get from my parking spot to my freaking DORMS!) But anyway... the review...
They took quite awhile to finally get started. I was wondering if this whole concert was some elaborate hoax, or Keith Richards finally coughed himself to death, and the concert was cancelled. After all, I live in Wichita, and nobody cares about Wichita. I was looking at how far away my seat was from the stage. Every once in awhile, a few cheers would erupt from the audience. I quickly got up, along with everyone else, thinking the concert was about to begin. It didn't really matter, because I noticed that I couldn't see the stage for crap!! I sat back down wondering if I was even going to get a glimpse of the stage during the show. Oh well, I thought, that's what the three-story screen is for. Unlike the predictions of my formulating conspiracy theories, the show actually did start. They began with a rollicking rendition of "It's Only Rock 'N' Roll." I was actually able to catch a glimpse of every member of the band during that number, to my merriment. If there's one thing I'm happy about, it's that I'm not short! I'm not tall enough to be attractive to women who like tall men, but I'm tall enough to see over short people at concerts! OK, but I was still only able to catch fleeting glimpses of an ant-sized Mick Jagger, but all of his body jiggles were pretty easy to see! (It's amazing that the guy is 63 years old and has done all sorts of drugs, and he's still 10 times more physically agile than I am ... OK I'm a chubby, nerdy guy who sits in front of my computer all day, but still ...) The next song was something that I didn't recognize. It was "You Got Me Rocking," which is on their Voodoo Lounge album. I remember thinking that I liked the song as it played and not really knowing where it was from. I continued to seek out those ant-sized glimpses of the band, but I was also pretty content at looking at the three-story high screen. Whoever does the camera work for that is really good at it!!!! They managed to get the core members of the band at the peak of their action with good framing, but they also captured some photogenic members of the audience rocking along with them. One young lady was caught dancing with a bit of a sultry look on her face, but she soon noticed herself like that on the screen and quickly turned away with embarrassment. Yes, I cracked up mightily! The next song was called "Monkey Man," which I did recognize, thank you! It's from their best album--one that I happened to give a 10-plus to. Another amazing aspect about this concert is that Jagger's voice even sounds like it did back in 1969. Isn't that weird? (Someone at my newspaper office thought they were actually robots, which goes back to the conspiracy theory.) Next was a song from Sticky Fingers called "Sway." Of course that's a great song, but I was wondering why they haven't performed any of their BIG hits yet? ... Well, that would come later. By this time, Mick Jagger acknowledged the fact that he was in Wichita, Kan. After all, pretty much any big act that goes to our city for the first time pretty much has to. For example, Jerry Seinfeld incorporated Wichita into a significant portion of his act when he came to town! But anyway, back to the Stones. Jagger mentioned that this is the first time he had ever been to Wichita (which everyone was very much aware of) and likened it to de-virginizing our city (a good analogy). He then got an acoustic guitar and performed a part of "Wichita Linemen." Keith did the best he could improvizing some guitar work! Anyway ... thanks for that. But what happened after that was "Let it Bleed," a Stones song that I utterly ADORE!!!! This is also the first song I was able to sing along with. I was very happy to hear this song! Next, Mick had to take a break, so Keith Richards sang vocals on "Streets of Love." I remembered that track from their latest album, which I think is their best album since the '70s. As expected, when Richards was speaking in a heavy British dialect in the microphone before starting the song, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. That's part of the Stones experience, I guess! His chalky vocals performed the song nicely, and weirdly enough, when he got to a part in the lyrics that mentioned "airplane lights," an airplane was flying overhead! ... OK I've lived in that part of Wichita for 16 years and it's not uncommon to see an airplane flying overhead at any given point of time, but still ... it was weird. The song that followed was another selection from Sticky Fingers called "Bitch." That's a really great song to rock out to, and I wondered why I still don't have that album in my collection. The horn sections were rendered in full force by some live brass players! Excellence! If I was the type of person to jump up and down at concerts, I probably would have. (I was pretty content with watching the ant-sized Mick Jagger jump around ... he's the most energetic ant I ever did see.) Fortunately, a few of the old people in front of me were tired and they sat down. So I could see the band a little better with less heads in the way. "Tumbling Dice" followed after that, which is a highlight on their Exile on Main St. album, which is a work of theirs I never truly cared for. (Yes, it's true that I re-listened to it several times since I posted that review upon the request of readers, but I can't really change my opinion of it.) It wasn't the best selection of the evening, but it's a good sort of power-ballad, and the group got to highlight their back-up singers. Next, things slowed down even more when they played "You Got the Silver." Hey, everyone needs a break! They followed that up with a song I totally forgot existed, "Little T&A." It seemed like I really liked hearing that song live, in particular, but revisiting the album version of it (on Tattoo You) I remembered why it's so unmemorable. It only has one line of melody! But listening to the group play its pouding groove live is very fun!!! After this, the Stones played the one and only song from their 1966-68 hippie era that evening, "Under My Thumb." I felt that era was sorely underrepresented at the concert, because it is my favorite of theirs. They probably wrote their best altogether tunes during this era. But since it was a Stones concert, everyone else undoubtedly would rather hear their BIG ROCKERS. (Oh how I was hoping that they would play "She's a Rainbow," but I knew that wouldn't happen!) I also noticed something when they played this song that also likened me to hippies. I had no idea why, but the Rolling Stones seemed to slowly start getting larger. Ant-sized Mick Jagger was becoming beetle-sized Mick Jagger. And then mouse-sized Mick Jagger. I couldn’t understand why they were getting larger. I thought perhaps somebody near me was smoking something weird, and I was freaking out!!!! OK, someone around me was probably smoking something weird, but I wasn't freaking out. The Stones had actually gotten on top of a platform and they were floating to the middle of the stadium!! And they stopped when they were just 50 feet away from me!!!!!!! That's when I realized why I was sitting in $160 seats, because I could see the DETAILS of their faces. All of them! Mick Jagger's tireless, frantic dancing; I could see Keith Richard's cigarette resting downwards off his lips; Ron Wood's guitar riffing and expertly flicking his guitar picks toward audience members; and I could even see Charlie Watts' permanent look of curiousity on his face with some detail. WOW!!! ALL OF MY CLASSIC ROCK FAN-BOY DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE!!!!!! This was a complete surprise to me, and I was very nearly brought to tears.
They finished "Under My Thumb" and then they started singing their best song from their new album, "Rough Justice." That's as good of a Stones rocker along with the best of 'em! I loved hearing that saucy song on the album, and I liked it even more live! Yay!!!! But nothing can compare with what came next. They performed "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and I saw it all in detail. That song is a particular favorite of mine, and I nearly started jumping along with them. (I'm a very introverted person, which is exemplified by the fact that I couldn't bring myself to jump along with "Jumpin' Jack Flash" with the Rolling Stones ... but I was clapping at least.) And now something completely new comes to mind when I think of "it's a gas." Because that's what I was having. A gas. And for the first time in my life, it wasn't caused by bean casserole. Unfortunately, something like that couldn't last forever, but at least they sung "Honky Tonk Woman!" ... That was also the last I saw of the Stones close up. They had to get back on their trolley ride to the main stage and be ant-sized again. But I didn't feel disappointed whatsoever! After that, I was stoked for the rest of the evening!! All of the sudden, it seemed like, there was a huge, inflatable version of their trademark "Lick" in the middle of the big screen. Mick got dressed up in a snake-skin suit and started dancing to "Sympathy for the Devil" in front of the giant screen. Most members of the 30,000 member audience were chanting "Hoo, hoo" as the song calls for! When I reviewed that song from Beggar's Banquet, I idenfied that song as being pure energy. ... That's why it was the best song of the evening. The tribal rhythm and the audience particpation factor made it great. Jagger's impressively youthful stage antics were at the highlight with this song. This performance stuck in audience members' minds so well that I heard calls of "Hoo hoo" long after the concert let out. I haven't mentioned much of the light show at this point (frankly, that was the one element that was furthest from my mind). But I had to pay attention to what they did with this particular song. It began and ended with huge flames coming out the top of the stage's mammoth structure. I could immediately feel the heat from it!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!! One of the Stones' most identifiable songs, "Start Me Up," followed, and it was as great live as expected! The familiar riff is a true Stones classic, and I welcomed it!! They followed that up with one of their dirtiest songs, "Brown Sugar." They had a sort of music video along with it on their giant screen featuring some clips of the Stones' in their younger days. If they were trying to prove that they hadn't lost an ounce of their energy, they certainly succeeded! The video also featured a computer image of a naked woman with good detail of her nipples. That's pretty racy considering Wichita is something of a poster-child for the Bible Belt cities. We're known for our very large churches and radical abortion protesters. ... Well, there hasn't been an uproar about the computer-nipple so far as I could tell, so that's good! And then all too soon, Jagger said it was time for them to go. Everyone rattled off their calls for an encore! We all sweated it hoping that we were doing a good enough job calling for an encore. It took them a few minutes, but they came back. And they sang "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Yes, I love that song TO DEATH, and I sang along with it. I was even able to sing most of the non-chorus!!! And finally ... just to solidify the fact that nobody left the concert not satisfied, they sang what's probably their best known song: "Satisfaction." The coda of that song featured some great fireworks! They went so nuts with the firworks that the entire stadium was engulfed with white smoke by the end. It was amazing. But all too soon, the concert was over. ............. damn. Do you have any comments about how awesome I am? Leave them here! |
