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Name: Keno
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Subject: RE: Stones Denver Show Part 2 - The Concert!
Date: Monday, November 28, 2005
Time: 12:16:26 AM
Remote Address: 66.243.196.105
Message ID: 178500
Parent ID: 178499
Thread ID: 178499
This would be my second Thanksgiving rock show, the first one I attended was in NYC at MSG, with Elton John (in 1974). That was the night that John Lennon surprised everybody and came on out to play - his last public show, and nobody knew that night beforehand that this was gonna happen. So there wasn't anyway I felt the Stones could top that Thanksgiving concert - and they didn't, as I love Lennon as much as I love the Stones. The only real bummer with this year's show was that the Stones didn't do anything special things for their fans on this special night, in fact we only got a mere 20 songs to hear. Why they can't play somewhere around 30 songs each show I'll never understand.
Our seats were in the third row from the B stage, which also was the last row of that section. The mixing boards were right next to us, so as LYL pointed out, we were in the best place sound wise. This also made it excellent since no seats were to our right, and me and Kali had end seats. So for the first half of the show I was able to stand in the aisle leaning on a barrier with a great view of the main stage (I moved up to the front railing next to the B stage when they played there and didn't move back from that point for the rest of the show).
The Stones were running late, so we chatted with the fans around us in the sold out PCenter. LYL was in front of us to our left, next to him and directly in front of us was a couple, who like me, moved to Colorado many years ago. They were from the UK and it is always fun to heard about the old 60s and 70s shows that took place in the UK. Next to Kali was a father and his 15 year old son who we also rapped to a bit. This dad told me he was not there because he was a Stones fan (he wasn't), to him they were just "okay", and he had never seen them before nor wanted to (yet after the show ended, there was no question that he was a Stones fan now, too). But his son was a total Stones freak and this was an early birthday present for his kid, and it was the boy's first show also. "He's just crazy about the Stones, plays their music all the time" said his dad. I passed my business card over to the kid and told him to check out our Stones Board, and LYL told him that we had several young kids like him hanging there..... Finally, the lights went out and soon after that the Stones were on stage!
Let me get the few negative things that happen out of the way first. Out of the 20 songs they played, two didn't sound right. The first one being the opening number, "Start Me Up". I'm not one of those who thinks they should not open with this number, in fact I think it's the best spot for this song. Yet of all the songs they played on this night, this one was close to stinking up the house. They didn't sound right, when they first started to play it I could not even tell after the first few notes played which song it even was, and it didn't sound any better as they went along. Guess they needed to warm up at bit. But after they got passed that, all of the rest of the set sounded a lot better. Yet there were still a few disappointments. "You Can't Always Get What You Want " also was missing something - and it was that great guitar playing riff you hear upfront in the beginning of the song and then through out most of the rest of it, played by Keef. He barely played it at all in the song's beginning, but he sure was not out front with it, and then the riff wasn't heard again for the rest of the song. Mick still sang the song great, so it was an enjoyable tune to hear even without that great riff.
The other disappointments were in the songs they selected to play and some that they didn't. I knew beforehand there wasn't anyway they would play the two songs I badly wanted to hear - "Sway" and "Moonlight Mile", but where was "Paint It Black"? Or even worst, where was "Back of my Hand", the one new song I wanted to hear over all of the other new ones. Instead they played "Rain Fall Down", which sounded okay at best, but nothing at all special, either.
Getting back to Keef and his guitar playing again. Him being my favorite Stone, it is the Riffmiester who I watch most of the show. After the show was over, those who had seem several of this tour's shows, all felt Keef had one of this best days of the tour on this night. The two newspaper reviews I read the next day also felt Keef had the best of shows, too. So how come that wasn't the case for me? Was I watching him too closely? Shit, I always watch him the most! One thing I do know for sure, of all the Stones shows I've seen in the past, he played his guitar the least for this one. When he was playing, yes, it sounded fine, I even said to LYL that I felt he played his acoustic very well for "Ruby Tuesday", but then LYL (who was one of those who felt it was a great nite for Keith), noted that was one song where he would stop playing for a bit of the time. There was one song where his guitar playing did shined bright, "Satisfaction", and I'll report on that one later on. But everybody else felt Keef was at this best, so maybe it was just me, let me just blame it on those damn plugs I wore!
The last thing to bitch about was that I used a new brand pair of ear plugs for this show and damn if they were not a good brand. I usually don't use my plugs for the first and last songs, even though I've been warned by my doctor that just listening to one song without them could do my hearing more harm, but sometimes you gotta take chances in life and to hear at least two songs 100% clear is worth the risk for me. But thanks to these terrible plugs I had, which totally ruined the sound, as soon as the the Stones hit the B Stage, off they came for the rest of the show. Lucky for me, my ears were not ringing too much after it was over!
Overall, it was one great concert, no question about it! Like all great shows, there are several highlights that stick out. Since we were right up front by the B stage, well no question, that was the best part of the show for us. I wasn't that overwhelmed when they started out playing "Miss You", another song I rather not care to hear yet again, but then about a third of the way through it, the stage started to move towards us! In no time at all the B stage was right there in front of us, about 10 feet away, and suddenly "Miss You" didn't sound so bad!
This was the second closest from which I've seen to the Stones play, but the closest that the entire band was to me all at the same time, since Charlie was always way in the back behind his drum kits, so it was the closest I've ever seem him play - what a treat indeed!
Again, my eyes were on Keef for most of the time they played the B stage, but yes I took a long look at all of them from time to time. I also looked behind me at Kali at one point, and from just reading her review, I guess she was so frozen in excitement that she didn't even realize where she was standing at that moment. She noted she moved up to the second row for the B stage, when she actually was standing in the first row, as those folks in that row were all up at the front railing alone side of me. I also noticed the kid behind her with a gigantic smile on his face, with his dad beaming from ear to ear (dad and son were having a blast at this point).
There really is a special energy you feel when you are this close to the Stones. They do go out of their ways to play to the people in front of them (perhaps more so while on the B stage). Too bad Kali missed it, but Keef damn sure did look our way - right at the end of "Miss You". Yet I never saw Ronnie look over to us, yet Kali did, but you know how it goes, there are 5 guys playing right in front of us and you can't look closely at all of them at the same time. Right after "Get Off Of My Cloud" (what a trip to have this one played from 10 feet away!) Darrel Jones looked right at us with a big smile on his face and pointed at us. I believe he was pointing at Kali's red tongue tattoo above her left breast, that she was trying to show off to Ronnie at the time.
During the B set I was as close as anybody could have gotten to them, and it brought back those wonderful memories of the Albuquerque show in '97. Mick was of course running all over the place, but he didn't look our way at all, not till when the stage started to lift up and move away. At that very moment he look right at us and I held up my right hand and waved good-bye to him, and he waved back!
Yes, nothing could top the B stage for us, but from that point the entire concert just seemed to get better. In part perhaps because the few songs I didn't want to hear were already done with, and maybe because I was plug free at this point, too.
Other show highlight were: 1) "Night Life" - the cover I didn't want to hear. Don't get me wrong here, I still would have rather heard a Stones number instead, and the band didn't play this song in any special way at all. But it was Mick and Lisa who make this number work - big time. 2) "Honky Tonk Woman" - the fact it stated out being played ten feet in front of me helped it to be one the best songs of the night. 3) Ron Wood - Holy shit! Ronnie is 100% back, he could not have played any better, period! I've seen Ronnie play live since his days in the Faces, and I don't think I've ever seen a better show put on by him. He played most of the lead guitar parts for the show and sounded great on most of these songs. He added a acid like guitar riff to part of "It's Only Rock n Roll", that I had never hear before. Since he wrote most of this song, could it be that was the way he at first want the song to sound, before Keef added in his guitar to it? More than likely no, since I've seen him play this number before in the past, chances are he just added this bit in at the moment, as he didn't play it for too long - but I did like it, yes I did! 4) "You Got Me Rocking" - they didn't play this song! I believe that they have skipped this one only two or three times on this entire tour and maybe only a handful of times in the last several tours combined, but they skipped it on this night at the PCenter!! Yes!!! You all know how much I've been bitching this tour about this song being overplayed - so they skipped playing it for me on this night - I thank you Mick for doing that, you are the man! 5) Mick Jagger - This guy hasn't changed at all since when I first saw the Stones back at MSG in '72. He still is all over the stage and he is still the best thing about the Rolling Stones. He is the main reason why the Stones are still the greatest today. 6) Kalistongue and Keef - This was one of those things that you had to be there to dig. When Keef had his chance to sing his two numbers, the first one up was "Slipping Away", and not a favorite of mine. So I looked around at my fellow fans at this point. Yes, the usual beer and bathroom runs was on by many, but you had to see Kali when Keef was singing. Holy shit, the look of love was all over her face, I don't think any other humans on the planet Earth were so at peace as she was at that moment, she was most definitely in Nirvana and that look she had shinning from her was so strong that even I loved this song that was filling my ears for once. 7) The crowd - Yes, from what I was hearing, the show was actually sold out a few weeks earlier and only some behind the stage seats were left at show time. Yet I was worried that after everybody was filled with turkey, that nobody would feel up for a rock concert - but I was wrong and I should have known the Denver crowd would not let the Stones down. Yes, everybody stood the entire show (okay, a few did sit for Keef's second song) and many of us did a lot of dancing, too. Being in the aisle was great and I could dance that much more - plus - while the concert was on my sick body didn't feel any pain at all! 8) Keef Richards and Satisfaction - "Satisfaction" was the very last song of the night, and Keef came to life on this one, more so than on any other song he played. He looked like he did in the old days in the way he played his guitar for this one, talk about hitting a grand slam! I'm not sure what it is with this song, but every time they play it is sounds better. It was the band's all around best played song of the entire night!
Then it was all over. Way too soon, but still, everybody at the PCenter was feeling fine! Yes, we all had something to be thankful for on this holiday! (Part 3 is next..)
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