The Concert

Thought I would ruminate on the whole concert thing for a day or so before I posted.

Well, actually, I was so busy running children to and fro from lessons, activities and birthday parties yesterday that I didn't have a chance to post.

Unfortunately, that gave Main Man a chance to butcher my ethereal, romantic thoughts about the concert itself, but that's okay. There was more to the evening than his pragmatic, cynical eye could capture.

There was something surreal about the experience, as if I were watching it on television instead of in person. Our seats weren't terrible, but it was a stadium filled with some 45,000+ people; without the Jumbotron, we wouldn't have seen a thing. Technically, I suppose I was watching it on television.

We were fairly close to the B-stage, and, a little more than half way into the concert, part of the main stage broke away and made its way on rails down closer to us. Main Man leaned over and said to me, "Now it's real," as we could almost start to make out those famous Micklips as he approached us. It still didn't seem quite real to me.

The music was great, of course: Jumpin' Jack Flash, Start Me Up, Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Woman, Sympathy for the Devil, and many more. They missed my ultimate favourite - Paint it Black - but that's the way it goes. I was lucky enough to be able to experience one of my almost-favourites - Get Off of My Cloud - when they were close to us on the B-stage. That was cool.

The stage show, complete with everything you would expect - lights, cameras, action, fireworks, pyrotechnics, huge inflatable lips and tongue - was a once in a lifetime experience.

We had seen a Stones concert on IMAX about 15 years ago, and I remember then marvelling at Mick Jagger's energy. Then again, I rationalized, this is on film. I'm sure they cut out the parts where he snuck backstage and revitalized.

Well, Friday night was not on film, and he snuck backstage twice that I could see in the over-two hour concert, and only once was it for the full length of a song. The man ran a marathon that night - back and forth across the stage, upstairs to the second level of the stage, and, at one point near the end of the concert, he ran out to the B-stage. The security guys flanking him as he ran, easily half his age, were having a tough time keeping up. Mick is 63 years old. I want some of what he's havin'.

During one of these brief rest periods, Keith Richards took to the stage and treated us to couple of songs. This portion of the evening perhaps made the biggest impression on me. Over the years Richards has become a caricature, a parody, and I was ready to make a quick trip to the washroom as soon as he approached centre stage. I'm really glad I didn't, though. His guitar skills are phenomenal, and he actually doesn't have a half-bad singing voice. Whodathunkit?

Weirdly enough, two of the things that I will remember most about this decidedly preternatural evening are two things provided by nature herself. The temperature on this early October evening was 10 - 15 degrees higher than usual. The sky was cloudless. I had been concerned about sitting outside for hours in our unpredictable weather. I needn't have been.

Even more remarkable was the full moon. A huge orb of lunar perfection hung suspended over the stage throughout the concert. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought it was part of the light show. As the evening progressed, it shifted ever so slightly across the sky, as if the Man in the Moon wanted to have a better view of the stage.

I couldn't blame him if that were the case. It was quite a show!