The Rolling Stones, as you know if you read the last post, are charging $600 for most of their seats. Or $1200 for two.
That's about 30 bucks a song, per person.
To perhaps counter the negativity, they offered $85 seats, but with restrictions: you could not scalp them, as you had to show up, show ID, and then walk right in. Plus, you did not know where these seats would be. Front row, or last.
Well, I got one of the 500 pairs they offered.
We arrived fairly close to showtime, and I could see the remnants of a big line for the $85 tickets entry.
Up front, they had about 10 people at little tables outdoors, like a county fair or something.
The $85 tickets were all in envelopes, pre-sorted according to everyone's name. They literally crossed your name off a printed list on a clipboard. Really low-tech!
Once I received the tickets I was really curious to see where they were, of course.
They were.....wow...Section 442. That does not sound good. That sound like the 4th level.
Well, it was. And in fact, they were at the BACK. These were the worst seats in the house. Could not BE worse. (Look at the first photo above to see where they were.)
But of course, who would actually sit in such bad seats? Not us. Here is where we actually sat.
There's always an extra seat or two floating around. ;)
So how was this show?
Well, firstly, I was curious to see if they had sold all the crazily overpriced seats. At first, I thought not. Tons of empties.
But this was because the Honda Center did not have its act together letting people in. Though the $85 ticket line had been taken care of by this point, the main line was MASSIVE. Blocks long. Everyone was stuck outside.
The place did, though, get totally full. So although they had to really promote these shows with loads of ads, free ticket giveaways on radio, and maybe even some fire sale $85 sales, ultimately, they sold it out, with the lowest ticket still $85, and probably a ton of $600 tickets. Bad PR for sure, but they earned a load of cash. There were, though, a few empties in the rafters, so I imagine some stubhub seats went unclaimed. (Rafter seats were $350, which is ridiculous.)
Place totally full, just prior to the start. The show started an hour late as it took so long to get everyone in. The Honda Center gets low marks for efficiency and how the staff treats patrons. Everyone was kind of a potential criminal - lots of yelling at people, bossing around, etc. Especially outside, it was really unclear which line was which, and if you got in the wrong line, you got a "WHERE ARE YOU GOING SIR!" kind of deal.
How was the show?
The crowd, despite many being, shall we say, "experienced concert goers," still stood up for most of the duration. Often when you see a "vintage" band like this, people sit down a lot. So that was good. (The higher sections, though, were sitting.)
Here were some people in luxury suites. So NOT rock and roll, folks, to sit in a little suite with a TV like this. I shudder to think how much these seats cost, if the regular seats were $600.
The lights went down and a video montage started showing various celebrities and musicians talking about the Stones, interspersed with a few historical clips. I always think this kills the mood - the band should just come roaring out.
After this, some kind of tape played with little teases of various songs, like Sympathy for the Devil. Again, this killed the momentum.
But finally the band came out and went into Get Off My Cloud. The audience was very excited; seeing the actual Mick Jagger and Keith Richards at relatively close range gave one a pretty strong "star struck" feeling. Like seeing a president or something.
The band seemed a little rusty to start. The sound was also very muddy and distorted. The tour has just started, so I think they will probably sound more energetic on these opening tunes further down the road. Jagger made a few weak jokes about Orange County. "Orange County is the same as Los Angeles, but everyone has jobs." Well, sort of. At least he was trying to make it local.
(Richards later said something like, "So we're in Orange County. Like I always say, it doesn't really matter from up here. We could be anywhere." Which seemed more sincere. Richards still mumbles and sounds borderline incoherent when he talks, which I think the crowd found endearing at this point.)
They played a few more big hits like It's Only Rock and Roll and Paint It Black. The band clearly did not have its mojo yet. It was hard not to think of how much everyone had paid for this, and whether it was worth even 85 bucks.
Fifth or sixth song was the opening track from Exile - the first tune that was not a massive hit. Here the hardcore fans got excited, and the band started to jam and loosen up.
Following this, a fairly dull version of Waiting on a Friend, with Mick on acoustic guitar.
But then, John Mayer came out. They proceeded to have an amazing fourway jam between Mayer, Ron Wood, Richards, and Jagger (on harmonica) that suddenly elevated the concert from good to mind-blowingly amazing. The sound quality, by now, had been tweaked a bit, and quite quickly the concert took off. It was just a blazing rock concert, and all thoughts of what you paid, or the drive to Orange County, or the fact that you were IN Orange County....all was forgotten because everyone was in the moment, experiencing this amazing jam amongst legends.
I didn't take this picture, but it shows Mayer so here you go:
This was followed by Emotional Rescue, a song dismissed as a joke at the time, but which has gained favor over the years, and which was a nice surprise to hear live.
A couple new songs (that sounded great,) followed by Honky Tonk Women, and the concert continued to pick up steam.
The absolute highlight, though, came with Mick Taylor. He was in the band in the 70s as an extra guitarist, and rejoined this evening for one song: Midnight Rambler. This was an absolute blowout - just an incredible extended jam. Taylor pushed the "regular" Stones to elevate their game - you could see it. This song alone was worth $600! (Actually, it wasn't, but definitely $85.)
Here's another picture I didn't take -this one shows Taylor:
From there, sadly, the band returned to overplayed hits, which were fun but lacked the raw power of what they'd done. I felt the show kind of retreated to where it had begun.
What the Stones should probably do is play a few less hits and some more surprises. And of course play for LONGER. They also just can't charge $600 for a 2 hour show in an arena. But for 85 bucks, it was time and money well spent.
We left during the last song, Satisfaction, to beat the crowd. Normally, I am appalled at people that do this, but given how long it took to get INTO the parking lot, and the late-night drive, it seemed worth it. On the way out, we passed what looked like the Stones' vans, doors open, waiting to whisk them away to the Doubletree. (Actually, where WOULD the Stones stay near Anaheim?)
Here is the setlist someone posted online.
