Round One:Ticket Price
The Stones - free. My gal pal, Bunny, volunteers at the USO - The USO were given tickets to The Stones show to give out to the personnel on base. She got comp tickets and offered a set to us. Terry didn't have much interest in going (plus we didn't have a babysitter) and I never pass up free tickets to anything. Terry,, very interested in the going rate for these free tix was astounded to find out that The Stones were bringing in prices that ranged from 60 euro to 197 euros. For The Stones? Honestly --- who would pay that kind of money to see a bunch of old dudes? Evidently a lot of people. The 197 euro tix were sold out as was everything down to the 60 euro tix. Unbelievable.
Terry bought the tickets for The Who ages ago and one of them was Michael's birthday present. At 80 euro per ticket, it's not a cheap price, but The Who are definitely worth it. That seems to be the mean price for seeing anyone now-a-days, so kein problem....unfortunately, it's not the same as being free.
The Stones: 1 The Who: 0
Round Two:Venues
The Stones played at the CommerceBank Arena in Frankfurt, where their soccer team plays. A (surprisingly) covered arena and the accoustics were CRAP! Talk about echo-mania and trying to figure out what song they were playing. Geesh...you'd think they would be concerned about how the sound is, especially with people paying A LOT of money for this show. Again, I would never pay that kind of money to see The Stones - as a matter of fact, I don't know who I would pay that kind of money to see...maybe, Prince.
The Who played in the middle of nowhere in Fulda (on an old air base). It was completely open for milling around, bleachers were set up for the old farts who didn't want to stand. Had a very festival-like feel to it - accoustics were great - we were able to get up close - we knew exactly what songs they were playing without struggling to figure out what it was.
The Stones: 1 The Who: 1
Round Three:Discombobulated entry to The Stones ~~ Waiting in line to get in for The Who
Since The Stones were playing in an arena, we had an initial check point to go through. This is where the trouble started. The ticket chick started telling us that we need to go to some tent to get new tickets since ours were no good or something. They were good enough to get us into the arena complex, just not good enough to get us INTO the arena. We stand in a very, very long, slow moving line - not quite knowing what we were doing. After waiting in the hot sun for some time, Rob asked a woman who was taking questions what the deal was. She said we didn't need to get new tix and that all is okay. That was, until we got to the arena entry and that security woman said, No Way - get new tix, then called security to find out what was going on -- now different people were telling us different things. Turns out they over booked our standing section and were trading one location for another. Laura was about to freak until we were given the actual OKAY to get in. Once inside, the section we were in was packed, packed, packed full. The section next to us was not. We all decided to con our way into the less full section and grabbed some spots for the show.
The Who consisted of a big group of people trying to get through 4 lanes of security/entry. After that, it was whatever you wanted.
The Stones: 1 The Who: 2
Round Four:Security Levels
The Stones had unbelievable security -- probably 20 - 30 men standing in that "no man's land" space between audience and stage. Also, they had security located all throughout the arena and there was no access to anything or to get anywhere. There was one door at the bottom of our section that lead out onto the floor of the arena and it was guarded by a kid who looked like he was 17. I told Laura that I could make it passed him...but then where would I go? Everything was cordoned off and there wasn't anywhere to go - if I wanted to run around the floor like a nutter, I could have managed it, but that lacked any kind of thrill.
The Who might,
might, have had 3 guys in "no man's land." Hard to say, I only ever saw the one blonde guy who was hanging in our area. Due to the openess of the performance, maybe I didn't notice all the security that they actually had -- but it didn't matter because we by-passed them all and made it backstage.
The Stones: 1 The Who: 3
Round Five:Beers & Bathrooms
At the arena, they did not have any deposit on the beer cups, so you didn't have to keep track of tokens or getting your money back. Additionally, I found a super secret women's room that no one seemed to know about...hooray! It was just at the top of our new seating section and the beers were just around the corner as well.
The Who concert was a bit tougher...you had to pay a deposit on your beer cup, you got a token, then had to go to another location to trade that in for your money. What was that all about? They were serving in plastic cups and you didn't have to return the cups (I don't think you did) so that was a bit more messy than above. Also, since it was outside, we're talking Port-A-Potties. Ew, talk about a big yuck factor. Bummer.
The Stones: 2 The Who: 3
Round Six:Mick & Keith ~~ Roger & Pete
Mick was running around the stage like he always has done - I am assuming. He went to either side, down the middle and all around. Keith played but since the accoustics were so bad, I don't think it would be fair to comment on his level of performance. I was surprised to see a black dude playing guitar in addition to Keith and Ron Wood. What was that all about? Both Mick and Keith did several shirt changes...all I could really tell (from the distance I had from our location) was that when they started Mick was in red, Keith in turquoise - then, Mick was in a black t-shirt with sparkles, Keith in a sparkly jacket - then, Mick was in blue and Keith was in red. Wow. That's a lot of changing. Shouldn't they have spent that time playing their gig?
Roger was incredible. He was in super shape (oh, those huge arms of his) and he sounded amazing. Pete did the windmills and jumps and blew everyone away with his playing. No shirt changes, never left stage other than to say goodnight and back for an encore.
The Stones: 2 The Who: 4
Round Seven:Length of gig
The Stones, I swear to you, played for maybe and hour and a half. I will have to double check with my concert mates, but it wasn't very long. Not as long as I had anticipated. They played the classics -
Brown Sugar, Satisfaction, Paint it Black, Jumpin' Jack Flash among others and some new stuff. That's it? No
Shelter Me nor
Sympathy for the Devil?
The Who also played their classics - I think nearly all of them as they played for a whopping 2.5 - 3 hours. OH YEAH! Full value for the money.
The Stones: 2 The Who: 5
Round Eight:Effect on Voice
There is always a sure fire way of finding out if I had a good time at a concert - the sound of my voice. A really good show will break my voice and will produce a rough, raspy (sometimes lost) voice. Terry calls it my "sexy, marge voice."
With that said, my voice was not effected my The Stones show. Sure, I did some screaming and yelling, sang to the songs I thought I had heard...but no problem the next day with my voice.
After The Who...I could tell I broke my voice. Two days later, talking on the phone to my friend, she asked "are you sick or something?" "Nope. Saw The Who...screamed at Roger...met Pete Townshend."
The Stones: 2 The Who: 6
Round Nine:Nice to meet you...
Not even a chance to merely imagine making that happen with The Stones. Plus, no desire. If it were even remotely possible, sure - I would have attempted it, but not at this place. Plus, meeting either Mick or Keith would have been cool, but not life changing.
Holy crap..WE MET PETE TOWNSHEND! 'nuff said.
The Stones: 2 The Who: 7So with all of that said...yeah, it was cool to go see The Stones, because now I can say I've seen them -- thanks wholly to the free ticket. But they were absolutely NO COMPARISON to The Who. I was enormously disappointed with the quality of The Stones concert. It goes to show that at this point in their careers, accoustics, length and accessibility are just not on their agenda. It seems like it is more important to see how many people you can get into a location, see how much those people are willing to spend (which is really waaaaay too much if you ask me) to be there, then give them a half-assed performace that they think has rocked everyone's world. Sorry, to say...Mick & Co. don't even hold a candle in comparison to our favorite ROCK GODS -- PETE & ROGER.
**enjoy the photos of The Stones...the quality on some of them aren't that great, but you can tell who's who and what is going on....
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
