Last night I saw the Rolling Stones at the Fleet Center. It was the first show of their world tour. I think all 3 Boston shows sold out ridiculously fast. But thanks to my ticket connections, I scored 2 tickets. A 3rd one was available to me, but I was already paying more than enough for just the two. Between the tickets and sourvenirs (shirt, tour book, key chain, poster), I spent $500. But hey, the poster was full sized and only $5.

Who did I go with? My mother. This was essentially her birthday present from me. She's been listening to the Rolling Stones since the 60s, yet had never seen them live. My dad saw them live back in something like '68. I can't remember the last concert I went to a concert with her. It must have been one of those pop shows I saw with the whole family back in the mid-late 80s.

We had seats in the "Premium" section. They were a little wider, I think padded, had drink holders on the side, and in a generally much more cleaner area. In the drink holders were menus with food & drinks you could order. Waitresses brought them out. Venue food certainly isn't cheaper than it was 10 years ago, but at least now they're putting some quality into it! I had a Domino's personal pizza that night, on Sunday I was at an amusement park that sold Legal Seafood clam chowder, and movie theatres carrying reasonable brand names these days.

If I had any thoughts about them losing their "edge" or getting too commercial (especially with the standard ticket prices they seem to get away with), those thoughts went away by the end of the show. Their set list had a mix of expected classics, cover songs, and more obscure songs (especially from Exile On Main St.). Mick Jagger's still got it. His voice sounded fine, and he barely stopped moving around the stage. No use of a lyric teleprompter, like other singers I could mention. The stage was immensely wide, with giant projection screens behind it.

I thought the real stage highlight was "Honkey Tonk Women". On the screen they showed an animated clip of a topless Anime-looking woman, wearing thigh-high black boots and long black gloves. She strutted around and whipped out a giant needle with a ball on the top. There was also an animated mouth like the Rolling Stones logo, and she piercied it in the middle with the giant needle. Then by the second chorus, she was strattling the giant toungue and riding it like a rodeo bull as she held on to the ball in the middle! Near the end of the chorus she leaned all the way forward and licked the giant tongue. Later the mouth swallowed her and a moment later spit out the boots. I want to know who drew that whole clip! Hopefully some pics will show up on the web.

Near the end of their show they walked out on this catwalk that extended through the audience, slapping hands along way, to a second stage. This second stage was tiny and right in the middle of the audience. No sign of the back-up singers, full brass section, camera projections, lasers, or stage props. It was just the 5 of them, plus a piano player, on a tiny stage surrounded by arms in the air, jamming on things like old blues tunes and "Brown Sugar". Then they went back to the main stage to finish with "Sympathy for the Devil" (the screen started with an animated mouth logo in flames, then all the camera projections in red) and "Jumping Jack Flash".

This was my first time seeing them, but as far as I can tell -- yeah, they still got it.