What I am calling My Year of Concerts continues on Saturday night as my wife and I will travel to Las Vegas to see the Rolling Stones at the Allegiant Stadium. I foolishly passed up seeing the Stones twice before. The sad stories:
July 8, 1978 -- One of my best friends broke up with his girlfriend. He planned to see the Rolling Stones with her in Soldier Field in Chicago. Because of the break up, he had an extra ticket. Did I want it? Unfortunately, I had to be in Kankakee, IL that day to finish up meetings for an organization I was in. As much as I wanted to see the concert, I decided to go to my meeting. The Chicago Tribune wrote this:
"The Stones headline for the first time at Soldier Field. The stadium is filled on a steamy summer day with 80,000 fans, with opening acts Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Peter Tosh and Journey, featuring new vocalist Steve Perry. The Stones set list includes most of the songs on the quintet's latest release, "Some Girls."
Right. So I not only missed the Stones singing much off the Some Girls album (maybe their last great one?) AND I missed Steve Perry's first tour with Journey. However, it was pretty hot that day, and a concert with 80,000 in Soldier Field would have been a killer trying to get something to eat or drink, not to mention navigating huge lines just to take a piss.
June 21/25, 2019 -- I knew several friends and relatives who went to one of these concerts. I had seen live, in concert YouTube videos of the Rolling Stones from the past several years, and I thought the Stones sounded terrible. I asked a work friend about going, but he declined. He had seen some of those same videos, I believe. I let this one pass, only to hear from the people I knew who attended that the concert was great and that the Stones sounded wonderful. Sigh.
When I saw that the COVID postponed Stones Las Vegas concert had been rescheduled for this coming weekend, I was determined not to let the opportunity pass. I got my tickets once they went on sale again. In the meantime, drummer Charlie Watts passed away, giving me even more reason to go since you never know when a band with elderly members might have its final concert. I missed seeing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on their final tour because of bad timing. I disn't want anything like that to happen again.
I imagine my poker and gambling will be minimal this trip. We plan on getting into town Saturday afternoon and leaving town Monday afternoon. That does leave all day Sunday and maybe a short Monday session like I had the last time I was in town. So ... if anyone is in town and free on Sunday and would like to possibly connect, hit me up in a private Twitter message or text if you have my phone number.
If you start me up ... If you start me up, I'll never stop ...
Thanks for reading!
Waiting on this trip report.
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