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Rolling with the Stones in Boston 1 & 2!
Oh yes, did we rock and roll!
For the first time in my (long) life, I finally got the opportunity to attend the opening shows at a Rolling Stones tour, after being a fanatic fan since 1963! Of course this was a huge event in my life. Thank God we nowadays live in the internet age, which makes things like this happen. And thanks to the Fan Asylum, who got us great seats, too!
My friend Lena and I flew from Sweden the day before to have time to adjust from the jetlag one always suffers from crossing the Atlantic Ocean. We checked in at the Colonnade Hotel in downtown Boston. The hotel has a very nice hotel with a pool on the roof, where we had a lovely view over Boston, while swimming and sunbathing.
On August 20, we attended Fan Asylum’s welcome party. It was held in the Cavern Room at the Hard Rock Café. From what the staff told us, 20% of the bricks in this room are originally from the Cavern Club in Liverpool, the “birthplace of a group called” The Beatles. The mind reels!
Here, we all got our T-shirts and personal laminates and the best of all: We got to meet our package companions. It was fantastic to meet these people who all have the same interest in the Stones from all over the world. The DVD from the Forty Licks Tour was on and the drinks were free, it was a PARTY!
Some of these fans were new acquaintances, others were old friends of mine from the London package, in the year of the Lord, 2003.
I was one of the lucky ones in the raffle, too. I won a tongue blinkie.
The day after, I woke up in the morning and realised that today is the day when I’ll go to a Rolling Stones concert again. After a two-year absence! O’boy, was I nervous!
To calm down a little, we did some sightseeing and attended the exhibition of Ronnie Wood’s fantastic paintings at the Newbury Fine Arts Gallery.
Before the departure to Fenway Park, we all picked our tickets and ours were in row three, on “the Keith side”. Yes, yes, yes! Exactly what I wanted! I’m a “Keith person,” Keith is my darling Stone.
The pre-show party was held in Cornwall’s Pub where everybody got in a really good spirit. It was fun to be gathered once again, and we were having such a good time.
In the surroundings, as usual, commerce took place and I think business was good.
Everybody wanted to buy the new Stones t-shirts and other this and that. A special Boston t-shirt was on sale, designed to have a baseball on the tongue.
Inside the arena, the Black Eyed Peas were warming up the audience.
We reacted to that most of the baseball field were empty of people which we thought was strange. There had been room for several thousands more people there. Later on we learned that the field is some kind of a holy ground to Boston’s baseball team, the Red Sox, and nobody else are allowed to put their feet there. This after the team won the World Series. This seems very strange to a European, where we don’t play baseball! Or maybe here and there, I don’t know.
On both sides of the stage there were several hundred people standing in something that looked like the Guggenheim Museum in New York, looking down at the stage. A new, fantastic invention for this tour.
In the audience this night, was California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Steven Taylor from Aerosmith. We didn’t see them but read about it the day after.
The Stones concert happened to be a kind of “average” stereotyped one, I’m sorry to say. On the other hand, they were there again, just a few feet from me and just to listen to the music live, made me feel blessed. They did three songs from A Bigger Bang: Rough Justice, Back of My Hand and Oh No Not You Again. This was still two weeks before the CD was released so the songs were not well-known, which mirrored at the audience. Keith sang The Worst and Infamy.
One of the best things this evening was the tribute they did to the late Ray Charles by singing Night Time is the Right Time. A very nice thing to do.
On this tour the band moves on a kind of a trailer to the small stage, at the same time they play. I got a blowkiss from Keith on their way back to the main stage, and was the luckiest woman on the face of the earth!
During the show, a girl had climbed up six sections to get a better view. During Jumpin’ Jack Flash, she fell 40 feet, injured herself badly and shocked the people around her.
The next day was the-day-between-the-shows day. We spent a lot of time in the historic district of Boston and had a late lunch at Cheers. At around 6.30 pm we went back to the gallery, where we knew Ronnie was to attend a reception for people who had bought a piece of his art, and waited for Ronnie outside. After about an hour he showed up. I got his autograph and talked to him for a few minutes and that was one of the highlight of the trip (sorry Keith)! Thank you, Ronnie! Lena took our picture and did a great job, too! So did a photographer from the Boston Herald, and the picture was published in that paper the next day.
Package #2 was like the first one, except that more old friends showed up. This time we got tickets on “the Ronnie side,” and it was for the first time since 1981. Quite an experience to see the show from this angle! In row 3, behind us, sat Whoopi Goldberg who we had a short chat with and took her picture. She is such a nice lady. In row 10 was a certain Mr. John Kerry. A much better show it was too, that night! The Stones seems to be enjoying themselves more. Is it possible, they were nervous too, at the first show?
While they moved to the smaller stage, I moved with them too and was able to get one of Ronnie’s picks. Lucky me, and thanks again Ronnie!
The set list was slightly changed. They did Bitch instead of Heartbreaker.
Lena and I want to thank the Fan Asylum staff for great arrangements, high service level and just for being so nice!
Barbro K.
Gothenburg, Sweden
I would just like to thank you all for a fantastic trip and one of the best Stones concert I ever seen, the program and the setup was very well arranged.
Best regards
Bjorn F.
Stockholm, Sweden
RS Boston 1 & 2
RS NY 1 & 2
We are from Germany, have so far seen 4 Bigger Bang shows with the VIP Travel Package (Boston Fenway 1 + 2, New York MSG and Giants Stadium) and we can absolutely recommend this way of enjoying the Stones shows.
Our seats were awesome, they were always located in the 2nd and 3rd rows from the stage at the floor in the center, where you have an extraordinary feeling, no matter whether it was the arena show in MSG feeling like an intimate club, a large stadium show like Giants or a traditional baseball park like Fenway, as we were so close to the stage and the tracks of the moving B-stage. We were just some meters away from the boys ! This experience is so much different from previous shows where we had "acceptable" seats. The organization of the packages by the Fanasylum hosts was excellent, they were so nice and cared so much for their guests during all the time (welcome parties, pre-show parties, transport before and after the shows etc.). We enjoyed very much meeting people from all over the world (e.g. Japan , several different European countries, USA ) during our days with Fan Asylum and had so much fun partying with them and the hosts. Hotel accommodation was always at the high end and in the heart of the city with very good connection to public transport, e.g. in NY we were staying directly at Times Square .
One word to the pricing of the packages: Maybe, at first sight, the prices seem to be expensive. However, additionally to the per se high face value of the tickets and the hotel costs as well as the services by Fan Asylum for organizing all this, one has to consider that the normal man on the street (even the RS.com fan club member with pre May 9 code) would not be able to catch seats within the first 5 rows in the floor in the center via regular pre-sale on Ticketmaster. We have seen during all 4 Fan Asylum shows and our 2 additional shows without Fan Asylum (Hartford and Albany) that the entire first 5-10 rows were always occupied by people with special VIP laminates and passes or by some people having bought their tickets from ticket-brokers at extreme high prices.
So, the packages are definitely worth it and we cannot wait until January 2006 to return with Fan Asylum for the two Boston and two New York indoor shows !!!
If one can afford it, one should go for it. After the first opening chords of Keith, you will be happy to have done it.
Birgit and Hermann
Munich , Germany |
