I like a date night as much as the next (wo)man, but I also quite enjoy ordering in a Chinese and watching the latest box set episode. Binge in every sense of the word. Yes, I’d love to go out with my husband every weekend if I could, but mostly it’s too darn expensive and tiring and I really quite enjoy just sitting together on the sofa. Having a laugh and a chat and a glass of something. It’s the best.
But every once in a while, when I’m not knocked up and everything appears to be ticking over nicely, without drama, we like to go away. Get the hell out of the country and stay that way for a couple of days. We’ve done Budapest, Venice and Paris, and next on the list was Stockholm. And boy did we have fun. Now we’ve travelled to Sweden before and are lucky enough to have some truly fantastiskt friends over there, but we didn’t go for this reason alone. One lazy Sunday I booked us tickets to see The Rolling Stones on their No Filter European tour. I maxed out my credit card on a whim of doing more exciting things. Whoop. I’ve wanted to see them strutting their stuff since forever so if I had to travel a million miles to a gig, so be it.
I reckon I was born in the wrong era. I really should have swapped places with my mum, with whom I feel the British Invasion may have been slightly overlooked. I once heard the great Ray Charles in an age-old interview on the radio, when asked his musical tastes, express that he just liked “good music” and I am so with him on that. I like a whole spread of stuff, so long as it’s soul rattling and feet jolting. But as an overriding preference, I really dig tunes from the 1960s and 70s, much more than the music of my day I’m regretful to say. But so do so many other people who “weren’t there”. And so brilliantly a lot of these legends, responding to this consistently renewing fan base I suppose, along with the die-hard originals, are still going and rocking it. Ticking over but grafting hard in their later years. I’ve seen Robert Plant, The Who, Roger Waters, Ray Davies and the like and they blew me away. But never had I ever seen the Stones live. My friend once went and I didn’t speak to him for a solid month as punishment for not taking me too. Not that he gave a flying much of anything. He went to the Stones live for Keith’s sakes, why would he?
So all the way to Sweden, under the guise of a romantic getaway, we went, with the very big bonus of witnessing a bunch of geezers legging it around a stage and playing some proper tunes. And let me tell you, expectations were superseded. Especially for my beauteous consort, who I don’t think had ever stood in front of a stage in an arena setting, only ever sat, cooped in the upper echelons of static stillness. Seat J82, Upper Circle. And although we may not have been as close to the action as I would have liked, I had elbow room to have a boogie and swing a cat, or in this case a jumpin jack, should I have felt the need to.
It was so surreal seeing those gents up there. Sir Mick was a bird of paradise, his silk feathers all puffed up whilst he elaborately danced and sang, clawing his fingers at us. Ronnie, are you really a father of kids my children’s age? Do you honestly have some of your lung missing? You legend. I would have cried if I was Rod Stewart. Keith is something else entirely. We got to him really sing, so melancholic and gloriously, it was just magic. The exercise “took it out of him” so much it appeared he had to sit and have a cigarette in a corner of the stage in a stadium with 50,000 people watching. He was quite something. And lovely Charlie. He holds his drum stick in a way I never noticed before you know. Like he’s stiring the best soup you’ll ever taste. Now there is a gentleman. He’s the rod to the whirligig of his band mates, literally holding them together as they fly off in explosions of colour and sound.
But all this has been said before hasn’t it? You don’t want a character bio or music review do you? Ok fine. But let me tell you this: You know when you’ve had a little bit too much to drink and you’re dancing with your friends in some club (we’ve all been there, no matter how long ago) and then your favourite song of the moment comes on and you’re like “Oh my gaaawd, I love this sooooong” with a guttural shout and a knee bend to boot? That feeling was repeated every single time a song started up. From the beginning to the encore. My favourite was Paint it Black and Honky Tonk Women back to back. It blew my mind. They just sound so good. What else has the power to stop you in your tracks, kick you in the gut and make the hair on your arms stand upright as you shiver in warmth, all at the same time? I do so love a bit of good music. It’s a gas, gas, gas..
40 for 40 