stoned for the last time?

i went and saw the rolling stones back in july of 2019 because i figured it would be the last time i’d get the chance to see em…

…and then, while running down to our south austin location, about two blocks from where kramer used to live i saw some street art:

the logo was a little TOO clean to be done by regular graffiti artists, and lo and behold it was – this was guerilla marketing for the 2020 leg of the stones tour, and for the second time EVER they were coming to austin. the show was the sunday of memorial day weekend, i got tickets, and then…’rona.

it was finally rescheduled for last saturday and i took the day off to go. i spent the bulk of it with the missus around the house and such, then went in. gates were at 3pm, doors at 4pm, but the opener wasn’t slated to play till 7pm. i left the house around 5 or so, having bought all the austin specific merch online. it took me twenty minutes to get to 812 (the road the venue was on) from my house. it took another twenty minutes to get the mile or two up the road to the venue entrance. once on their property, it took another FORTY FIVE MINUTES to get to my “upgraded” parking:

i had bought in lot “L” to tune of $65 (wtF?) and then a week ago i got an email stating my parking had been “upgraded” to “F”. i’m pretty sure this wasn’t an upgrade, as the email then had two paragraphs explaining why this was an upgrade, and if you have to sell it to me, it’s not a fucking upgrade. the lot was a giant field, and the kids running knew neither jack nor squat about stacking a large venue lot properly, so when i headed back out after the show i walked through acres and acres of empty spots we COULD have been in to get to where they put us.

they also never scanned my parking pass, so i put in for a refund at the ticketmaster box office. something tells me i’ll never see it.

i hiked the twenty-seven miles around and in the venue and found a nice spot. the opener (ghost something or other) were talented, but not really my thing. the stones set started with a nice memorial montage…

and then it was off to the races (pun intended, as we were literally in the middle of a race track – they built a “super stage” for the event). you can see the scale of the thing by comparing the video screen size to the actual people on stage:

it was pretty much an all killer, no filler set with only one new track, and of course the requisite deep cuts with keef on vocals. i like when he does his – it gives me a time to piss and it’s always hit after hit after that, like a sprint to the end.

and the end was where it got interesting. after “sympathy…” i decided i could do with just HEARING them as i walked to my car, so i headed out. i found my car less than a minute after the post-“satisfaction” fireworks and headed out, but they didn’t guide me out the way i came in, they send me down golf cart trails and out a secret back way, so while i agree with the chronicle’s assessment of the parking situation “falling somewhere between ‘a disaster’ and ‘a humanitarian crisis'” this guidance from an older parking attendant got me back to lockhart in time to hit the grocery store (which closed at midnight and the show wrapped at 11pm) while i read other accounts of folks being stuck in traffic so long they missed the show, or stuck in it so bad leaving they didn’t get home till 3am.

i missed both of those, which is awesome. here’s the set list as drawn out by guitarist ron wood: