 San Diego, Sports Arena
Thursday November 14th. 2002 show in San Diego. The famous sport arena had
their 15.000 seats allmost sold out.
Set list:
Street Fighting Man
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It's Only Rock'n'Roll
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If You Can't Rock Me
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Don't Stop
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Bitch
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Love In Vain
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Let It Bleed
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Monkey Man
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Midnight Rambler
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Tumbling Dice
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Slipping Away -
Happy
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Start Me Up
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You Got Me Rocking
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Can't You Hear Me Knocking
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Honky Tonk Women
- Satisfaction
- Neighbors
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Little Red Rooster
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Brown Sugar
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Jumping Jack Flash
 It's only rock 'n' roll, but
they love it,
say fans of the Rolling Stones at Sports Arena concert
By Michael Stetz
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
November 15, 2002
Fred Rivera wasn't about to miss this. The Stones? In
concert? Man, how they touched him. He served in Vietnam as a combat infantryman,
he said. He remembers hearing their music as he trooped through that hell.
So he was at the San Diego Sports Arena last night,
with a special person by his side.
"This is my daughter," said the
56-year-old, pointing to a young woman named Marcy, 24. "She loves their
music, too."
The Rolling Stones played San Diego last night. And
forget about sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. Think of heartstrings being pulled.
Think of tender, sweet connections being made.
Who would have thought? The Stones, the original bad
boys of rock 'n' roll, are now making Hallmark moments happen.
Father and daughter, ready to rock. And bond.
"Rock 'n' roll is America. It's tradition. It's
what it's all about," said Rivera, who came from El Centro to see the
Rolling Stones' only performance in San Diego during the band's 40th-anniversary
"Licks" tour.
It was a bit strange, a bit of a crooked picture.
Some people pulled up in minivans, not creaking VW buses.
They wore designer jeans, not ones frayed and patched.
They drank light beer, not some liquid concoction
that might make you see walls melt.
What a drag it is getting old. Or not.
"You're never too old to rock 'n' roll,"
said Mike Grady, 52, a property manager who came with his wife, Sindy, a Chula
Vista third-grade teacher.
But most fans had to wait to get off work before
rocking, apparently. It's not as if the parking lot was jammed with tailgaters
hours before the show. Chargers games seemingly get more electric.
A few hard-core people did show up early, mind you.
James Anderson drove from upstate Minnesota for the show. He was in the parking
lot by 1 p.m., readying for the performance.
When asked why, he gave a strange look.
"They're history," Anderson said. "They're
legends. They're living legends."
Richard Bak, 47, came with friends from British
Columbia and said he could not explain his passion for the group, which he has
seen nearly 10 times now.
"I tell people, 'Either you have it or you don't,' "
Bak said.
Sam Fisher, 44, was there. He was not about to miss
this, not a show in his hometown. He's from El Cajon and is a member of a
Rolling Stones fan club on the Internet.
He didn't want to hear that the Stones, well, might
be pushing it age-wise. That Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are rocking-chair
ready. That Walter Mondale seems more vibrant.
He saw earlier shows and said the Stones are still
pushing the envelope. That's why they remain so popular, he said.
From the beginning, they rocked. And they haven't
stopped.
"They're getting better with age," Fisher
said.
For some, there was a sense of urgency in seeing this
show. Would it be the Stones' last tour? Would it be their last time in San
Diego?
Dan Judy, 34, and his buddy Rick Cote, 28, were
trying to land tickets to the sold-out show. Judy, a Navy man, missed the Stones
the last time they were in town, which was 1998 at Qualcomm Stadium.
"I was on deployment," he said. "This
time, I hope it happens."
Demographics were skewed, but not greatly. Tickets
were hardly affordable – they ranged from $53 to $303 – so the older
generation seemed to show up in greater force.
But the Rolling Stones seem to work magic in
attracting fans of all ages.
Hoisting beers in the parking lot as Stones music
blared from acar stereo were Amanda Solie, 21, and Jeff Pomeroy, 22, both of
Carlsbad.
This was their first Stones concert. And they simply
had to be here, they said.
Their parents listened to the Stones, and it was hard
to escape that influence.
And what is it about the Stones that makes them
special? "They rock," Pomeroy said. "I mean, they're the Rolling
Stones."
By George Varga
POP MUSIC CRITIC
November 16, 2002
K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune
Could this be the last time? Should it be? For at
least the past decade, those questions have provided fascinating subtext
to every tour by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the fabled musical
group they lead.
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Could this be the last time? Should it be?
For at least the past decade, those questions have provided fascinating
subtext to every tour by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the fabled musical
group they lead.
These issues are more timely than ever as the Rolling Stones – "the
world's greatest rock 'n' roll band" – celebrates its 40th anniversary
with a new, year-long tour that included a sonically challenged show Thursday
night at the San Diego Sports Arena.
After all, drummer Charlie Watts is 61, Mick Jagger 59, and Keith Richards
58, while guitarist Ron Wood (who joined in 1976) is the junior member at 55.
That's almost ancient for a band whose image and best-known songs are synonymous
with youthful rebellion (the show-opening 1968 anthem "Street Fighting
Man"), sexual tension (1965's "Satisfaction," one of Thursday's
highlights) and the sense of defiance and danger embodied by the group's ethos
of mayhem, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
So the multimillion-dollar question now for Jagger, Richards and company is:
Is time still on their side? Or is it, as the Stones sang in 1974, that time
waits for no one – not even a band that has grossed a clock-stopping $1.5
billion since 1989 alone?
By turns impassioned and ragged, lively and lethargic, the aurally muddled
Sports Arena concert supported both points of view. The band coasted on
automatic-pilot one moment, ignited the next, then coasted and ignited again,
until finishing in high-gear with a careening encore of "Jumpin' Jack
Flash."
The repertoire, which included such rarely aired gems as "Let It
Bleed," "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" and "Neighbors,"
was generally inspired. The sloppy delivery and cluttered sound that marred many
selections was anything but, and the musical tension and release of the Stones'
best work was often lost in the din.
Jagger, still lean and wiry, strutted and preened in trademark style, and
acted frisky when opening act Sheryl Crow joined him for a duet on "Honky
Tonk Women." But he seemed notably less energetic than at the Stones'
rain-soaked 1998 rave-up at Qualcomm Stadium.
Guitarist Richards got down more than up, staying low to the stage as if
engaged in a knee-buckling battle with gravity. He also sang two of the most
earthy and satisfying tunes of the night, "Slipping Away" and
"Happy" (the latter of which soared after a false start by Richards
and Wood).
The self-effacing Watts – the only original Stone on stage whose hair
doesn't take on a darker hue with each new tour – was his usual, no-nonsense
self despite uncharacteristically rushing some of his drum fills.
The band's senior member, Watts acted his age and seemed all the more
dignified for doing so. Frontman Jagger, conversely, can't age gracefully, at
least not so long as he is the visual focal point for a band whose most potent
songs still defy (or at least deny) time.
What is sadly undeniable, though, is just how wretched the sound was for the
majority of the two-hour, 21-song concert, the band's first at the Sports Arena
since 1972. With tickets for the show, which sold out in just 25 minutes back in
May, costing up to $303 each (plus service charges), the inferior audio quality
was inexcusable.
It was so bad that not only were most of Richards' lead guitar lines hard to
discern, but so were many of Jagger's spoken introductions. The faster the
tempo, the louder the song and the more musicians on stage, the worse it sounded
(rock-solid bassist Darryl Jones and keyboardist Chuck Leavell performed
throughout, while three backing singers and a four-man horn section appeared
intermittently).
So what might have been a charged opening salvo – "Street Fighting
Man," "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll," "If You Can't Rock
Me," "Don't Stop" (the sole new song) and the brassy
"Bitch" – was instead a jumbled mess.
Things improved briefly with the predominantly acoustic "Love in Vain"
and "Let It Bleed." But then came a swift return to audio hell with
the subsequent "Monkey Man," "Midnight Rambler" and most of
the songs that followed – with the notable exception of "Neighbors,"
"Little Red Rooster" and "Brown Sugar," which were performed
near the end of the night on the small satellite stage at the rear of the arena.
One reason for this sonic mess was the Stones' late arrival, which resulted
in the band taking the stage without benefit of a sound check.
Never mind that the group grossed about $2.1 million for Thursday's
13,000-capacity show (roughly the same as for its 1994 stadium concert here,
which drew nearly 52,000 people). This audio sludge-fest would have been
insulting at any price, place or time.
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