“It’s a one-in-a-lifetime thing!”
“Yeah, but the money, the time away from the family, the hassle, the traffic.”
Oh, sorry, I was just rehashing the debate I was having with myself a couple weeks ago when I read, on the front page of the Albany Times Union, that the Rolling Stones were coming to Albany, NY, maybe three blocks from where I work, on September 19.
On one hand, it’s the Rolling Stones!
On the other hand, the tickets started at $60, and I’m sure those seats would have required balls of cotton to stop the nosebleed, not to mention binoculars. So, I would have wanted the $100 seats. Wife Carol showed no interest in going, so it would have been a night that I’d be off while she had to stay home. this would require some sort of later trade-off.
But it’s the Rolling @#$%^&* Stones! With Alanis Morissette opening, it was recently announced.
The (Naming Rights Sold to a Soft-Drink Company) Arena was doing that “get in line for the wristband on a Friday so that you would be eligible to buy a ticket on Saturday” thing. What a pain. Moreover, that all took place a weekend I was out of town anyway.
On the other hand, my student intern was going to go get tickets ANYWAY for her and her MOTHER and her mother’s boyfriend. (Why does that make me feel just slightly OLD?) And there was an 8-ticket maximum, so I could have given her the money to buy one more. Oh, but she didn’t get any, either, because while she was early in line for the wristbands, they started with a “random number” that came AFTER hers. (She said she would rather have slept in the ticket line overnight, rather than go through that frustrating ordeal.)
One of the things that I read recently made seeing the Stones more interesting. On their upcoming album, A Bigger Bang, they reportedly have a song with the lyrics:
You call yourself a Christian,
I call you a hypocrite.
You call yourself a patriot,
Well, I think you’re full of s***.
How come you’re so wrong,
My sweet neo-con?
Will they play the song? And if so, what will be the reaction?
Well, it’s all moot now, unless I win a ticket in the contest offered by the Berkshire Bank (located just downstairs from my office), or unless I want to buy a $351 ticket ($1 more than the previous highest ticket sold at the venue.) If spending $100 brought me pause…
***
And speaking of the Rolling Stones, there’s a new album of jazz covers of their tunes, called The Rolling Stones Project. It features:
Norah Jones-Wild Horses
Bill Frisell-Waiting on a Friend
Sheryl Crow (with Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts!) -Slipping Away
John Scofielfd-Satisfaction
Bill Charlap-Paint it, Black
It’s reviewed pretty well, FWIW. I could buy THAT album, plus A Bigger Bang, AND insure domestic tranquility.