we tootled down to philly earlier this month to see the rolling stones, a commute i'd happily make again given the postapocalyptic condition of metlife stadium, their closest venue to us. by the time i got through the ticketmaster queue the only affordable-ish seats were part of some VIP package that earned us two massive boxes of questionable swag (did i need a hackney diamonds sippy cup? a wireless phone charger? i brought one of the sets down to a now-PA-based friend we visited the night before the show and she got all excited when she mistook the branded playing cards for branded cigarettes, but no such luck). these tickets also earned us the right to enter a general-admission pit—not one beside the stage, a tertiary pit behind a seated section in the middle of the field—a couple of hours early, so by 5pm i was standing a few inches taller than the people in front of and behind me, thanks to some A/V cord cover platform, and wondering if i had to wait until it got dark to start eating the peanuts i'd bought upstairs and dropping the shells on the ground. i couldn't tell you whose idea this early-to-the-GA-pit idea was, but i can tell you that it turns everyone into a cop, because once people with cheaper tickets and different-colored wristbands started worming their way through the spaces we'd staked out before they were born, even the sweet retiree next to me who'd brought his adult daughter to the show and last seen the stones in 1972 (when he was a ninth grader and they shared a bill with stevie wonder and tina and ike turner) was ready to rip off interlopers' heads and shit in their neckholes. cocktails did not improve this vibe! i agreed to plan the trip and show because i didn't see david bowie or johnny cash before they died and was willing to insure myself against regret that i'd never seen the stones, and i stand by that investment, terrible GA seats aside (the power move in situations like that is to hold fast until the day of the show and buy seats through something like stubhub). sure, we spent most of our time watching mick and keef on the jumbotron rather than through the frankly rude hairstyles of the half-ogres standing in front of us, but standing on a field on a warm summer night and hearing the opening notes of the song bill gates paid millions to license for windows 95 felt like turning to see one of warhol's jackies wink at you. as pauline kael would say, i succumbed. i'd estimate 85% of our fellow concertgoers were wearing shirts from previous stones tours, and the vibe was not unlike what friends have described from, say, jimmy buffett shows; there was a strong old-people-prom undercurrent. "okay, everybody out," a record-store owner had barked at joe and assorted other shoppers earlier that afternoon, "i'm taking my dad to the stones show!"
the rest of the philly surgical-strike weekend was wonderful; the cafe that's been making us a beanful, oniony artichoke salad for 20 years made it for us again, and in trying to shop for quilting fabric i accidentally attended a lovely multimedia show about a cabaret artist who came out to her aunt as trans and was told she had a twin she'd eaten in the womb (so her museum experience began with me eating a pale, green-white chocolate fetus that tasted like frosting). she's my little rock and roll?
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