My wife and I attended, Satisfaction: The International Rolling Stones Tribute Band concert the other night. It was a fine show, with my only real critiques being, no horns and no black female voices in a few songs where they are prevalent.
I’ve enjoyed The Stones (70’s era for the most part) since I was very young, and one particular memory stands out.
My parents had some of their hippie friends over, and I was young enough to still want the door open when I went to bed. As ‘Bitch’ from the Sticky Fingers record entered my ears, I began to smell a peculiar smell, and feel different. Different in a fun way. In my young, child mind, I described the experience as “the dark is getting farther away”. It was a profound and memorable happening, setting the stage for a love affair with inebriation, as I drifted off to ‘Sister Morphine’.
As soon as the show began, I teared up a bit. It wasn’t the song they were playing particularly, but memories from the past flooded me with emotion.
When they played, ‘You can’t always get what you want’, I teared up again. My lesbian aunt, who could draw really well, who used to bring me Slim Jims and Mad magazines, who worked in some projects as an unarmed security guard and took a brick to the head, and who hit a thief walking out with a 12 pack in the back of the head with a can of Beenie Weenies when she worked at a Circle K, always talked about that song being played at her funeral. I think she was cremated, so she didn’t get what she wanted. I guess she just got what she needed.
Also, it’s rare for me to feel like the young one anywhere I go, but that was definitely not the case this night.
The old folks came out in droves, clapping, dancing, running up and down the aisle, with one silver-haired guy even twerking.
At one point, faux Mick, was singing, “This might be the last time. The last time.”
I leaned over to my wife, nudged her, and said, “For some of these people, it definitely will be their last time.”
Gloomy Forebodings 