Rolling Stones Get Their Ya Yas Out on 2015 North American Tour
The Rolling Stones announce their first North American tour since 2007. It's more than rock n' roll.
When I was ten the adults in my life agreed that I should see The Rolling Stones. It may be my only chance to see Mick and the boys, they said.
That was 1989 and the Stones were scheduled to open their Steel Wheels Tour at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium on August 31. But the stadium was condemned in July after more than 70 years of concerts and athletic events, so the Stone's moved their show across the street to Veteran's Stadium.
After an energetic two hour opening set by Living Colour, The Rolling Stones took the stage for more than three hours, including all the hits and a rock n' roll induced power surge that blacked out South Philadelphia. Not a bad introduction to what concert going should be like, to be sure.
When they played Honky Tonk Woman, sixty foot tall blow up dolls bookended the stage with animated arms which interchangeably brought cigarettes and beer bottles to the ladies' mouths. When the venue went dark to start Sympathy for the Devil, Mick Jagger's silhouette danced across the crowd from a perch next to the famed replica of the Liberty Bell atop the stadium.
Most of the band's members were in their 40s then, and after Mick had danced in the streets with Bette Midler in the mid-1980s there wasn't much reason to believe the show would go on into the 1990s.
Fast forward to 2015, four studio albums, nine live albums, and 25 years later, and...wait for it...this might be your last chance to see the Rolling Stones.
On Tuesday morning The Rolling Stones announced a fifteen city North American stadium tour that will kickoff in San Diego on May 24. Tickets will no doubt cost $4,000 for the upper deck, but if the stagecraft and showmanship has evolved even a little over the past three decades, it might just be worth the investment. The tour will come to Heinz Field in Pittsburgh on June 20 and land at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo in July. Here's the full lineup:
May 24 - Petco Park, San Diego
May 30 - Ohio Stadium, Columbus
June 3 - TCF Bank Stadium, Minneapolis
June 6 - AT&T Stadium, Dallas
June 9 - Bobby Dodd Stadium, Atlanta
June 12 - Citrus Bowl, Orlando
June 17 - LP Field, Nashville
June 20 - Heinz Field, Pittsburgh
June 23 - Summerfest / Marcus Amphitheater, Milwaukee
June 27 - Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City
July 1 - Carter-Finley Stadium, Raleigh
July 4 - Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis
July 8 - Comerica Park, Detroit
July 11 - Ralph Wilson Stadium, Buffalo
July 15 - Le Festival d'été de Québec, Quebec
Tickets go on sale April 13.
Jim Wertz can be reached at jWertz@ErieReader.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @jim_wertz.