A Genuine Rolling Stones Experience
The scalpers were out in force, and bidding wars raged for tickets; people were paying up to $400 just to sit in the upper level behind the stage. We, having only planned on paying $120 at the most, were outclassed. Jeff, after informing one scalper that he only had $100, got nothing more than a disgusted passing look, as if to say, “Go back to the mountains, hippie.” A radio station was having a “Jumping Jack Flash” contest in which you had to do the most jumping jacks in one hour wearing nothing but a trench coat to win two tickets. Poor fools, I thought. It was clear that we had underestimated the situation.
We went into the big bar next to the arena and ran into one of Jeff’s lawyer friends. He initially seemed pompous and condescending (and much drunker than us,) flaunting his tickets, but as it turned out, he had a friend who had both a luxury suite and several extra tickets. Jeff’s friend was nice enough to check out the situation for us. We waited, crossing our fingers, while he went to look for the guy. Soon he was back, shrugging and telling us that the guy and his entourage had already gone in, and that they’d given away their extras to whomever in the bar wanted them. We had been five minutes too late.
Deflated, we went back outside and found many like us who had no tickets. There was a line of about thirty people hanging out by the box office hoping that more tickets would be released, but the body language and facial expressions showed that it was a futile effort. We went to another bar across the street and found more have-nots, their evaporating hope palpable. We decided that it was time to save some dignity and get out before the roar of the crowd inside made us feel even worse.
We got back to the car and turned on the radio. In a fitting end to our fruitless search, “Ain’t No Use in Cryin’,” from Tattoo You, was playing. Several different radio stations had been playing all Stones all day. It was a great idea, but after my sixth “Angie” of the day, I was thinking that maybe this Stones media blitz was just a bit too much of a good thing.
We left for Sancho’s, a former country disco and current Grateful Dead bar on Colfax Avenue. The place feels rickety. It’s as though its structure is only supported by the clouds of cigarette smoke and the stench of the eclectic and seedy clientele that inhabit its bar and tables. As we walked in, “Rocks Off” was pumping from the jukebox. It felt like everybody in the place, from underage kids chilling on the couches to bums off the street at the dimly-lit bar to pool sharks swigging tall boys in the back, had been denied on Stones tickets as well. We each ordered a shot of Jack Daniels and a beer and sat down at a high table next to the bar to listen to Exile and have as many more drinks as would be necessary to drown out our failure.
Our conversation from that point forward gave us all of the solace we needed.
We realized that given the chance, Keith, Ronnie, and Charlie would probably rather play for a bunch of broke, drunk, dedicated fans in a dive bar in a seedy section of Denver than the crowd they’d pulled at a venue more suited for hockey or Celine Dion, but that Mick and the lure of profits did not dictate that such policy was possible.
We had spent a few hours, a few bucks, and had a good time. We’d had a goal that we hadn’t reached, but we had our own story in place of the actual event. We saw the paying customers walking into that show, and for the most part, it was a bunch of older folks from the suburbs who looked to be trying to relive some tiny portion of their youths. It was probably best to let them have their fun in their own way and at their own price.
We discussed what the Lexus drivers would tell their friends; that they had parked quickly and avoided mingling in the parking lot, gotten to their floor seats, had a light beer, then tapped their feet and clapped while the Stones laughed all the way to the bank. They sat in traffic for hours afterward, trying to quickly return to the safety of their gated communities. If the experience had provided adventure, then their evening had been successful. We drank a toast to this point.
Finally we remembered, as “Sweet Black Angel” pulsed away on the jukebox, that The Rolling Stones are not about happy endings. At their very best, on Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street, among others, they are about pain, loss, and suffering swallowed down with a nice, stiff drink. In that sense, we had experienced the Stones more fully than people who had paid serious money to be at the show.
I doubt that any of us will ever see The Stones. At Sancho’s that night, we concluded that this is the way it should be. As a matter of fact, Keith and Mick could probably write a pretty good song about it.
