Ladies and gentlemen…The Rolling Stones

Oh hello my fine boy,

I sure likes chatting with you on our way home, though I suspect that your brothers and I were grating pretty hard on your mother by that point of being confined with us in small spaces.

I understand that you’re brother Benjamin gave you an in depth recounting of The Rolling Stones concert we went to, so I’ll just give highlights and impressions. 

We left about 8 Saturday morning, mom made us good egg, cheese, and sausage breakfast burritos. Yum. We at those in the car. The weather was nice and the traffic was light, so we made good time. We stopped in Beaver for gas and dairy treats at the creamery store there. We got green onion flavored cheese curds and ice cream cones. I’m not sure what kind you brothers got, but I got ripe raspberry with chocolate chunks, and it was delicious, seriously. Mom got bananas foster, which I almost got, and it was terrible. She threw it away as soon as we walked out the door. I offered her min but she was a little annoyed so she passed. 

We got to Las Vegas about one and Ben had researched a Detroit style pizza joint, the Pizza Bar, in the Arts District, that had a pepperoni pizza made with one pound of pepperoni. Oh man Joe, I think you would have approved. We’ll take you when you’re back. 

We walked around then arts district for a bit when you’re brothers decided to walk to the hotel. The Arts district is on the north side of town and the Luxor hotel is on the south side. They had to walk about five miles through the heart of Vegas. Talk about scum and villainy. The had to go through several hotel/casinos to get there. I find every casino the same, noisy, stale, and tacky. Mom and I obviously drove to the hotel. We were going the back way and it must have been the sleaziest part of town with giant strip clubs and the like. I felt pretty uncomfortable as I’m sure you mother did so I detoured to drive down the las Vegas strip. I wouldn’t say that was sleazy necessarily because the buildings and businesses are huge and ostentatious. It more like they were built for pride and greed than anything else, which i think is the business plan of the place. It was super crowded and the traffic moved slowly. I noticed that as we drove non of the throngs of people looked happy, or even excited the on their vacations. I wonder why they go. It’s almost as if they go because it’s popular and think it’s supposed to be fun. Along with the glitz, we noticed a disproportionately high number of billboards for injury, divorce, and bankruptcy lawyers. Not a coincidence I would say.

We got to the hotel, parked, and checked in. Check in had a decently long line—once again, nobody looked excited to be there. The boys eventually made their way back and we just sorta rested and napped for a couple of hours. We were still full from lunch so we didn’t really have dinner. About 6:30 Jacob started getting excited to go so we set off. Mom walked down with us and had a little adventure of her own at a King Tut exhibit the hotel had. As we were walking over that with the exception of your brothers, I was on the young a fit side of the crowd. Seriously, the crowd was old, were talking cane, walker, and wheelchair old. More on that later.

We got through security and tickets. Your brothers wanted to buy a poster so we got in line for that. Then we got to our seats. They were high up towards the back. We had a clear view of the stage which was huge, so it was deceptive in how far we actually felt from the stage. When the opening band started, it was shocking just how tiny they were on the stage—Seemingly three pixels high. The opening band could play, but I’d wasn’t familiar with them and the music skewed try hard cool. It was fine, but forgettable in my opinion.

There was about a 40 minute wait for The Rolling Stones. Now, I mostly wanted to go because your brothers invited me. I like the Stones, but rarely listen to them unless the come on the radio or on Ben’s playlist. Plus, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard’s are literally 80 years old. I wondered if they would have lost there voice or speed. They opened with Start Me Up, nope, they were good. I noticed the sound was a little distorted in the mid range, but it wasn’t the performance and the sound got better as the concert continued. I won’t go over it in details, but some highlights for me were when they played Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan, mostly because of Ben’s rare display, however restrained, of excitement, Gimme Shelter because the female vocalist was incredibly powerful, Paint It Black for the incredible bass line and solo, Sympathy for the Devil for the video build, and Satisfaction played at the end of the encore with as much power and energy as they started with.

As I said earlier the crowd was oooollld. There was one lady who could barely come down the stairs one minute and was rocking out with her walker the next minute. The couple next te me left about halfway through, I don’t know why, and people began filing out before the end, I assume to avoid traffic. This was the only major event I can recall when the men’s bathroom line was as long as the women’s. All those prostate bladders I guess. 

The whole time I was experiencing this amazing performance the weirdness of time was on my mind. From the time I was a little kid and my brother would listen to the Stones they were old and their music was from a long time ago. 50 years later I’m sitting in the crowd with my grown boys with my brother and my parents and grandpa and so many people gone, and here The Rolling Stones are carrying on like they always have. It was kind of jarring honestly.

We got back about midnight, your mother had gone to bed. I forget that she’s still recovering. Your brothers had threatened to go to the slot machines but didn’t. I showered and crawled into bed.

We got up about eight and left before nine. We stopped for breakfast burritos at that sketchy place we stopped at on the way home from the Rose Bowl and made it back to grandmas exactly on time at four. The biggest rant of the trip was the one you were part of about the over rated-ness of the random landmark that is Cove-Fort. Now I want to go back.

I won’t go too much into dinner other than the fact that your uncles graciously deemed to grill the burgers and hotdogs that she bought to eat with the side orders that she prepared to honor her for Mother’s Day. 

Your uncle Steven has just purchased a really nice house in Bluffdale, north of us in that neighborhood where the Nice Looking Old Guy lives. It’s pretty exciting for them.

That’s it for me kid. I love you and hopefully we can chat later.

Pops