Monday, October 09, 2006

Rolling Stones

I haven't posted to my blog for quite some time - it has been a busy time at home and at school.

I am preparing to attend the NCEE - National Council on Economic Education - Conference in New York. Teresa and I have been working to get our presentation organized to the point where it will fit into the time we have been and be an effective tool for explaining our notion of using a Student Investment Club (SIC) as an instructional tool.

But this weekend was devoted to fun.

The hype surrounding the Rolling Stones' concerts in Regina says they are the biggest thing to happen here since the tornado of 1912! There has been a lot of talk and press and excitement.

We saw the Rolling Stones twice this weekend. Once on purpose and once by accident.

I'm not much of a Rolling Stones fan. I don't dislike their music but I always thought Jagger was affected and that Keith Richards was totally uncool. I was always more attracted to 'cool' performers like Clapton or Jim Morrison or to 'soulful' performers like Joe Cocker or Ray Charles. Underlying all of that though is my real interest in the Blues.

But like at least 80,000 other people in and around Regina I knew I needed to at least be there when they played Regina - so after some initial hiccups we got tickets to the Friday show - the second show. They actually played Friday and Sunday but the first show to be announced was the Sunday show. So the first temporal show was in fact the second scheduled show.

The weather was absolutely incredible on Friday. It was a warm, perfectly clear day - very, very unusual for Regina in October. The night was clear with a beautifully large harvest moon drifting behind the stage. I enjoyed the spectacle - an immense stage, great lighting, fireworks, fire and loud familiar music. They played for two hours and it was amazing to watch men in their sixties perform with energy and a sense of enjoyment. Jagger didn't stop running around for the whole two hours.

They played a song early in the program called Midnight Rambler which reminded me that their roots were in the blues. Jagger played harmonica, which he does well, and they extended the piece into a long, driving, bluesy, old time rock and roll piece.

It took until midafternoon on Saturday for my ears to stop ringing.

Then we saw the Stones by accident.

I was just settling into work on Sunday afternoon - cleaning up some email before I got down to the important tasks for the day - when my daughter called to tell me that one of our son's contacts had left 4 complimentary tickets for us at the boxoffice. Most of her friends had already seen the stones on Friday and she wanted us to come with her.

So I left the office (sorry that I didn't get my work done, Teresa) and went home to bundle up. Sunday was not as warm as Friday. In fact it had rained off and on all day and was much more of a fall day.

It was fun to go again, my ears probably won't stop ringing for another few hours and we were cold, cold by the time it was over. But we enjoyed the new set and participated in Regina's 'bigger bang!!'

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Cyril
I enjoyed reading your blog as I also went to the Stones on Friday. I wasn't quite as lucky as you in that I didn't get to go on Sunday but I heard that the Sunday crowd enjoyed the event also. Regina was certainly an exciting place to be this weekend.
Helen

9:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

HI, don't have an account but can I ask? Dothey more than onestage set up? Saw them in Mixx, MO wow and so on. Thanks

2:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That was really sloppy. I think I meant, do they have more than one stage set-up? thnx

2:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Cyril,
You're on my bloglines account so I can see when you post your new blog posts. Now I can see why I haven't seen you out yet at Martin, you're having too much fun!

Ha ha... great placement by the way with Randy and I. We have completely compatible personalities, and things could not be better.

See you soon.

Dan

12:14 PM  

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