Hong Kong
I go to bed thinking about them. I wake up thinking about them. I feel like I am 13 having my first crush.
-Mick is like the mistress and Keith the wife to the music.
(This may or may not make any sense. Just that Mick is out there, waving his fingers, going on tip toes, crunching his forehead, skipping, swaying his hips and shoulders at different directions while hopping and you can’t take your eyes off him, while Keith is smoking (literally and metaphorically) in the back ground.
-It wasn’t a smoke machine, it was the billow of smoke Keith exhales that swirl around in the air.
-Rolling Stones is just Mick and Keith isn’t it?
-I couldn’t believe even the wind complied, and was sweeping their hair, and the tail of Mick’s Jacket and Keith Bandana, swaying in the wind. Just like it looks on TV.
-It’s was an experience seeing these people I grew up listening to and seeing on TV and magazines, and then realizing they were “real” and can interact with you. The minute they started, it occurred to me. I know all these songs but I never heard the real person sing them.
-It was odd seeing him dance in front Chinese Characters on the big screen (as I was waaay in the back) because he was really standing here performing all this famous moves, struts and pouts in front of me, here and then.
-I love the way he could get the whole audience singing a call and response in riffs rather than words, and it’s incredible to be standing with 15 000 people hearing them sing a whole together. Mick would song “Nah nah nah” And the audience would do the same.” We did it for a bit and he went, “Your singing is getting better in Hong Kong.”
He tried his hand in Cantonese (the first of all the bands I saw to do so.) Which was “Nei Ho Ma” (The audience said it back,) and “Dor Gei” the rest I had no idea what he was saying, I assume it’s something like, “It’s good to be in Hong Kong.”
– The concert was this humongous wall of sound for an hour and a half, running into each other, sucking you in.
The songs just ran into each other, non stop, I can barely tell you what they played and in what order. (Satisfaction for sure, Honky Tonk Woman, Can’t It Always Get What you Want, Jumping Jack Flash, Brown Sugar, For sure).
-I expected them to just play “Songs” because that’s what the other bands of the era said or at least rock and roll history always refer to a moment some band was seminal by saying “Rolling Stones just played Songs. “They” were “different” because (Janis-Led Zeppelin-Pink Floyd -whoever) would improvise, and explore the sounds in the concert.”
But they didn’t just play “songs,” they jammed a lot. A lot of rocked up blues riffs. It doesn’t come across so much in their albums I have, how much blues they play even though their music is referred to “Blues influenced Rock.” I guess you can’t contain blues in four minute recordings.
Listening to their album this morning seem so staid 3 minutes –space- 3 minutes –space. This used to sound so good, but after seeing them live. Its sound… okay.. I think I am going to stop it now. I prefer to live with the memory. Hold on.
-It was so mesmerizing my aunt waved her hand in my face at one point just to see if I would react. (Barely, I looked across smiled and went right back to hands together in front of biting lip freeze, which I did through a lot of Neil Young too with the exception during his acoustic set I chewed on my hair. Occasionally, I realize I am alive and there are tens of thousands of people around me and dance with them.
-Even though I was at the very back (What a change from being in front row) and they were finger size people, the charisma, and attitude still comes across (thanks to very good loud sound system). I think people in the front must have been losing their minds, they sure looked it.
-I had a very mean fat, gweilo guy sitting behind me telling me to sit down, but no one else. I think he thought I was an easy target to his tirade coz I was a young Chinese woman. Damn him! If I took on the security manager yesterday, I wasn’t going to bend. I offered him my seat so I could stand and he had the galls to say, “Don’t bother me anymore!” Hey. He poked me in the back first!
-Supposedly Bill Clinton was there last night. I got to go a concert with the former president of the United States. Funny.
-When the show ended I was shell shocked, like I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t believe it was over, like just going, “That’s it That was it? It’s over? 90 minutes?? One encore with one song? I can’t believe I won’t hear them play again.”
I am off to call my friends and convince them it’s worth the $600 because I don’t want them to miss this.
Cont: Rolling Stones In Concert: Satsifaction
Related Links: Neil Young in Concert: I Want To See You Dance Again, Because I Am Still in Love With You
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 