The Greatest Show on Earth?
There were many things that were fun at the Rolling Stones- Rush- AC/DC- Guess Who show yesterday:
- Jumping high enough to see half a million people in front of me (we were quite close to the front).
- Playing air guitar to Whole Lotta Rosie.
- Watching Angus Young disrobe by the cheers of the crowd. His underwear was the Canadian flag! I have never been so patriotic in my life.
- Screaming and cheering after Getty sang “concert hall” during Spirit of the Radio.
- Seeing washing machines on the stage.
- Making hilarious Justin Timberlake comments with Shashi.
- Counting how many trucker-hats I saw. (I counted 50 and then stopped counting. Really, guys, can you think of a better hipster uniform than dorky hats with Billabong logos? Justin Timberlake wore one to be “with it,” but it looked sadly out of place due to his previous history and boy-band exterior. Poor Justin.)
- Being nomads during the Rolling Stones set.
- Talking with Simon-friend-of-Graeme about Pink Floyd. (Turns out Roger Waters wanted to kick Rick Wright out of the band at one point. Why on earth would he do this? Oh right, I forgot, ’cause he’s a jerk.)
- Eating FIG NEWTONS!
There were also things that were not fun. I felt bad for Justin Timberlake; people were throwing stuff at him and booing him. That’s just cruel, dudes. Do you have the balls to sing bubblegum pop in front of 490,000 AC/DC fans?
The sun was out in full force, and I got a terrible sunburn despite constant application of sunblock. Having to climb over people to find a spot to “camp” was a huge debacle. I’ve been to Woodstock-like festivals before and believe me, it didn’t feel like Woodstock — it felt like being terrified of stepping on people and later on, it felt like being stepped on by people. When Simon first found us, we walked for half an hour through a crowd of people only to see Graeme on the other side of a huge wall. We had to back-track and walk around the entire park to find him. We didn’t eat anything but fig newtons, Wheat Thins, Nutrigrain bars and Fritos all day. Since it would take 40 minutes to work our way out of the crowd and hours waiting in line to get a hamburger, we decided to stick it out until midnight pizza so we wouldn’t miss a set. I wasn’t really hungry all day, but I got tired of BBQ-flavoured everything.
I did have a good time, but I’ve had more fun at other shows. I think I only ever really have fun in the mosh pit (crowd-surfing religious experience at Goldfinger, insanely awesome pit at Snapcase), which I didn’t frequent at this concert. It was definitely well worth the money, but it wasn’t THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. I think that title goes to Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band at Casino-rama! Ahaha, Ringo.