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The Rolling Stones at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC on July 4, 1972

I grew up in the late 1960s a huge Rolling Stones fan. My godmother’s daughter (does that make her my stepsister?) was president of the Rolling Stones fan club in the US in 1966. She had all her records and wanted desperately to see them perform live.

So imagine my delight when tickets to a 4th of July concert at RFK Stadium became available in the spring of 1972. They sold out quickly but I managed to score a couple. Time passed very slowly for me between that day and the actual day of the concert.

We all piled into my friend’s VW and headed out. There were seats for the festival so we wanted to get there early enough to get decent seats. As it happens, we arrived around 1:30pm and got the perfect seats (for a baseball game: front row behind the third base dugout) and, as the stage was setting up at second base, great seats for that night’s show.

So there we were, with 5 hours to kill before Stevie Wonder entertained us as the opening act. The acrid scent of cracked tobacco wafted through the air, and bottles of cheap wine were passed around. It was a splendid atmosphere and everything was going perfectly until we started to hear a loud ruckus behind us. He was yelling and singing and it was coming from outside the front door. Apparently some kids were trying to rush security manning the entrance and crash the scene!

Well, this was all mildly amusing until someone yelled “they’re shooting tear gas!” Which made us all laugh until the wind changed direction and started blowing the throttle into the stadium. We stopped laughing at that point and tried to hold our breath. This worked for a while, until we really needed to breathe, and then it was unpleasant to say the least. Our eyes stung and we all suffered.

Finally, the policemen had a clue and stopped with the tear gas. The air cleared and the first act took the stage. Stevie Wonder was fine. Hardly anyone cared about him (which was a shame), but he did his thing for about half an hour and then walked offstage to the appreciation of most of the crowd. Such is the life of an opening act.

Then another 45 minutes passed and finally the Stones took the stage. If you have ever seen the movie “Ladies and Gentlemen the Rolling Stones”, then that was the same tour. Probably the best tour of his life. They were supporting his new album “Exile on Main Street”. Lots of good songs on that one plus they made all their hits to date (the same hits everyone wants to hear today). Mick spoke about the historic occasion (after all, he majored in economics and history at the London School of Economics) and congratulated us all on our independence.

I’ve been to four Stones concerts over the years and each one produced an atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife. I don’t know what it is about that band, but they always do two amazing things. They create an amazing atmosphere like I said and relate to the crowd like you are an equal. Absolutely no sign of “hey I’m a rock star, thanks for your bread man and we’ll play whatever we want or we won’t play at all, whatever”. It’s weird, but you really feel like they’re your friends next door and they’re just hanging out with you for that 2 hour period.

Well, they played for a little over 2 hours and 3 encores and then it was time to get back in the car and try to find our way home again. All in all, the best experience a 20 year old could have had back then that didn’t involve Robert Redford and the Mormon Taburnacle Choir. Come on, use your imagination.