December 4th 1989, The Rolling Stones at Skydome

The Rolling Stones came to Toronto on their Steel Wheels tour in September 1989, and it was kind of a big deal at the time. The Stones hadn't played much through the eighties, there were even suggestions that they had broken up, so when they announced a world tour at the end of the decade it was greeted with a lot of excitement by a lot of people who had been waiting to see them. And there's no question that I was one of those people. The Rolling Stones had always had a strong reputation as a great live act, and from a historical standpoint there's no question that they're up there with the Beatles in terms of musical impact and influence. So I got a ticket for the show 'cause I wanted to see what all the big deal was about. 

And it was kind of lacklustre...

It's not that it was a bad show, there was an effort there, but overall the show was... disappointing. It was very early in the tour, and since the band hadn't played together in a number of years there was a certain amount of sloppiness. There were also some technical problems, missed queues, inflatables that didn't inflate, it was all a bit Spinal Tap to be honest. That happens, not every show is going to be awesome, I'm okay with that and I didn't really think much of it again.

...Until the Fall when I started seeing commercials on TV for a pair of new Stones shows that had been announced for December, all slick eighties editing with slam cuts and neon fonts and huge crowd shots, all very hype worthy, and a deep voice growling about "THE WORLD'S GREATEST ROCK BAND!!! BACK AGAIN!!! FOR TWO VERY SPECIAL NIGHTS!!! IN TORONTO!!! AT THE SKYYYYYDOME!!!" And I'll admit, I kind of bought into the hype a little bit. I started thinking, maybe things would be different for this pair of shows? Maybe the tiny Stonehenge models and Seed pods that didn't open in the earlier date in September would have been worked out, and y'know, the Stones would have had all that intervening time on the road to get their act together. They might be kind of tight by December, right? And that might make for a better show...

Maybe they *would* be two very special nights at the Skydome...

Unfortunately I didn't make those connections until it was too late, the shows sold out in minutes, well before I had reasoned all of this out, and I couldn't get a ticket. And I was okay with that, but I kept seeing those commercials, tempting me with the possibility that the Stones could redeem themselves in my mind. And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to see the Stones again. But I couldn't do it without a ticket, and every time I saw one of those commercials I felt like the Stones were taunting me...

And then as luck would have it, one day about a week before the show there was an announcement on the radio that the Skydome was going to release a few tickets for both sold out shows, just a few hundred, and that was the opportunity that I needed. Fate was on my side, and I was able to score a single on the floor, row 94 to be exact, but it was centre and I would be in the building, and sometimes that's all you need for a show like this.

So with ticket in hand I went to the Skydome to give the Rolling Stones another shot, and I'm happy to say that it was everything I had hoped for and more. All of the technical problems from the earlier show in September had been addressed, resulting in a slick and sophisticated concert that lived up to and surpassed the band's reputation. The position of my seat gave me enough closeness that I could see what was happening on the stage pretty well, while also being far enough away that I was able to truly appreciate the spectacle. And it was quite a spectacle, with lights and explosions and pyro and lasers and inflatables, and, y'know, the Rolling Stones were there too.

They opened with an incendiary run through Start Me Up, then followed with a few newer tracks like Harlem Shuffle and Undercover of the Night, and while those songs may not have been the best work that the Stones ever did, they did have a punchier sound in a live setting, a raw feeling that really  appealed. They played an amazing version of Miss You highlighted by some sweet sax playing and dueling guitars from Keith Richards and Ron Wood. I've always liked Miss You, surely the best example of sleazy late seventies New York disco vibes you could ever hope for. Great stuff...

The highlight of the show for me was a stretch through Paint it Black, 2000 Light Years From Home, Sympathy for the Devil, and Gimme Shelter, each of them absolutely magnificent, pretty much capturing the entire Stones experience for me. I've long held that Gimme Shelter is the Stones' greatest moment, apocalyptic and unsettling, tense and terrifying, and that night it was all of those things and more, truly a brilliant live moment. They closed the night with Satisfaction and Jumpin' Jack Flash, and I mean, of course they did, those two songs were the perfect pair of tracks to end a great show.

So yeah, I was completely sucked in by the hype of a well done commercial, but this is one of those cases where the show delivered exactly what the commercial said it would. I'm not saying that it was the best show I've ever seen, but it was solid, it was good, and looking back on it I think it was a really good time to see the Stones. This was the first tour where they played Toronto during my concert going lifetime, and in hindsight it was a sweet spot in their career where they still had a spark and they still had some fire. Did they live up to their reputation as a great live act? Yeah, I'd say that they did. Maybe not "THE WORLD'S GREATEST ROCK BAND!!!" like the growly voiced announcer said they were, but definitely a great live act...