| back to seemyroots The Rolling Stones Moncton, New Brunswick September 3rd, 2005  |
Song List
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| What can I say about going to see the Rolling Stones? This had to be one of those moments
in life that you never forget. This group has always been my favourite. I remember sitting at Paul's house
listening to "Tattoo You". With a bit of a glow-on we only dreamed that we would ever see the Stones. It is
hard to believe that such a band would play a back woods Maritime location. But they did. It was also hard to believe
that 80,000 fans would be able to meet up in such a small location. But we did. When my brother asked me if I wanted to go to the concert I said perhaps but 50,000 people is a lot of people. But I agreed. I had second thoughts when the added another 10,000 tickets, then another 15,000 tickets. I thought "Where the hell are that many people going to stay in Moncton?" Oddly enough it did not turn out to be a big issue. For the most part you would not have known that they were there. The only real sign was the city of tents lining the hills close to the concert site. I think that some camp site owners came close to retiring on that one. Just the returnable bottles alone would have been a year's salary. We decided that we would stay at my brother's house which was only a 5 minute drive from the concert site. Most of my family was going to be there. They included sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews, along with a few more a few more friends. I left my house in Dartmouth around 5:00am, I picked up my nephew around 7:30am. I slipped on the back steps of his Grandfather's house. It really hurt. Now that would have been something to break a bone or kill yourself just short of the concert date. I just bounced back up again and said "I'm okay". We left Springhill around 8:00 and were in Moncton around 9:00am on Friday. I slept for a few hours. We then decided to start drinking. We had a pretty good glow-on by the end of the day. I think I got to bed around 3:00am. There were helicopters flying around with big lights to make sure that no trouble occurred. There was partying everywhere. People where just enjoying themselves. We watched a short meteor show that night as well. It was the first time I watched meteors shoot across the sky.  We were all up for breakfast the next day. We cleaned up the bottles from the night before and started to drink. It was now Saturday. The day of the concert. It was an unbelievable feeling all day long.
We had to catch a bus to the pick-up site to get to the concert. We missed several buses trying to have just one more round. Finally we just took a bunch of beer with us (and water). We got to the
pick-up site. There were a lot of people but the buses were moving them out pretty fast. Once we got to the drop-off site there was a small hike to the concert site. It was one hell of a great sunny day. We just enough cloud and a small breeze. We finally got to the concert site.
We decided to stay in the back field next to the merchandise stand, washrooms and beer tent. I can't tell you everything that happened next but for the most part I made sure that I paced myself. There was no way that I was going to miss the Stones due to de-hydration or over-hydration. There were a few people that had problems with
one or the other. There were several warm up bands such as Our Lady of Peace as well as The Tragically Hip. Whatever! The stones were scheduled for around 9:00. So I stopped drinking around 8:45. They closed the beer tent.We made our way back to our spot and waited. The stones came on and the crowd exploded. What a concert. They played a few new songs but for the most part they played songs you could sing...scream along too. I may have irritated my throat a little, along with the ears of anyone close.      
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