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Licks World Tour 2002 - 2003


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Topic: SYMPATHY should have opened the show! Return to archive
09-06-02 11:59 AM
Jerry in Boston I got home at 2am and got up at 6am for work. So I'm just throwing my review out there for ya and I know it won't win any literary awards but oh well. LOL

The show ended at around 11:10 or so and we sat in the parking lot for 2 hours waiting to get out. What a traffic nightmare that was... but I'm jumping ahead.

My friend and I got to the stadium and parked at about 7pm. As we were making our way in to the stadium which seats 68,000, we heard the Pretenders start their set. We just walked around for an hour checking out the new Gillette Stadium that was built for the Patriots. It's pretty impressive actually. I can't believe how high it is! The seats are so raked and tiered that no matter how tall the person in front of you is, they're really not in your way at all. That's a good thing for short people like me. I'm glad we were in the lower bowl at the left back turn - I would have been suffering in the uppermost level - they must need oxygen up there it's so high. We were only 14 rows up from the floor and had a great full stage view from the back/left.

We found our seats at around 8:15 or so to wait for the show to begin and watch people. We could see the massive stage structure at the end of the stadium and I kid you not... it went from one side to the other and was nearly as tall as the stadium itself: MASSIVE! At around 8:50 the stadium lights went dark and the stage set started to pulse with life... green glow here... blue glow there... piped percussion and amp hum played on the sound system. After I guess about 5 minutes of build-up, the loudest, crunchiest guitar riff cut through the night to kickstart the show (after a small fase start, of course LOL):

BROWN SUGAR, then straight in to START ME UP, then straight in to IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL.

The stage set began changing during the three songs and by the 3rd song, video panels began appearing from each side of the back drop and moved to the center. They in fact moved back and forth all night creating a huge screen at times and then split screens - nice effect.

They did the new song DON'T STOP (which I've only heard here and at the FleetCenter show on Tuesday... it seems okay), HTW was okay (I think Chuck's piano part was better tonight - I can do w/o this one but it really did please the crowd), HARD PLACE (wow... killed the momentum that HONKY built up), ANGIE (brought the place back to life... this was done beautifully, I thought.), They got the crowd singing w/GET WHAT YOU WANT, MONKEY MAN was okay but they cleared seats with TURN YA LOOSE (I dug it though), SHELTER was slow, menacing and great. Lisa was on it!

SLIPPING AWAY and MAKE ME RUN were nice but...

The absolute BEST part of the show for me was SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL. I can't believe they buried this song in the set. It should have been the opener or closer. This song was the production stand out of the evening (maybe not the musical one, but production for sure). During this song, the entire top of the stage set (remember, it's about as tall as the stadium) erupted in fire balls all the way across, from one side to the other. On each end, a fire column bigger than I've ever seen would erupt into the sky whenever Mick sang "Let me introduce myself". But the best part was the fire balls. I'm talking literal balls of fire here! They would spurt up into the sky and become balls of flame that would disappear upward. This happened during the entire 6 minute song... on EVERY, SINGLE, DOWNBEAT!!! It was mesmerizing. Two here, three over there, one in the middle, three on the left, four over there, two here, all of them here.... IT WAS THE BEST PYRO EFFECT I'VE EVER WITNESSED BAR NONE! The crowd was transfixed by this effect. To top it off, they had continuous red flames (like flares) burning in all the closed-seat aisles behind the stage set. This provided a continuous red glow behind them. It was amazing! I can't say enough about it. When the song ended there was a roar of approval from the crowd. They should open or close the show with this one.

SHATTERED, BEAST OF BURDEN, and MISS YOU on the b-stage (I dug BEAST but could do without the other two... not that I dislike, just have heard them a bit much), RAMBLER was a fresh surprise and I thought it was fantastic! GOT ME ROCKING was okay, DICE was nice as usual, SFM and FLASH (during FLASH the confetti guns near the b-stage threw out some of the red stuff but due to the wind direction it was pretty much headed for the stage. lol).

They encored with SATISFACTION and a fireworks finale. But the best part again was DEVIL. I'll never, ever, ever forget that performance. ;-)

Whew... I'm tired. After the fireworks everyone started herding out. We got to the car and waited for 2 hours to get out. What a parking pain. I know I'll never drive there again.

~ Jer
09-06-02 12:48 PM
nankerphelge Yes they should have opened with Sympathy. Still can!!
HINT HINT fellas
09-06-02 01:10 PM
sirmoonie "But the best part was the fire balls. I'm talking literal balls of fire here! They would spurt up into the sky and become balls of flame that would disappear upward."

There is NO band that can do big giant ass fucking fireballs like the Rolling Stones! NONE! I want to blow big giant balls of flaming jizz into the sky that disappear upward just thinking about! Big giant balls of scalding sperm that explode into multi-colored jizzlets and reign down all over everyone, standing around like drowning turkeys in the fucking rain!!!!!!

"Fireball my ass backwards, Ronnie!"
09-06-02 01:13 PM
nankerphelge Are we attending any of the same shows -- I might want to bring an umbrella...
09-06-02 01:24 PM
lonecrapshooter Jerry thanks for that review. It was a great read. YOU GOT ME ROCKIN!!!
09-06-02 01:30 PM
Maxlugar Holy shit Moonie! You are killing me!!

LOL!!!

09-06-02 01:33 PM
chevysales too bad the friggin' patsies built a new stadium that will be a kickers nightmare with the swirling wind (dolphins will still beat em twice this year and show braady for the wimp armed 1yr wonder he is)....but the killer is there paring still sucks i am a 2.5 hr ride away and waited 2 hours to get out of lot also.

we got there for sound check at 4pm which was nice.

getting a rear shot of sound from center stage really kicked up the bass for shattered as guitars were up front.

2 shows in a row on keiths side within first 13 rows and 2 seats in from ramp, which btw keith slapped alot of hands on way back.
seems to me he tossed a zillion picks out stage rite and stage left throughout the nite.