Still rockin' after all these years

Thursday, November 7, 2002

By REGINA HACKETT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

TACOMA -- Who can muster sympathy for the devil once his hair is gray, his back stooped and his face as seamed as a roadway map?

Plenty of people, even when the devils in question -- the Rolling Stones -- made their rep as youth-cult bad boys. Back in the '60s, they were the sour answer to the sunny-side-up Beatles: sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll minus the peace movement, flower power and love thy neighbor.


		Grant M. Haller / P-I
	Rolling Stones fan Belinda Mastrangelo talks with Mary LaFleur, in her 1979 Cadillac hearse, in Tacoma last night. LaFleur was hoping the Stones would autograph the hearse.

Their saving grace is their bad-to-the-bone sound, inspired by American blues. Do they still have it? Some old musicians are as good as ever, but does the youth-cult version have a leg to stand on, once the arthritis sets in?

The near-capacity crowd at the Tacoma Dome last night had no doubt. Paying steep prices ($50 to $300) for the rock legends, the crowd wasn't anybody's idea of old rocker stereotype.

Filing in on a cold and windy night were spiked youths, fashion plates, the fashion indifferent, mom-and-daughter teams, father-and-son teams: all ages, races and personal styles.

One was Peggy Clark, an African American woman in her early 50s.

"Keith Richards is my man," she said. "I like old white guys, and I especially like old white guys who play the guitar."

Told that what she paid for her ticket could maybe have taken her to Paris, she held it up and grinned. "I'm right where I want to be," she said.

Richard Gawne, 24, says he became a Stones fan because he was born in Liverpool, England, birthplace of the Beatles. "I was force-fed the Beatles all my life," he said, sighing operatically. "The Stones were my choice. They're better. They're the ones with raw energy, and of course they're the ones who are still alive." He rolled up his sleeve to show off a Stones tattoo: a big, red tongue curling off his shoulder.

John Steele, 54, was sitting in the concourse against the wall, in tie-dye and folded into the lotus position. "I've never seen them," he said. "They're getting older. I'm getting older. What if one of us dies tonight? Tomorrow will be too late."

Michel Rollins, 44, spent his preshow time singing to himself, waiting for his wife and daughter outside the ladies' room. "Some girls give me money and some girls give me clothes," he sang. He came, he said, because he promised his daughter, Carmen, 15, who missed the last show because she was too little to stay up late. "I told her, if they make another tour, she gets a ticket," Rollins said. "So they're here, and so is she."

A guy who looked like Jerry Garcia turned out to be a doctor from Alaska. He's a Stones fan because he likes their "music, lifestyle, grooming and choice of substances. They're anti-establishment, after all these years."

Does he think they can still rock?

"No question," he said. "If you don't know that, you don't belong here."

P-I reporter Regina Hackett can be reached at 206-448-8332

Add P-I Local headlines to