Rolling Stones Concert

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I first noticed that the Rolling Stones [group history, timeline, songs] were going to perform in Wichita a month or two back when I noticed their electric billboard display at Rock Road and Central. I used to own plastic platters of Through the Past Darkly and Hot Rocks and played them with my other records until I lost the old machine back in the 1990s. However, I failed to note that they were going to land with their amazing 8-story light show apparatus in Cessna Stadium right in my back yard, where I do research at the WSU library. On Saturday afternoon, before the show, a friend observed that the big construction affair out back was the Rolling Stones stagecraft device, the b-stage [article, Huge LED TV], and that the show would be tomorrow on Sunday, October 1, and would close the library down for the day. The web page for Ablah Library featured a banner in dark red confirming this. I was down to my last 1/4 tank of gas for the month, so I got my camera and a folding chair and parked north of the cemetary across the street from the stadium, where I set up to view the affair from the territory of The Grateful Dead.

After the first act by The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, which used smaller TV monitors perhaps 12 feet high to amplify their visual appearances, there was a long intermission with canned rock and roll pieces until the Stones were juiced up enough to turn on the immense butterfly rock-and-roll machine and fire up the The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band. They waited until the moon crossed the meridian and seemed to be directly above the stage before lighting up. The show began and ended with fabulous fireworks, and the group pulled more elaborate tricks from their machine than you'd suspect it was capable of. For instance, it can spew towers of fire from the tip-ends of the butterfly wings, a trick they save for their number Sympathy for the Devil. After several days, this reminds me of the movie Dragonheart (1996), starring Sean Connery's voice as the voice of the Dragon. The show started with a dramatic 2001-style scene zooming on a straight line through rolling asteroids in space reminiscent of relativistic transformations for energy and momentum, or perhaps of your search for parking spot around the crowded stadium. Altogether the show was a terrific exhibition of talent, verve, and imagination that left me feeling optimistic about men can achieve if they show energy and willingness to communicate. We've been down..."But it's all right now...in fact it's a gas. It's all right...I'm Jumping Jack Flash, it's a gas, gas, gas." If the center of the butterfly had not featured an immense color TV display to amplify their appearances, the sound would have been impressive, but the band would have seemed to be insects by comparison.

Unfortunately, my little digital camera, programmed to take photos for this event with the flash off, entirely fails to do justice to the high-resolution and detailed quality of the display. I was expecting superb images from the huge 50' x 48' TV monitor in the belly of the butterfly probably crafted from high-power LEDs, but I was amazed by everything that could be orchestrated in the wings of the butterfly, including glorious explosions of whirling clouds of color and realistic visual reflections of the band on the stage. It really challenged my capacity for reverse engineering. I was amazed! Subsequently, I found some links below that make many technical details clear.

The band began with some of their newer work, perhaps from their new album A Bigger Bang, then finished up with old favorites like Satisfaction, Jumping Jack Flash, Under My Thumb, Honky Tonk Women, Sympathy for the Devil, You Can't Always Get What You Want, and other golden oldies from Hot Rocks. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards both sang solo numbers, showing tremendous flair, energy, and imagination. The show was a fine treat flashing great technical skill that had kids dancing on the street outside.

The Rolling Stones "Mothra Machine" featured a couple of structures resembling movie reels to the side, which together with the psychedelic light show evoked memories of "Timothy Leary" and the 60s. The Big Energy was about to beam on through like projector full of movie magic, but most of it would be in real time, with a few frames from old Rolling Stones movies and computer graphic 3-D images of the pleased mouth with loving tongue featured by the Rolling Stones on their home page. A search through Google for Rolling Stones stage work, however, shows that many different configurations of their apparatus are used to create a myriad of different stage environments. The "Mothra Machine" was just one of its numerous possibilities.

Before the show was over, the Mothra Machine would shoot a lot of smoke, fire, and bright beams along with intricate traceries of light to accompany the rock-and-roll masterpieces before popping a row of revolutionary red banners reminiscent of Albah Library's exterior brick panels on the east side of the building that give it an air of being The Temple of the Ten Red Banners. They greet the red rising sun like a line from Juice Newton's Angel of the Morning: "...I'm old enough to face the dawn."

I remembered how the little girl doll by the Beatles graveside to the right wore a T-shirt marked "...Welcomes the Rolling Stones" as I viewed the Stones and their amazing rock-and-roll b-stage butterfly Light Show Device from the mausoleum where my parents and other relatives are buried. I was glad I decided to drive on over and see it. I had to wait until I was 57 to actually visit a major rock-and-roll concert, about 40 years after Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. In addition to the central 50x48 foot LED TV display, the Rolling Stones b-stage is said to feature Mack 2K Profile, Atomic Strobes, movies or TV on the central display, and Hungaroflash in the stage lighting apparatus. See for instance Martin at Music Park (Atomic Strobes) for such apparatus and software for show lighting design. See also Audio Visual Lighting, which distributes "Hungaroflash" and many other stage lighting systems.

Walking toward Ablah Library from the stadium parking lot around 5:30 PM the next day on October 2, I noticed that a cloud had shaped itself into the form of a grinning figure bowing over Cessna Stadium with a sword-length spike growing up from the knee, to signal that we "kneeded that", or that yesterday's scene was "kneeded". The event was crowned with visionary reflections in the firmament of heaven.

Press for more Rolling Stones in the Continental Cloud Cover in Visionary Weather 06 through 08.

Wichita Kansas Witch Licks her Lips (with next stop Montana on Her Brain)
the Day After the Rolling Stones come to Town.
See the Rolling Stones in Visionary Weather
06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

"I was raised by a toothless bearded hag...
I was schooled with a strap across my back.
But it's all right now, in fact it's a gas.
It's all right...I'm Jumping Jack Flash,
It's a gas, gas, gas."

- Jumping Jack Flash From Hot Rocks (Standard).
Original Promotional Video for Jumping Jack Flash. (Fairly Horny)
Civilized, Uncle Sam-style, Ω-Man Jumping Jack Flash Video from 1969.
Video: 4th Version (Lovely) | 5th Version (Hot Sweatin' Work)
Video: More recent On-Stage, Big-Screen Jumping Jack Flash.
Video: Jumping Jack Flash on the Rio b-stage.
Nebula NGC 2264 Flashes a Jumping Jack in a Great Stone Horsehead.
Buck Rogers in the 21st Century with 2000 Lightyears from Home.

- Jim Green, October 2, 2006, Revised: October 19, 2006.