The year was 1969 and I was 15, imprisoned in a boarding school in Exeter, New Hampshire. A kid in my dorm said he had too much studying to do so he couldn’t take the chartered bus into Boston to see a band. Would I like to buy his ticket? It was my first concert: The Rolling Stones with B.B. King opening. In those years a visit from the Stones meant your city was basically under siege. The crowd that night attained a very dangerous level of exhilaration, also seen later in that same tour at Altamont. Thousands of young people stood on their chairs in the old Boston Gardens and jumped as high into the air as possible. It was a rock and roll riot. And when it was over, my life had changed.

and yes....just thegreatestrocknrollbandintheworld

Susan Powter scares me. Nice article on your blog in the Tribune today. Here's one thing that continues to burn my hide about our city government: street cleaning/leaf collection. They almost NEVER clean the streets in my neighborhood (West Irvington) and when they do, they don't put up barriers to prevent cars from parking on the street that day, resulting in a perpetual accumulation of muck where the street meets the curb. In contrast, when I lived in NW Portland years ago (same neighborhood as then-Mayor Katz, btw), the streets were cleaned frequently, with cars towed mercilessly if not removed from the street being cleaned.

Same thing with leaf collection: bad enough that it only happens 2x a year, but once again, no effort whatsoever is made to prevent on-street parking from interfering with leaf collection "efforts." Since we're only one block from a post office and 3 blocks from NE Broadway, most of the vehicles parked on our block on weekdays are postal workers and/or patrons or employees of businesses in the area. These folks seem to have no qualms about parking on our block despite the signs my wife and I put up ourselves (the city apparently couldn't be bothered) informing them it was leaf collection day. I'm sure this year will bring more of the same ...

just read PT article about your blog site....as a 30 year displaced oregonian it will be refreshing to check out your site from time to time to get a jolt of the town i love and miss....as far as the stones....i like some of their early tunes but for the most part wayyyyyyyy overated....but than again i was a S & G fan in the 70's...

They almost NEVER clean the streets in my neighborhood (West Irvington) and when they do, they don't put up barriers to prevent cars from parking on the street that day, resulting in a perpetual accumulation of muck where the street meets the curb.

The reason is that the list of neighborhoods-to-be-cleaned is decades old, and doesn't take into account that trees have been planted (and have reached leaf-bearing age) in many neighborhoods since the list was drawn up. But, as with most things, they claim to just not have the money.