Dave Barry on The Rolling Stones

“So we see that although age-denial is appealing, it can generally make a person look ridiculous. Oh, some people try to get away with it, the best example being the Rolling Stones. As I write these words, the remaining non-deceased Stones, some of whom were born during the Hundred Years War, are still out there on tour, still rockin' and rollin' and putting on an electrifying act that reaches its exciting climax during "Satisfaction," when drummer Charlie Watts hurls his dentures into the crowd. But is this really working, even for the Stones? To find out, I went to see them when they came to Miami. I'd seen them once before, when were all a lot younger, back in the sixties. That was one of those classic sixties concerts, the kind where even the police dogs are stoned, and where the show would be scheduled to start at 9:00P.M., but nothing would happen until maybe 11:30, when one of the promoters would get up on stage and announce that there would be a slight delay because the band was still at the airport in New Zealand.”

“I still enjoyed their music, but watching them strut around down there, smallish, aging men preening in their pants purchased at the Rock-n'-Roll Superstar Extremely Tight Clothing Outlet, I couldn't help but think they looked a little bit- this is difficult for me to write, about the Stones- silly. Of course, I'd act silly too, if somebody was paying me millions of dollars. But nobody is, which is exactly my point. There's still a market demand for Mick and the boys to act the way they acted twenty-five years ago. But there is zero demand for the rest of us to do this, and if we try, we look silly, and we don't get paid for it. So I'm recommending against trying to deny the aging process, unless you're a Certified Rolling Stone. If you're a Certified Public Accountant, you have to accept the fact that you're not going to suddenly transform yourself into the vibrant, youthful person you once were by getting a snake tattooed on your butt. You're going to transform yourself into a Certified Public Accountant with a snake on his butt, and you're going to feel stupid when you visit your proctologist.”

“The concert I saw in Miami was very different. For one thing, it started on time, because if it hadn't, one of the estimated 13,000 attorneys in the audience would have filed a lawsuit. Also it was a much older crowd, a lot of middle-aged soft-rockers like myself, stylishly decked out in our casual-wear beepers, taking bold swigs of Diet Pepsi. Sure, some of us were high, but it was not so much the high of ingesting hallucinogenic substances as the high of knowing you had a babysitter on a weekday night. But the most striking difference, for me, was in the Stones themselves. I had remembered them as awesome, larger-than-life, near-mystical figures, so I was filled with anticipation when, two decades later, I took my seat high in the upper deck of the Orange Bowl in Miami. My excitement mounted as the stadium darkened, and the giant speakers started playing dramatic buildup music, and clouds of smoke poured out onto the stage. And then, when the crowd was about to explode with excitement, there was a blinding flash of light, and we heard the slashing, driving opening guitar riff of "Start Me Up," and suddenly, out of the darkness, came... these little teeny Rolling Stones. Maybe 14 inches tall. Talk about your comical letdowns. They looked like the Decadent Rock Band Action Figure Set from Toys "R" Us. I realize that this impression was partly due to the altitude of my seat, but it also had something to do with getting older. It's one thing when you're 19 and unemployed and mad at the world, and the Stones are these godlike outlaw rebels; but it's a whole different thing when you have a family and a mortgage and disability insurance, and the Stones have become essentially a corporation whose members are the same average age as the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.”