I, among many other thousands of people (450,000 was the generally reported figure), ventured down to Downsview Park in Toronto to see the benefit concert featuring The Rolling Stones. When it was first announced, it sounded like one of those “once-in-a-lifetime” events that you just had to be at, if only to be able to say you were there. Well that pretty much sums up the show for me. I was there, but it surely wasn’t a life-altering experience or anything — certainly not the “Woodstock of my generation” (or any of the other stupid descriptions the media were trying to use).

I ventured down to the show on the TTC, taking the subway to Downsview station. When we got there we had to walk all the way around the park to the rear entrance on Sheppard Avenue, which was a good 15 minute walk. If you were among the people who shelled out the extra dough for a VIP ticket, you could enter through the front gate. But since I was among the great unwashed, it was to the back door. Once I got to the back gate, I waited about 45 minutes to get through the security checkpoint, which didn’t seem too bad for such a huge event. It would be the first of many long lineups for fans attending the show.

Once I got inside the main gates, it was pretty smooth sailing. I got through at about 10 to noon, which was just before the show was to commence. I got into the crowd just as the Canadian Forces parachute team, the SkyHawks, began a series of jumps demonstrating all their fancy manoeuvres. I had seen them several times before, so this was no big deal to me. Mike Bullard, a Canadian late-night talk show host (our answer to Leno and Letterman, sadly) who was interviewing the commander of the team while the demonstration was going on, making wisecracks about it, saying “You better enjoy this folks, ‘cause that’s the entire budget for the Canadian Army for the year.” Sadly, his joke was not that far from the truth.

After that curiosity was finished, the actual show began, with host Dan Akroyd taking the stage, and performing a few blues tunes along with fellow comedian/actor/singer Jim Belushi and a large backup band. They were okay, but hardly that exciting. Next up was the first real act of the day, Montreal’s Sam Roberts. He has a really cool sound and a great voice, and is one of the best (and only) Anglophone acts to come out of that city in recent years. Roberts and his band put on a great performance, sticking mainly to their chart hits. They only had a set of about 30 minutes, which is what most of the bands had that day, except for the evening headliners (Rush, AC/DC, and of course The Rolling Stones). They put on a good show, and they were the right group to get the crowd into good spirits for the rest of the day.

Next up was Ottawa based folk singer Kathleen Edwards, who even by her own admission “none of you have ever heard of”. She may be relatively unknown, but she is most definitely talented. She put on a great performance, although a little short to really get a taste of what she’s all about. I’ll have to try to check her out at the clubs here in Ottawa.

There was also another relatively unknown band, at least in English Canada, La Chicane. While they are huge in French rock, and have sold over 200,000 records in Quebec, they haven’t crossed the cultural divide as of yet. While watching their show, I felt as if I was one of the few who actually appreciated their performance, being a French-Canadian from Montreal myself. They are very talented hard rockers, and I think the crowd appreciated their music, if not their French vocals. They had a lot of energy and seemed very comfortable playing in front of a crowd that really had no connection to their music, which was commendable.

Then on came Windsor progressive rockers The Tea Party, who always put on a good show, and this was not exception. The crowd really enjoyed “Heaven Coming Down”, as many were singing along. They played their standard hits, and got a good loud round of applause when their set ended.

Next up was The Flaming Lips, who I had never seen or heard before. They had a pretty good sound, but I was getting hungry, so I made my way to the long food lineups. This was the part I was dreading, but I figured that it would be the right time to go for it, to make sure I didn’t miss the main acts in the evening. My timing could’nt have been better. It was just before 3:00pm when I left the main crowd in search of food, and it wasn’t until after 7:00 when I got back to watching music. That’s right – over 3 hours to get food! It was excruciatingly long, and especially depressing that I should wait that long for crappy Pizza Pizza slices, but what choice did I have? Besides, after the first hour, I decided I had too much time invested to bail from the line. It really pissed me off because I missed both Blue Rodeo and The Guess Who in the process. On the bright side, I also missed Sass Jordan and Justin Timberlake, who from what I heard, was booed solidly during his set, and even had water bottles thrown at him. This was totally uncalled for, and I was outraged at the idiots for doing this. It’s disrespectful. You may not like his music, you might think he is a flavour-of-the-month pop lightweight (which he is), but he deserves at least enough respect to be able to perform without things being thrown at him. Boo if you like, but let’s try and be civilized, people. Fortunately, that was about the only incident of boorish behaviour in the day that I heard of — amazing when you have that many people. I was worried about what might happen if there were some idiots in the crowd, and the potential for disaster, but everybody was very well behaved. Kudos go out to everyone who attended for being calm and respectful. I must commend the organizers for keeping alcohol restricted to the beer garden area, which with the massive lineups, kept most people out of the drink altogether. A sober crowd is a good crowd. Plus, with the summer heat it didn’t make much sense to be drinking, and most people just drank water.

When I got back from my excruciatingly long food adventure, Rush had just started their set, and I was glad to catch most of it. They were really good to see as always, and played a little longer than most of the bands, a good 45 minute set. After them was the band that a lot of the people had obviously had come to see, Aussie rock gods AC/DC. When they took the stage, it was kind of shocking for me, as they really looked their age. It was kind of disturbing to see this band, who for me have always epitomized hard rock and youthful rebellion, looking so… OLD. Angus Young looked especially disturbing as an old man to me, especially since he was still clad in his schoolboy uniform. Grandpas shouldn’t be dressing like this. Luckily, the old-timers still knew how to rock… and I salute them. ;-)

AC/DC played an extended set, just over an hour long by my count, and played all their big hits to perfection. The crowd was in its most animated state of the night, as they rocked and sang along with classics like Hells Bells, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and Shook Me All Night Long. There was apparently a few ladies that really got in the mood, as the cameras showed several well-endowed topless young women on the jumbotron screens, which got a very loud cheer from most of the males in the audience. Then Angus gave the ladies something to cheer about during one of his guitar solos, as he proceeded to strip down to his shorts, and then after much teasing the crowd, he pulled down to reveal a pair of Canadian flag boxer shorts. The crowd loved it and broke out into thunderous applause when they saw that. I definitely would say that AC/DC stole the show.

When AC/DC finally left the stage for good, after a two-song encore, there was a bit of a wait for the Stones, a good 20 minutes. Many fans left during this time, and I heard a lot of people saying that they basically came just for AC/DC anyways, and wanted to beat the crowds to the exit gates. Too bad for them, because the Stones were really good too, though not as rowdy as AC/DC.

Of course, Mick and the boys started the show off as they always do with Start Me Up, which drew some good applause. I was surprised, however, to see how few people were actually singing along with the songs. It was the quietest gathering of 400,000 people you could imagine. No wonder Toronto has a reputation as being boring. Wake up people, it’s the Rolling frickin’ Stones! They played a good cross-section of their material from all eras, and Mick had unbelievable energy (for a sextagenarian). They could be still doing this in another 20 years – although I really hope not.

All together it was a mostly enjoyable, although not magical, experience.