Sporting a shirt from a Rolling Stones concert two weeks ago in Ohio, Jerry Cieslinski leaned back in his folding chair in the parking lot outside Heinz Field and tried to think which of his 11 Stones' concerts was the best.
“It was either '97, or two weeks ago,” Cieslinski, of New Kensington, said. At 37, he was born after the band had already released 19 albums. At the show two weeks ago, the Stones opened with “Jumping Jack Flash,” which was released in 1968 and, Cieslinski contends, remains “the greatest rock 'n' roll song of all time.”
“I'd see them every week if I could,” Cieslinski said. “Nobody's done it better — and longer — than the Rolling Stones.”
Thousands of fans beat the rain clouds to the North Shore parking lots, some setting up makeshift tents and patio umbrellas for the waves of showers that moved through the area all afternoon. Some, like Cieslinski, were continuing a tradition of Stones shows that began when they were children. Others, like Karalee Lee, 54, were drawn to their first show because of the pervasive feeling that time is not on their side.
“None of us are getting any younger, and neither are they,” Lee, of Weston, W.Va., said. She and four friends made the two-hour drive in a van whose windows they'd painted with the band's name and trademark tongue.
Three of the band's four members are in their 70s; the fourth, guitarist Ronnie Wood, is 68.
“They'll never come again,” said Kevin Mann, 47, of New Castle. Work kept him from seeing the band during appearances in Pittsburgh going back to the 1980s, he said. “This is the time.”
Nearby, Emma Lombardozzi, 9, tossed a football with her 11-year-old cousin Matt Suppa. Lombardozzi's devotion stretches back eight years; her father Anthony has a video of her rocking out in her car seat to “Street Fighting Man.”
“She came to me one morning and said, ‘I've been singing “Time is on My Side” all morning,' ” Anthony Lombardozzi, 36, of MIllvale, said. But her favorite from the Stones' catalogue remains, “Paint it Black,” he said, beaming.
They're the last band standing from the British Invasion of the 1960s, several people — many of whom weren't born then — noted.
“I've seen them all,” said Nathan McCray, 50, of East Sparta, Ohio, who wore the same British flag t-shirt, jeans and white golf cap as his son, Joshua, 13. The elder McCray ticked off a litany of performers he's seen, including Alabama, George Strait, REO Speedwagon, Blue Oyster Cult, Jethro Tull and Meat Loaf, among others.
“The Stones beat them all,” he said.
With a Pirates flag flapping on a tall pole near their folding table, and a Rolling Stones flag waving just under it, Cieslinski's brother, Doug, mused about the possibility that his fifth Stones concert might be their last in Pittsburgh.
“This is probably it,” said Doug Cieslinski, 32, of Penn Hills.
Jerry shook his head.
“I don't think this is it.”
Mike Wereschagin is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7900 or mwereschagin@tribweb.com.
